The Celtics are playing their best basketball of the season in the last three weeks, winning 10 of 12 overall in the midst of a home-heavy stretch of the schedule.
The hot streak has allowed Boston to put some pressure on the Toronto Raptors for the second seed in the Eastern Conference, but Brad Stevens knows that his team must still improve defensively to get over that hump.
“We’ve been good at times in games but not as good as we need to be ultimately,” Stevens said Monday. “The New Orleans game was a good microcosm of who we’ve been: Thirty points plus first quarter, great second and third quarter, and then a 30 point plus fourth quarter.