Back to Boston basketball: 10 Takeaways from Celtics-Rockets

Photo by Omar Rawlings/Getty Images1. The Celtics play this game with the expected (maybe unexpected given this season?) effort level from start to finish. Things got a bit bumpy in the second quarter, but instead of folding, Boston rallied and got the game under control. In the second half, the Celtics came out and put the Rockets away fairly early on. This was the kind of effort Brad Stevens has been trying to pull from his team for the last week or so.

2. This was the sort of performance Boston needs from Marcus Smart. He was under control all game and really set the pace as a playmaker. It started on the first play of the game:

Good initial read by Jayson Tatum followed by Marcus Smart…