The front-office in Beantown may be shamelessly tanking, but the players haven’t bought into the strategy. Some of them believe that qualifying for the postseason remains a possibility – the Celtics were five games out of the final Playoff seed in the Eastern Conference when play began Tuesday night. Per the Boston Herald:
“The East schedule isn’t that crazy, so a couple of games where we can string some wins together, you never know,” said Rajon Rondo, who raised the possibility to teammates before Sunday’s win over Orlando.
“Anything is possible in the Eastern Conference,” said Gerald Wallace. “You’ve just got to stay astride. It’s not like the Western Conference where if you lose two, three games in a row you’re pretty much out of it.
“We can get hot, win five or six games and it can turn things around in the Eastern Conference. Anything is possible in the Eastern Conference. We’ve just got to continue to get better and keep putting wins together.”
“I don’t talk about it a whole lot,” said (head coach Brad Stevens.) “I’m so day-to-day in my focus and attention that I don’t really look at that from the big standpoint. The bigger goals are certainly things to shoot for and they can motivate you; I’m just looking at our improvement from a day-to-day standpoint.
“Obviously, you want to be in the playoffs. Obviously, you want to win the championship. Everybody in the league wants to win the championship. The most important thing for me right now and where we are is to get better today and play better tomorrow and then let the chips fall where they may.”
