Boston sports fans are not known for their patience. The Celtics’ core, while still relatively young, has been around long enough to know that.
It’s why they weren’t surprised when they came under fire from fans and media alike during the first half of this season, when they couldn’t even get to .500 and found themselves slipping out of the playoff race.
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The impatience peaked with loudening discussions about the possibility of splitting up stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Those talks had surfaced before, but the poor start added more fuel to the fire.
Fortunately for the Celtics, they had more patience than many. They needed it as they worked to get the season on track, and it’s a big reason they eventually did and are now in the NBA Finals.
“It doesn’t matter what the excuse is,” Brown said Wednesday during NBA Finals Media Day. “We had a first-year head coach. We were trying to figure it out. We play in a city that has no patience for any excuses, so we didn’t make any.”
Instead, they just kept plugging away. Brown famously sent out his perfectly timed “The energy is about to shift” tweet on Jan. 31, just as the Celtics were launching into a nine-game winning streak, but Boston’s turnaround obviously wasn’t as simple as tweeting it into existence.
Tatum said Wednesday that he and Brown always shared the same goal -- to win as Celtics -- and that they never stopped believing that they could and would figure out how to be better together. They just needed time.
“I honestly believe just two young, extremely competitive guys that just really want to win at all costs. So I think, obviously, that made us closer in the sense of, we just wanted to figure it out,” Tatum said. “Not necessarily prove people wrong, but just prove that we can win, and put ourselves in a position to do that.
“And it was tough. At certain times, we were three games under .500, in the 11th seed. I’m sure not many people would’ve thought we would’ve gotten to this point. But there was always a sense of belief between us and the group that we were capable of figuring it out.”
Tatum acknowledged there were some “very frustrating and head-scratching” moments. One of them boiled over publicly in November, when an 18-point second-half lead against the Bulls turned into a disastrous 14-point loss.
Marcus Smart called out Tatum and Brown in his postgame press conference, saying, “They don’t want to pass the ball, and that’s something they’re going to learn.”
It could have been a moment that tore the Celtics’ core apart for good. Instead, as detailed in Jackie MacMullan’s recent feature for The Ringer, coach Ime Udoka (whose first name means “patience,” by the way) and his staff used it to open up a needed team-wide dialogue and airing of grievances.
Tatum and Brown did eventually learn to pass more, Smart became more of a true point guard, and the whole team began to buy in defensively. As the Celtics finished the regular season on a remarkable 26-6 run, the criticism and the talk about splitting up the Jays died.
Smart said they never got upset over Boston’s impatience. With the Celtics’ history and all the championships the city has won over the last two decades, he understood why they were frustrated with a team that should’ve been winning more than it was.
“I’ve been here in this city for eight years playing for Boston and I’ve heard everything,” Smart said Wednesday. “So for me, it was a normal day in the office. Like JB said, we play for a city that’s very impatient. They have every right to be. The things that they’ve accomplished, you know, it’s kind of hard not to be impatient. So we understood it. We get it. And it just helps us strive to go out there and please that impatient-ness that they have. It’s fuel to our fire.”
Those who were ready to blow it all up are now probably pretty happy that the Celtics had a little more patience.
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