Your Morning Dump... Where the Celtics may be young, but they're cool under pressure

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

“Just unwavering belief and it echoing down from our coaching staff to all of us,” Irving said of the source of the late-game confidence. “We’ve been in some tough games this year, but being in a situation like that is not ideal. But when you are, we feel pretty confident about guys we can go to, and we also have one of the best coaches at ATOs (after timeouts) and drawing up plays with misdirection that can get you a great look. You feel pretty confident as well, so we don’t want to be in that position, but we were.”

That considered, with 9.3 seconds left — the count when Indiana inbounded the ball — the odds were leaning heavily the other way.

“Sometimes things work out in your favor. Sometimes it’s just a random game where things work out in your favor,” coach Brad Stevens said. “I know as much as we all try to analyze it, I think we got lucky in a lot of ways. But we stayed in the play and played really hard and gave ourselves a chance.”

Herald

It’s rare that a team can blow a 19-point 3rd quarter lead and still get so much praise following a win but here we are. Welcome to your 2017-18 Boston Celtics. I mean, who the hell figured they’d be 2.5 games up on the Cavs after losing Gordon Hayward?

The Celtics are very young (average age is 24 – 5th youngest team in NBA) but the two guys (Horford, Irving) leading the way are battled tested.

And the coach… just look at this reaction during the final 9.3 seconds:

@Toucherandrich look at how calm Brad Stevens is while Rozier steals the ball and wins the game and everyone else is freaking out pic.twitter.com/B7gNsUz7Gk

— Doc Gonçalves (@powerlessbald) December 19, 2017

I’m convinced Stevens had some sort of computer chip embedded in his brain stem to mitigate emotional reaction. Unreal.

Let’s talk about the Cavaliers, also known as the NBA’s oldest team (average age is 29). They’re riding a ridiculous wave right now. They’ve won something like 17 of 19 games (losers last night in Milwaukee). LeBron James is playing the best basketball of his career and Isaiah Thomas is a few weeks away from returning. Just about everyone is gushing over their dominance.

I’d like to highlight one stat: James’ 37.3 minutes per game. He’s also played in all 32 games. I vaguely recall some media coverage last winter that revolved around workload, rest and preservation. Let’s see if the Cavaliers can keep up this pace.

On Page 2, checking in on Marcus Morris’ injury.

Brad Stevens say Marcus Morris (knee) had a PRP injection Saturday and is feeling better. “He’ll ramp up basketball in the next couple of days w/ the hope of playing sooner rather than later, on an on-and-off schedule.” #NEBHInjuryReport

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 18, 2017