2013 Boston Celtics: Spartan Warriors

Not a Spartan warrior, but definitely will battle you for a rebound.

It’s needless to say this year’s Celtics squad has faced adversity, from playing sub .500 basketball most of the year to overcoming devastating injuries. The tough road to hoe has seemed to pull this team together and now they are playing unified, posting an 8-1 after the rondo injury. They are having fun playing basketball the right way, focusing on the team over individual. The ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality is clearly working for these guys and it has been incredibly enjoyable to watch (besides the Chicago stinker).

The rallying cry for this team has focused around battling and next man up, and an article from Jessica Camerato of CSNE.com proves it as different players dubbed nicknames to describe their squad in the first half:

Courtney Lee:
"'Young Riders,' we just ride it out. 'Remember the Titans.' I'm just going to throw out a lot of nicknames. 'The Glory Roaders,' just facing obstacles, adversity. Players going down, we're still rallying and pushing forward. 'Sunset Parkers.' We're 'Above the Rimmers.' All of them. Quote me on all of them."
Jason Collins:
"'The men from 300.' One goes down, another one has to keep going. We're like spartan warriors. You follow your general and you fight to the bitter end. In the movie the general is Leonidas, here it's Doc (Rivers). Doc's the general and we all keep fighting."
Jeff Green:
"'The Celtics.' (That name means) we're a storied franchise that never gives up, that plays until the end."
Brandon Bass:
"'The Spartans.' We're warriors. When someone goes down, somebody else steps up. We're never losing any type of confidence in what we can do as a team, even with one of our best players going down. You saw that from the coach, that he didn't lose a bit of confidence in us as a unit. We're a group that's definitely tough minded."
Fab Melo:
"'The 300s.' We've battled a lot. We've been through tough times, playing through injuries. But we're still battling and finishing strong."

Everyone besides Courtney Lee and Jeff Green took the Spartan warrior from the movie 300 approach, which is pretty awesome. I feel a new CelticsLife T-shirt incorporating 300 warriors coming. I wonder what KG would have nicknamed these guys? It definitely would have included a few F bombs.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MattyMackay