Boston Celtics Exhibit a Full-Team Effort in Beating the Toronto Raptors by 36

I coach fifth and six grade basketball, and one of my goals as a coach is to give everyone a positive experience. In every game, but more so in blowouts, the goal is for every player to score. And if that can't be achieved, then I at least want everyone to feel that they made a positive contribution. It is my belief that that is true team basketball—everyone positively contributing to the common goal of winning. Obviously, this is not always the case.

And in the NBA, where the game isn't necessarily about everyone having a positive experience, this is almost never the case. But for the Celtics tonight, this was exactly the case. They achieved what I consider true team basketball, something quite difficult in today's NBA.

Every single player on the Celtics contributed positively for the first time all season, and they can credit that for their 100-64 thrashing of the Toronto Raptors.

With the exception of Chris Wilcox (who did have five boards), every player on the Celtics scored, including five players in double digits. Also, every player had a positive plus/minus for the game.

No player dominated or even scored over 20 points because no player needed to. And better yet for this aging Celtics core, no player played over 30 minutes in this second of a back-to-back situation because no player needed to. Equally important for this Celtics team is that young players like JaJuan Johnson got a chance to showcase their rarely seen talents.

Johnson had, by far, the best game of his young career with 11 points on perfect shooting from the field and just 10 minutes. It was great for him to get an opportunity and make use of it like he did.

If you look at the stat sheet of this game though, nothing really stands out, besides the score: 52 percent shooting from the floor, 50 percent shooting from three, only four fast-break points, only six offensive rebounds, only four steals, only 36 points in the paint and no player over 20 points aren't exactly gaudy stats.

Looking at those stats, you certainly wouldn't expect that the Celtics won by 36, but team basketball transcends statistics and that is why it is so great.

Perhaps, the only stat that could indicate team play and would stick out from this game is the team's total assists. And for the Celtics, they certainly had no shortage of assists themselves with 30. To put that in perspective, they made 39 field goals the entire game, and 30 of those were assisted. That's a 77 percent team assists rate which is unheard of.

Overall, this was arguably the best team win of the season for the Celtics because, like an ideal fifth and sixth grade basketball game, everyone went home happy with a feeling of positive contribution to winning. And in the NBA, that's pretty impressive.What's probably less impressive, but still encouraging is that, with this win, the Celtics are finally above .500 and are currently riding a two-game win streak.

If they want to extend this win streak, the Celtics will need to carry this momentum into Friday's game when the New York Knicks come into town. And although the Knicks have struggled, they're still an incredibly potent offensive team that always gets pumped up to play against the Celtics. For now though, each Celtics player can, like any of my fifth and sixth grade players, go home happy tonight.