By Nacho Garcia |
Miami (USA) (EFE).- Al Horford speaks with seniority about the good season of the Boston Celtics. Leaders of the East, this is useless if you don’t get to the playoffs well and that’s why he speaks with the same caution that he transmits to the locker room.
“One wants to look forward but the reality is that we still have a lot of basketball to play before the postseason,” the Dominican center told Efe.
To do this, there is nothing like going game by game: “I feel good where we are right now but we have to go day by day, focus on that and try to continue improving as a group.”
It is a conservative speech, very justified after the two losses suffered on their tour of Florida: against the Orlando Magic on Monday (113-98) and against the Miami Heat on Tuesday (98-95).
In the first one, a Horford played who could not avoid the defeat of his team.
But it is that losing to the Orlando Magic no longer seems like an accident because the team led by Jamahl Mosley, thirteenth in the East, surprisingly has three consecutive wins against the Celtics.
“It’s funny, I don’t really have an answer to give about that. It has happened like this for some reason and I don’t know how to explain it. I know that if we faced each other in a playoff stage, things would be different. But as the calendar has gone, it has happened like this », she reflects.
Horford, a proven leader
It could be said that Horford is the guru of these Celtics, one of the fundamental pieces without which the project devised by Brad Stevens from the TD Garden offices would not be understood.
Taking the lead is not uncomfortable for him: «I have always had to be one of the leaders in the dressing room and lead the group, be aware. I took that role last year and this year I get more when adversity comes. But I feel comfortable and I do it naturally.
It is a status that the Celtics dressing room recognizes, but also the rivals showing enormous respect for his figure.
Bam Adebayo is one of those who have “suffered” the most and this is how he defines it in questions to Efe: “I feel that Horford is the veteran of that team, who is there when he is needed.”
«You can notice him when he is on the court, directing his teammates, guiding them in time-outs, asking them to talk to each other, to communicate and to be in the correct position. It is a fundamental element of the success of this year but also of last season, “adds the Miami Heat center.
age has implications
But how far can this great individual level go? Dosing the loads during the season is key and the depth of the team helps to do it.
“I don’t have that need to have to go out every night and play at that high level that is expected of me, especially in the playoffs. Now in the regular league we have many players and so much talent that any of us can excel one day », he develops.
There is no secret other than dedication to staying at this level at the age of 36: “I have to prepare much more, more consistently, the key for me is to continue doing all the things I do off the pitch with exercises, therapies… It requires a lot of work , not only in season, also in the holidays ».
Beyond the obvious leadership of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, there are many Celtics games that get complicated and require Horford’s experience.
It happened last week in the wins against the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors, when the player from Puerto Plata added 20 points and 10 rebounds against the champions and secured the win against the Canadians with a game recital in the last two minutes.
“Tatum and Brown are doing an excellent job, but the rest of us have to be prepared,” he says.
And he is: he performs in decisive moments like no one else and even seems rejuvenated, as Tatum confessed after the victory against the Warriors: «I joked with Al, he came back and it seems that today he is 25 years old. He needs more two-day breaks because he then comes back and decides the game ».
