Following a 0-2 start to the season that included a season opener loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Boston Celtics have ripped off 10 straight wins.
This has all come to no surprise for All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas, who spent the last 2 1/2 years with the Celtics, according to Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com.
“I knew they were going to be good,” Thomas told cleveland.com. “They won 10 in a row, that’s definitely a surprise. That’s hard to do. Like, they’ve got good players, they’ve got a great coach. That was going to happen. It’s not like they traded me and they were going to be a bad team. They were definitely going to be a good team no matter what. They’ve got good players on top of having a great coaching staff.”
Boston is fielding a much-changed roster from the one that saw them finish with the top record in the East and made the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in five years last season. Kyrie Irving has quickly stepped into Thomas’ role as the leading scorer at 22.0 points while dishing out 5.7 assists per game.
The Celtics have also seen the emergence of second-year guard Jaylen Brown and rookie forward Jayson Tatum despite the loss of All-Star forward Gordon Hayward. The duo is averaging respectively 14.8 and 13.5 points respective this season while Al Horford has been a steady source of production in his second campaign with a near double-double with 14.6 points and 9.2 rebounds.
What has been most clear about the Celtics’ strong is that they will be a formidable challenge for Thomas and the Cavaliers come playoff time.
