Enes Kanter says Boston’s health, chemistry making Cs a dangerous team

Is Kanter correct that a fully healthy Boston Celtics ought to scare the pants off other teams in their path to a title?

If there were any lingering concerns the Boston Celtics might have lost a bit of that chemistry driving much of their pre-pandemic success in the 2019-20 NBA season, Celtics center Enes Kanter and the rest of the team have gone a long way towards putting that to bed.

Videos of the team grinding at practice — with smiles on their faces to a man — are circulating as widely as the videos of the team hanging out together while playing golf or beach volleyball, racing in the pool, or getting up extra shots after practice.

And the team knows how important that chemistry was, too — as Kanter himself related in Sunday’s media availability session.

“It’s important to just pick up that chemistry, and everybody’s away from their family. So this is our family. Now, the next three months, those guys are my brothers. This is my family, so I’m just going to go out there, have fun, play hard, play smart [and] push each other hard and have fun at the same time every day.”

The outspoken Turkish big man likes what he’s been seeing, too. Evidently the team has been looking especially crisp in recent practices.

“We had an off day yesterday but the day before, is one of the best practice I’ve ever witnessed,” he explained.

“Everybody was talking about, ‘Okay, where [we] were going against each other, [and] pushing each other and at the same time, we’re learning and we were having fun, and a lot of trash talking out there was good, though … We were having fun and playing hard play smart … the important thing is, communicate and trust each other, so it’s been a very fun.”

Health in particular has been a nagging problem for such a young team, with Kemba Walker, Gordon Hayward, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams all missing significant chunks of the season before the hiatus.

Now, while the team watches Walker’s knee with caution, the Celtics seem at full health — or very close to to it.

“I [have] the feeling that the quarantine time was really important to just heal and get healthy, so I feel like though all Celtics — I mean they were giving us a nickname, they were calling us ‘hospitalized Celtics’ before this was current — but now, man … All the teams will be scared because everybody’s healthy [and] going at it now, everybody’s hundred percent now.”

Kanter was referring to the Weird Celtics Twitter nickname of the “Hospital Celtics” granted the team when multiple key players were out, of course, but he is not wrong about the notion teams ought to be concerned about a fully-healthy Boston roster.

Few if any teams can lay a claim to be a greater threat to knock off the league-leading Milwaukee Bucks in the East, now that the hiatus has given several players ample opportunity to rest up.

Of course, that vaunted chemistry will also be critical, but based on all accounts we’ve seen so far, that aspect of the 2019-20 Celtics appears intact as well.

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