BOSTON — The Celtics are Malcolm Brogdon’s third team in his NBA career. After rising from a second-round pick to leading scorers in Milwaukee and Indiana, he agreed to take on a top reserve role with the Celtics this year.
Brogdon was strong in his new home, scoring 21 points off the bench in Boston’s 140-105 win over the Hornets on Monday night. This was his fourth straight victory overall for the Celtics and improved his NBA record to 17-4. Despite a number of injuries to Boston’s main contributor that got off to a brilliant start, nothing could stop the Celtics from putting together a historically great offense in his first 21 games for the team. could not.
After Monday’s win, Brogdon made a point of discussing on the court what made the connection with the group so strong this year.
“I think we enjoy each other’s company off the court,” Brogdon said. “I think that’s a big part of the results on the court. We’re a laughing and talking team in the locker room. Everyone can laugh at themselves. We laugh at each other. I We are having a good time on the bus and on the road, and I think we can see the mutual trust that we can have fun playing with each other and the results in the game.”
Such an environment is not found anywhere else in the NBA, and may be unaware of Boston’s young core, who have played in Boston their entire careers.
“This is a feast,” proclaimed Brogdon. “If you ask Marcus Smart, Tatum, Brown, or anyone else in the NBA, I would say that. Playing for a team like this is a reward.”
Brogdon (Ind.) and Blake Griffin (Detroit, Brooklyn) have experienced previous outages marked by ugly losses and dysfunctions throughout their organizations. Coming to a place with a steady and fun atmosphere is something Brogdon hopes his new teammates will appreciate in his victories.
“Certainly. It’s a very common conversation with men, honestly, about figuring out where they are,” Brogdon said. have never seen other teams, so they don’t know how everything works in other organizations, other teams, anywhere else, so there is a lot here from top to bottom. From leadership to PTs to players, there are a lot of good things going on here.
“Because there are always times during the season when you have a lull and you have times when you are a little bit unhappy. It is the nature of business. So definitely trying to encourage the players to appreciate what they have here.”
Brogdon and the Celtics will look to extend their four-game win streak against the Heat in Wednesday night’s Eastern Conference Finals rematch.
