If the Boston Celtics get off to a good start in the regular season, the preseason will have been but a dream, drifting out of consciousness within moments of waking.
Boston coach Brad Stevens has every right to be upset with his team’s effort during the preseason, but it’s easy to understand how the player’s minds may have wandered away in a meaningless mandala game when they have such lofty aspirations.
Stevens will remind the Celtics that you can’t skip rungs on the ladder to success, and all the other coaching cliches and mislaid maxims that are also somehow stubbornly true.