Oh and one more big one to add to the silver lining list...
Even with Hayward out for the season, looking at how bad the East is right now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we still have a legit chance of making the ECF this year.
I mean seriously - we just came within one possession of beating the Eastern Conference favourites without Morris and without Hayward. And the biggest plus side of us getting Morris was his ability to match up with Lebron - had he been ready to go today, this could have easily been a W for us.
And even without Hayward, I still give us a very good chance against the Raptors and the Wizards - really the only other teams in the East who pose any threat at all.
TP. I think this team is top 4 in the East without Hayward and if Jaylen Brown makes a bigger leap than I was expecting and Tatum can play with poise, I'm not counting this team out against anyone in the East.
More silver linings:
Celtics outscored the Cavs 61-48 in the second half. They came out of the locker room composed and ready to come together and play. This bodes well for their mindset going forward.
Marcus Smart's post game looked good. He's always been big and strong and I've always wanted him to take advantage of smaller guards in the post but I've never actually liked his post game. Last night, he took Rose Korver into the post and looked much more poised than ever before. I liked the improvement.
Jaylen Brown is aggressive going to the rim. He didn't shoot great from 3 but I love the confidence and I love that one play where he and Lebron both went for the ball, both got hands on it, and Jaylen just took it away (and then threw it off Lebron before falling out of bounds). Jaylen is incredibly strong in addition to all his other athletic gifts. That he's able to play the 2 for the C's is phenomenal.
We still get to add Marcus Morris to this group.