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If you have been following the Celtics long enough to remember Sebastian Telfair and Allan Ray, then you know just how hard and painful rebuilding can be. Our next opponent is the Charlotte Bobcats and they are deep in the middle of rebuilding. The ultra competitive Michael Jordan held on to the hope of competing for too long and finally admitted a couple years ago that enough was enough and hit the reset button on the franchise.
Enter a lot of young players and a whole lot of losses. According to the article linked below, four of their starting five had not played in the NBA as of 13 months ago.
One bright spot has been the development of Kemba Walker.
Kemba Walker keeps his head up as leader of lowly Bobcats - SBNation.com
The biggest knock on Walker coming out of college was his size and his perceived inability to finish over bigger, stronger players in the paint. Walker, listed at 6'1 and 184 pounds, has increased his efficiency this year by upping his attempts at the rim from 2.7 per game to 5.2 and converting them 54.4 percent of the time, up from 49.4 percent as a rookie. He's also shooting slightly better from deep and has decreased his turnover rate. He tops the team with 17.6 points and 5.9 assists per game.
Obviously no NBA team is to be taken lightly. The last thing the Celtics need to do is to sleep on a young team that is just itching to have a good game. There was one point in mid November when the Cats went on a 6-2 tear and had some thinking that they were turning a new page. Of course an 18 game losing streak erased all that and then some.
So while it seems that the Celtics have turned a corner of their own and there's a very good chance that the Celtics will extend their winning streak to 6, ...you just never know. Call it a trap game, call it what you will. Earlier this year I would have been a lot more worried about this team's focus and killer instinct. It seems like that shouldn't be as much of a problem now, but anything can happen.