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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2716348, member: 488"] The Celtics are, in one word, tough. It's the reason they won that series. Lowe references discipline and consistency as the keys to that toughness: [I]A lot of the Celtics' greatness on defense -- they led the league in points allowed per possession -- lies in the absence of schematic mistakes. It seems mundane, but for all five guys to do it right on 90 out of 100 possessions every game takes extraordinary discipline and hoops IQ.[/I] Toughness is controlling what you can control. Are you going to stop working in the absence of immediate results? Does your approach to the game change when you're struggling from the field? Can you absorb an injury or two that would have demoralized most teams and continue humming? [I]He told the players Hayward would be OK. But Stevens wanted to shift their focus to the remaining 79 games. He warned them: Don't use your youth as excuse, Stevens and several players recalled. "Expedite your learning curve," Stevens remembered saying. "If there's film to watch, or something you need to work on with a coach, go do it." [/I] Guys like Tatum and Brown had an out. Many people didn't expect them to beat Milwaukee. If they had made dumb mistakes to lose games, nobody would have gotten on them about it too much. They're young, part of the learning curve, etc. etc. Instead, they set their own bar higher and forced other teams to panic. [/QUOTE]