Boston Celtics: Finally, the real Gordon Hayward has arrived

Following a 30-point breakthrough performance against the Minnesota Timberwolves, it looks like the Boston Celtics have found the old Gordon Hayward.

Remember how excited Boston Celtics fans were when the team won the free agent sweepstakes for Gordon Hayward back in July of 2017?

Well, that excitement quickly turned to despair Opening night when the All-Star forward went down with a gruesome lower leg injury that put his much-anticipated Celtics career on hold the first five minutes of the 2017-18 NBA season.

That despair turned to hope as Hayward went into the recovery process.  The more the Boston Celtics won throughout the season, the more everyone was reminded that was an All-Star making his way back to the team.  In fact, his recovery was going so well, there was some hope he would return in time for the playoffs no matter what Brad Stevens was telling everyone.

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Then, that hope turned back into excitement as Hayward was fully healed and ready for Opening night of the 2017-18 NBA season.

Lost in that excitement was the reality that Gordon Hayward would need some time physically and mentally to become the player he was before the injury.  Lost in the predictions and expectations of the Boston Celtics winning the East was the patience in allowing the 28-year-old star the time to mend in with his teammates and find his niche.

So as the team looked out of sorts and struggled out of the gate, that excitement turned to disappointment.  Through much of the early part of the season Hayward looked a bit slow, couldn’t make his shots and was a liability at times defensively.  But, given the nature of his injury and the amount of time he spent away from the game, much of that was to be expected.

The fact that the finger was pointed at Gordon Hayward was more about the team’s total struggles than his working his way back into the game.

Things began to happen

Then, a transformation happened.  Taken out of the starting lineup and coming off the bench, Hayward’s mental approach to the game changed.  As teammate Kyrie Irving challenged him to be more aggressive on the court, Hayward took that mental frustration out on the practice court.  And then, it showed on the court.

On back-to-back nights, Hayward contributed 14 points in a win against the Cleveland Cavaliers and a 30-point outpouring the following night in Minnesota.

In that game, Hayward did it all in a near triple-double performance.  Impressively, it wasn’t the points scored that turned disappointment back into excitement.  It was the aggressive way in which he played.  It was how quick he looked as well as his ability to make big shots.  Finally, Gordon Hayward arrived and the work he put in all these months is starting to pay off.

"“I’ve continued to put in the work,” Hayward said following Saturday’s game, via MassLive.  “My teammates found me and I was able to knock down the first couple threes that I shot.  When you see a couple go in, it makes the basket look a little bit wider, and they continued to find me down the stretch too for some open ones, and I knocked them down.”"

Confidence is the key

In all, the confidence in himself as well as his teammates confidence in him is looking like the kryptonite he needed to put all the elements of his game back together.

Now, it’s all about the consistency.  He did it in back-to-back games, but can he continue to trend

back to his All-Star form?  The more the team wins and the more the shots drop, the more Gordon Hayward will look closer to the player who racked up 30 points on 8-for-16 shooting.

Kyrie Irving sees that being more of the player Hayward will be on a game-to-game basis.

"“That’s just who he is, honestly,” Irving said.  “It took him a little bit to get his rhythm, honestly, and with the circumstances we have in Boston, we have a lot of talent.  That and the pressure of dealing with outside expectations kind of filtered in to what we have going on here.  I think we’re just tired of that s— now.  Now we’re just playing.  Gordon’s being Gordon now, guys are competing at both ends of the floor.”"

In summary, sometimes it just takes a moment for a player on the level of Gordon Hayward to find his stride again.  That moment may have just happened for him and the entire Boston Celtics teams.  Perhaps, now they will start to roll like we all know they can.