When I heard people talk about our championship team this past summer I almost always heard “you guys were so talented.” And we did have talent. But if physical talent alone were the only ingredient to winning a championship then we could all name a number of teams that should have won one at all different levels.
I would never argue that we had talent, and physical talent at that. What truly separated us from the rest, though, was that we also had mental talent. Physical talent alone will win regular season games, but you need more than that to win championships.
We had the mental talent that allowed us to understand and carry out a game plan. We had the mental talent to be able to maintain our focus through even the most difficult times of the long NBA season. We had the mental talent to enable us to hold each other accountable on and off the court and not mistake that for a teammate getting on another. We had the mental talent to understand that the coaches were coaching and not criticizing in their comments to players. We had the mental talent to see what went wrong in a game and work to make sure it didn’t happen the next time out. We had the mental talent to admit that we weren’t playing well and that a sub should come in for a starter. We had the mental talent to understand that playing defense every possession every night was going to win us games. And, most important, we had the mental talent to worry only about getting the win — not about who got the glory!
I believe that physical talent wins games but physical talent plus mental talent wins championships. We were like every other team in the nation in that things did not run smoothly the entire season. Where we differed is that we had the mental capacity and strength to fight through and overcome the many obstacles that face a team in its journey to win a title. We proved that there is more to success than running, jumping, and dunking.
- Kevin Eastman
Asst. Coach Boston Celtics
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