Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here... highlighting the big storyline. Because there's nothing quite as satisfying a good morning dump.
“If you hit a dry patch or a rough patch, it’s almost somewhat appropriate that you figure it out while you’re on the road because you’ve got to deal with each other,” Ray Allen said as the Celts returned home with 11 straight victories overall. “You’re going to be in the hotels, riding on the buses and on the airplanes, and you’re always together. You’ve got to talk things out. So out of 24 hours you’re going to spend 18-20 of them together. You’re going to talk a little bit more and maybe iron out the problems you might have.”
[...]
“It’s something that we needed, because we know we’ve been struggling at home,” Pierce said. “Sometimes what it takes is a good road trip to bring things together, and that’s where we’ve started to get things together. You have no choice but to focus and do a bit more.
“Even though it’s not easy winning games on the road, I think sometimes you can get complacent when you’re at home, feeling like things are going to go your way. That’s not necessarily the truth, but on the road you’ve got to come with your best effort.”
Herald: Celtics get it together
That piece has quotes from just about everyone talking about how that long road trip helped pull the team together. It's almost starting to sound like the Rome preseason trip a couple of years ago. You're all away from home... you're all spending all your time together... and you're all either going to figure it out, or fall to pieces. And the Celtics have too much solid leadership to fall apart.
And here's the other thing about the road: The Celtics are knocking most of their roads game off their schedule by mid January. The next 3 Celtics games are at home... but 7 of the next 8 after that are on the road. They've already played 13 road games. They've got 13 more before the All Star break. So 26 of the Celtics 41 road games will played in the first half of the season.
By contrast, the LA Lakers have currently played 6 road games.
Just sayin'.
Coming up, Page 2... Where Sheed is all in
Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images“It’s not even about adopting the ‘Celticsness.’ It’s about adopting the teamness issue,” he told WEEI.com. “You can’t divide the locker room. I know there’s a couple of new guys here, but once we got here we couldn’t divide it to the point where it’s like, ‘Oh well they’re playing good right now, we’re running the team.’ No, it’s a whole team issue.”[...]
“Sheed is a great guy. He’s a great team player,” Perkins said. “He’s better than what I expected as far as team-wise, the communication in the locker room, how much of a team player he is. He’s all about the team and none about himself. I think he’s got the right mindset that he’s coming in with.”
WEEI/Jess Camerato: Wallace embraces life as a Celtic
I had to include the Perk quote because for a split second this preseason, everyone seemed to be wondering how Perk and Sheed would co-exist after their past playoff battles.
Sheed totally bought into Ubuntu from day one. It helps that he's here with his boy KG... but there were plenty of people who wondered what a strong personality like Sheed would do to the C's locker room.
The answer: fit in perfectly.
And as we saw against Memphis, Sheed is slowly figuring out his role on the court. He destroyed them on the block. He's mixing things up well. It's all starting to come together.
The rest of the links:
Globe: Getting up there for rebounds | Q&A with Gary Washburn | ESPN Boston: Is the future bright? | Megliola: Celtics look like championship material | CSNNE: Celtics still on the rise | Daily Item: Tony Allen filling in well for Marquis Daniels | Celtics Hub: The Tony Allen do's and don'ts list | North Station Sports: The unfortunate rise of the +/- stat | CelticsBlog: Rondo's latest trick: consistency | Sheed doin work... in the paint