BOSTON – The Boston Celtics locker room was open to the media, with most of the players having already showered and dressed.
It didn’t matter.
No amount of scrubbing or washing could completely remove the stench of their 93-90 loss to the Orlando Magic.
“In this league, if you get punched in the mouth and you allow yourself to keep getting punched in the mouth it’s hard to come back from that,” Boston’s Marcus Smart told NBC Sports Boston. “They kept their foot on the peddle and we just couldn’t get up.”
Orlando came into the game like most of Boston’s opponents will this season – prepared to knock the so-called “team to beat” off their perch.
The Celtics did not respond appropriately which is evident by them trailing the entire game.
You will hear talk about chemistry needing to be improved upon among the starting group, and the physics behind being more physical comes into play as well.
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But there’s another subject in play here: Geography.
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This leader-of-the-pack thing is foreign territory for the Celtics aside from Kyrie Irving when he played in Cleveland and to a lesser extent, Aron Baynes when he was with the San Antonio Spurs.
The Celtics know all too well that they’re going to get an opponent’s best shot every night because of who they are on paper at least, which is the team everyone in the East should be chasing.
Knowing that reality is quite different than getting smacked in the face with it which was indeed the case in Monday night’s loss to the Magic.
“It’s a different feel from when you talk about it,” Smart said. “You gotta be prepared. You just can’t talk about it. We know teams are going to come out (playing hard). You have to come out with your hands up, your guard up ready to fight back. We know teams are coming out ready to punch us. We have to be the ones to punch first.”
But it is indeed something that while understood conceptually, has to be experienced first-hand to truly know what being the team to beat in the eyes of most, is all about.
While the Celtics roster consists of several players who have won championships at various levels of competition, Irving is the lone player who has won an NBA title, played a prominent role on that title-winning club, and returned the following season with all eyes on him and his team as the favorites that everyone was gunning for.
“It takes some getting used to; it really does,” Irving said.
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Combine that with the youth on this team, and it makes sense that there would be some early hiccups.
“Sometimes it’s a little unfair of the expectations for young guys and guys who have never been through things like this before, where the expectations to play at a certain level every single night is demanding on you, including myself,” Irving said.
Even though he has been through this before, that doesn’t make his path to figuring all this out that much easier.
“Being on a team like this … it’s a challenge for me to figure out where do I fit into all this, how do I lead this team the best way I can with other great players,” Irving said.
One of the many lessons he has learned from past experience is to not add any pressure to the heaping pile that his young, less-experienced teammates might be feeling because of the lofty expectations both internally and from the outside.
“I try not to put too much pressure on them. I try to keep everybody calm and keep myself calm and realize It’s a long season,” Irving said.
And while certainly disappointed with the loss to the Magic, Irving does believe there are teachings that can come out of it that will benefit Boston down the road.
“Nights like this, you take as a hit on the chin, a learning experience and move forward,” Irving said.
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