Nearly everything about this year’s Celtics team has been unexpected. They came into the 2017-18 campaign with four players from the season prior, and even though Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward were on the roster, the Celtics weren’t pegged as a squad that could contend for a title right away.
The Irving trade was finalized at the end of August, leaving only a month and a half until the regular season began. Brad Stevens faced a tall task in implementing two superstar-caliber players into his system, but throughout the preseason it seemed that his players bought in and trusted each other on the floor.