These Celtics Are Already Doing Something Kyrie's C's Wouldn't

Few teams needed refreshing more than the 2018-19 Boston Celtics.

Kyrie Irving's brooding and philosophizing, young players failing to develop in line with expectations, and a general joylessness defined last year's squad. So even if this season's edition is without a pair of veteran All-Stars (don't forget about Al Horford, who's now with the Philadelphia 76ers), it's making up for those losses by rediscovering the unity it'd been missing.

The Celtics are playing together, and it seems to be working for them.

Boston erased a 19-point deficit against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday, blitzing one of the Eastern Conference's theoretical title contenders with a 38-18 third quarter that turned the tide and resulted in a 116-105 win. As an invigorated Celtics team shook off its second straight lackluster first half, the sense of pleasant surprise was undeniable.

That's taking things back a little further than 2018-19, but the point stands. Boston won plenty of games in the brief Irving era, but those victories lacked the exuberance we saw Wednesday. When adversity hit those past versions of the Celtics, the Celtics rarely hit back.

Kemba Walker, whose game isn't so different from Irving's but whose reputation and attitude are, led the way with 32 points. He punished Milwaukee's drop coverage, hitting pull-up threes or hesitating before attacking the lane to create for teammates. His competitiveness, undimmed by an ugly first half, was key to sparking Boston's run.

He even reserved a little flair for the fourth quarter, essentially putting the exclamation point on the comeback story.

Marcus Smart was his unashamedly irritating (and therefore lovable) self throughout, frustrating Giannis Antetokounmpo with his physicality. Late in the game, he and the reigning MVP got locked up and toppled to the floor, with Smart completing a textbook pancake block. The angle below won't show it. But on the broadcast, Smart was unmistakably smirking as Giannis took him down.

He knew he'd needled Antetokounmpo past his breaking point. He knew he'd won.

Jayson Tatum was also part of the second-half momentum swing, shaking off a rough shooting season so far to finish with 25 points on 22 attempts. Boston's dialed-in third-quarter defense produced several runouts and semi-transition looks, many of which concluded with a Tatum bucket.

Not to be forgotten, Gordon Hayward calmly conducted the offense, racking up 21 points and seven assists. Though he appeared hesitant in the first half (and for the entirety of his post-injury career, for that matter), he looked renewed during the game-altering surge.

Most importantly, all of Boston's most impactful players contributed without friction. It wasn't as though Walker's buckets came at the expense of Tatum's touches. Boston had plenty of listless, disjointed losses last year, but even some of its wins came in unsatisfying ways. Irving could take over a quarter as well or better than Walker, but there was always a sense that his brilliance existed independently. It set him apart.

Walker, Tatum, Smart, Hayward and the rest of the Celtics seemed, in contrast, to feed off one another.

You can't quantify spirit or togetherness. But it sure seems like this year's Celtics have more of those qualities than last year's. The result is a newly resilient team that has the potential to be more than the sum of its parts.

Granted, the Bucks have had their issues in the early going. This is their second supersized blown lead, they lack a reliable secondary creator, and if the full book is not out on how to stop one of the league's more predictable offenses, well, the cheat sheet is in circulation.

Still, the Celtics fought and, more importantly, fought together.

Meanwhile, Irving is off to a terrific statistical start with his new team, which happens to be 1-3 after Wednesday's loss to the Indiana Pacers. The post-loss talk coming out of Brooklyn is eerily familiar to Boston fans who know what it looks like when one player's success comes at the cost of organizational and schematic unity.

This doesn't need to be an Irving takedown. He's where he wants to be, and the Celtics are enjoying their fresh start. Everybody wins.

It's just that some wins, like the one Boston secured against Milwaukee, are a little more satisfying than others.