Boston Celtics: Have the Celtics truly turned a corner?

Have the Boston Celtics truly turned the corner on the season? 

Losers in five of their first seven games, many were quick to question the viability of this year’s Boston Celtics. Over that span, the Celtics were one of the worst teams in the league with a bottom-third offense and defense, including the sixth-worst net rating in the NBA.

The team appeared to be falling apart at the seams and first-year head coach Ime Udoka appeared to be in over his head.

However, over the past couple of weeks, the Celtics have done a great job in turning their season around. Since that 2-5 start, Boston is 7-3 in their last 10 games and has completely changed the narrative on their season.

Even though the Celtics’ offense is still very much a work in progress, a big part of that could potentially be due to the injury to Jaylen Brown who has missed the team’s last eight games. When healthy BRown had been the team’s leading scorer this season. His presence has been missed, even though Jayson Tatum has played much better as of late.

Where their offense has continued to struggle, the team’s defense has stepped up. Over the past 10 games, the Celtics have had the fourth-best defense in the league. They’ve leaned on their defensive prowess to overwhelm opponents during this stretch and have a 6.8 net rating in the last 10 games – good enough for fourth in the league.

And now, the red-hot Celtics will be welcoming back Brown into the fold. That begins Monday night as the team is set to host the Houston Rockets.

As encouraging as their last 10 games have been, the ultimate test of where the Celtics are as a team after the first month of the season will likely come the day before Thanksgiving in which the team faces off against the Brooklyn Nets.

The Nets should give the Celtics a nice measuring stick challenge. It won’t entirely define the Celtics season, but depending on the performance, it could very well tell us if the Celtics are more of the team that we’ve witnessed over the last 10 games or if they’re more of the team that struggled to start the season.

In all likelihood, the Celtics are probably somewhere in-between. Either way, we should get a good indication of that over the next few games for Boston. Shortly after their test against the Nets, the Celtics have a stretch in early December in which they play the Sixers, Jazz, Blazers, Lakers, Clippers, Suns, Bucks, and Warriors.

We’re going to find out pretty soon who these Celtics really are.