It almost looked as if the Boston Celtics' impressive 15-game win streak was going to come to an end versus the lowly Dallas Mavericks on Monday night. However, in typical Celtics fashion, they managed to pull out the victory in overtime thanks to the late-game heroics of superstar Kyrie Irving.
Boston has made a habit of coming back late in games so far in the 2017-18 NBA season. Although it is encouraging to see this young Celtics team play so well in crunch time, it is not something head coach Brad Stevens wants to get used to doing, according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon:
Article Continues Below“We've got to play better,” Stevens said. “We know that, but I do think we've been saying that kind of like a broken record. I do think we can take a step back and appreciate that comeback pretty good. Obviously, Kyrie made all those plays, but we had a number of effort plays there late that kind of kept us around.”
This may have been Boston's most impressive comeback yet after being down by double-digits with just five minutes remaining in the game. To no surprise, Irving led the way once again with a season-high 47-point outing.
Aside from his dominant performance, Boston made a number of key hustle plays down the stretch to turn the tide in their favor. Although Stevens would like to avoid these types of situations more often, these experiences will pay huge dividends for this maturing Celtics team down the road.