WALTHAM, Mass. -- A day after the Boston Celtics overcame a 17-point deficit to defeat the Brooklyn Nets in a preseason game, Jared Sullinger offered an eyebrow-raising reaction to the rally.
"Last year, this team would have laid down and given up. Game's over," suggested Sullinger. "Now, we're just fighting."
Laid down? Given up? A Brad Stevens-coached team? That sounds a bit like basketball blasphemy.
Heck, there were times last season when deadline-leery reporters would sigh as Stevens called a series of late-game timeouts to draw up plays with his team facing seemingly insurmountable deficits. Stevens practically wore a trench in front of the Boston bench while going offense/defense on late-game substitutions. These Celtics rarely rallied all the way back from big deficits, but they sure had a habit of making things interesting.
Did Sullinger really feel like this team gave up at times last season?
"If things were not going our way, we really weren't playing well," Sullinger clarified before Tuesday's practice. "I think that's the biggest thing. When things went bad, we didn't respond well. This year, we want to learn how to fight through that."
You can understand where Sullinger is coming from. The Celtics went 6-21 after the All-Star break last season, and there were certainly times when the team seemed defeated when games simply started to slip away. There's no denying that Boston struggled to respond to adversity.
And that's one area where the Celtics absolutely must make strides in this season. Stevens wants his players to remain composed when the road gets bumpy and find ways to keep the bus on course even when the wheels come off.
Which is why the second-year coach seemed to take an extra bit of satisfaction from Sunday's win in Brooklyn. Oh sure, it was just a preseason game, and an experimental 44-minute one at that, but his players twice showed the sort of resolve that escaped them last year.
"There's a lot of things that we can do on both ends of the floor to get better, but I was happy with how we responded [Sunday]," said Stevens. "Being down 17, coming back, taking the lead, then [the Nets] take the lead and we respond again. That showed some growth."
Will it carry over to the regular season? That remains to be seen. But as Sullinger suggested, "Even in the preseason, it's good to be able to come back from down 17. It's good practice [for the regular season]."
Stevens has often stressed to his players how a possession or two is capable of changing the complexion of a game. That's not to suggest that the Celtics could morph from a 25-win team to a 50-win squad with a couple extra stops per game, but it would certainly help them take a step in the right direction.
The Celtics played 49 games last season that were within five points during the final five minutes of regulation, the fourth-highest total in the league. It suggests that Boston hung around more often than not, particularly in the first half of the season. But Boston was a mere 15-34 in those tight games, its .306 winning percentage the second-worst mark in the league behind only Milwaukee (.250).
Boston players often point to those near-misses as a reason why they believe they can turn things around a bit this year. The Celtics might not necessarily make a pronounced leap in wins, but you get the sense this team is going to be in games, if for no other reason than Stevens is going to do everything in his power to put them in position to compete.
In order for this team to take that next step in its progression, the Celtics must respond better to late-game adversity and find ways to make plays in the final minutes of games. Laying down or giving up cannot even be an option.
"Honestly, we just have to keep fighting," Sullinger said. "We have to fight until we can't fight any more. I think that's the biggest thing. [This year's team is] constantly fighting, constantly playing for one another, staying within the game."
We've heard other Celtics players offer those same buzzwords throughout the preseason: fighting, hard work, responding to adversity. Stevens has often reminded them that winning in the NBA isn't easy. The Celtics have a much smaller margin for error than teams with more talent or more chemistry. They have to work that much harder to make up for it.
They have to find a way to force other teams to face adversity.