Sometimes we joke that Boston Celtics shooting guard Avery Bradley is the vice president of basketball optimism because the 25-year-old guard -- the longest tenured member of a wet-behind-the-ears Boston squad in which nine of the team's 15 roster players are younger than the still fresh-faced Bradley -- is unfailingly positive regardless of the strife around him.
So it was notable that, after one of the team's more stomach-churning losses -- and there's been plenty to choose from this season -- Bradley was a voice of calmness and reason on Sunday. It was Bradley who implored teammates to stop pointing fingers and instead work together to pull themselves out of a funk in which the Celtics have lost five of their last six games, most in infuriating fashion by either playing down to inferior competition or being unable to close out wins after building comfortable early leads.