The Boston Celtics have lost five straight, but players and coaches remain convinced that success is closer than it looks.
"Boy, I thought we did a lot of good things again," Doc Rivers said Monday night after bowing to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 97-88.
He added, "The way you win is with execution. And you can just see it -- every quarter I thought we had a two-minute stretch where we went on a turnover binge, and that's frustrating."
"I like our spirit," he said. "It's crazy. I didn't like us the first couple games because we didn't play well. The last couple, you can just see it coming. But you've gotta break through at some point." (via CSNNE)
Paul Pierce agreed with his coach's assessment that the Celtics are beginning to show signs of competitiveness.
"I think I like where we're headed. You know, it's just little things that are really killing us. The turnovers, obviously, if we can keep cleaning that up we can keep teams out of transition and control that a little bit better, I think we'll be great. But we have to go do it," he said.