Midway through NBA season, surprises, good and bad

A year ago at this time, the Boston Celtics had a starting lineup of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Jrue Holiday. The Celtics were in second place in the Eastern Conference. Brown is still starting for Boston. Every other name in that first unit has since changed. Tatum hasn't played this season because of an Achilles injury, Porzingis is with Atlanta, Horford is with Golden State, and Holiday is with Portland. And the Celtics are in second place in the Eastern Conference. The NBA regular season is nearing the midway point — some teams will start hitting the 41-game mark, the halfway mark of the 82-game slate, this weekend — and surprise stories have emerged in many cases, some good, some bad. The Celtics are surely on the good side of that list. Consider what the expectations were a few months ago: Tatum was dealing with the Achilles tear, Porzingis and Holiday were traded and Horford chose to join the Warriors. Many of the decisions the Celtics made were to get out from under a potential luxury tax bill that was going to be bigger than the gross domestic product of Micronesia. But while the perception that Boston was entering a rebuild, reset or reload year, the Celtics insisted that wasn't the reality. At 23-12, it sure looks like they were right. "Guys have an understanding of what they're supposed to do, and that's top to bottom," Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said Monday night. "I think when you have that, you just have a better level of connectivity and then you're just able to do your job and execute what needs to be executed. ... Have an understanding of who we are as a team, have an understanding of what the game plan is, execute that regardless of who you're out there on the floor with and make sure you play hard." It sounds so easy. Boston is far from the only story that could be considered a surprise to some this season. Detroit, at 27-9 and leading the East, is off to the second-best 36-game start in its history — topped only by a 31-5 mark in 2005-06. (The Pistons were also 27-9 in 2007-08.) New York coach Mike Brown has known Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff forever; he revealed at the NBA Cup in Las Vegas last month that he actually used to babysit Bickerstaff. He gets why people may think the Pistons being 27-9 is a surprise, but he's not surprised to see Bickerstaff having success. "It helps to have some good players, too. None of us can do this by ourselves without players and a good staff," Brown said. "But when you're a leader in an organization like that ... over time you can see how they've just propelled upwards every day. A lot of credit is deserving of him and the job that he's done in Detroit." The Pistons and Celtics would be 'good' surprises. So would Phoenix, a team that is squarely in the mix in the Western Conference despite many thinking that the loss of Kevin Durant to Houston would doom the Suns. "We're going to go in there and play hard every day," the Suns' Jordan Goodwin said. Milwaukee, at 16-20 largely due to injuries, is not a good surprise. Neither is the slow start for the Los Angeles Clippers, who are beginning to make up ground but still far from looking like a contender. And Atlanta, a team that was supposed to be in the hunt for East supremacy, now may be on the verge of trading away point guard Trae Young. It's an interesting situation for the Hawks; he is their franchise player (until the trade comes, anyway) but Atlanta has clearly been better this season without Young in the lineup. So, halftime nears on this season. There's a lot for some teams to like, and a lot for other teams not to be happy about. The good news for those teams that aren't liking where they are right now is this: There's still a long way to go. In the NBA, little is decided until the second half anyway.