Three reasons why Celtics should be motivated for NBA Cup games

The Boston Celtics tip off group play in the Emirates NBA Cup on Tuesday night with a visit from the Atlanta Hawks. That’s the same Hawks team that Boston routed by 30 little more than a week ago. And Atlanta is even more battered and bruised with Trae Young and De’Andre Hunter headlining a list of Hawks players already ruled out.

The Celtics could easily downshift. They could easily dismiss the notion of this year's in-season tournament. But here are three reasons why we think the team could find motivation in this year’s NBA Cup:

Reaffirm that title season was no fluke

The Celtics spent much of the offseason hearing about how their playoff path was soft and how the team benefited from the injuries other teams were navigating.

Given that Boston’s postseason quests have routinely been derailed by untimely injuries, it’s all a bit ironic. But there's nothing Boston can do to change anyone’s mind about the past. They can, however, send an early-season message that their success last year was no fluke.

Look, it’s hard to find motivation over the course of 82 games when you’ve been to the mountaintop. You start thinking about the doldrums that invade in January and February, and it’s hard for any team to keep their foot on the accelerator. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla tries to break down the season into little miniature themes with the idea that it’s easy to digest the season in, say, 10-game appetizers rather than an 82-game buffet.

The Celtics have already sent a message with a 9-2 start, but this cluster of NBA Cup games over the next month offers a growing stage to remind anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention just how good this team is.

Winning the NBA Cup isn’t necessarily the prize -- and this team certainly won’t be raising any banners like a certain squad in Southern California -- but it’s a chance for a roster that looks almost identical to last season to showcase just how far ahead of the field they remain.

Money for the budget crew

Brad Stevens has handed out roughly $1 billion in contract extensions over the past two years, with every player in Boston’s top eight having received their slice of that pie. So the $500,000 prize for winning the Cup might not sound like a lot of money for guys like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown after they inked the largest contracts in NBA history over the past two summers.

But it’s not chump change, particularly to those players who signed team-friendly deals this past summer.

Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman could have chased bigger paydays this past offseason. Instead, they quickly re-signed with Boston, keeping the team’s core intact from last year's title run. The Celtics have six players earning $2.8 million or less this season in Kornet, Tillman, rookie Baylor Scheierman, Neemias Queta, Jordan Walsh, and Sam Hauser (whose contract extension kicks in next season). 

For those players, $500,000 is a notable holiday bonus. Kornet joked last season that, if Boston won the Cup, he’d use the money to pay off his mortgage. That players like Kornet were willing to come back to maintain continuity and chase another title, they deserve a reward that might come with an inspired Cup effort.

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A big-time showdown in the middle of group play

Not to look too far ahead, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are now 12-0 to start the season. There’s a chance they could show up to TD Garden next Tuesday night with an undefeated record still intact, and at worst, they’ll probably still sit atop the Eastern Conference.

It won’t matter what color the court is in that matchup; the Celtics should be amped to see Cleveland in a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference semifinal series. That is also Boston’s only game over a five-day stretch, with rare two-day breaks on both sides, positioning the team to go all-out that evening.

The winner of each group, along with one wild card from each conference, advances to the quarterfinals starting December 10. Winners there get a trip to Vegas for the semifinals and finals -- the perfect opportunity to escape Boston’s winter chill. 

To be clear, the NBA Cup is not the end-all-be-all for these Celtics. If they stumble along the way -- like they did while getting bounced by a fired up Pacers squad a year ago -- it’s clearly doesn’t alter the ultimate goal of the season.

And even if Boston wins, we don’t expect a robust celebration. We can envision Mazzulla getting handed the NBA Cup and passing it off as quickly as Bill Belichick used to discard the AFC championship trophy during his time in New England.

But maybe that’s a bit of motivation, too. The Lakers won last year’s NBA Cup and did the whole banner celebration. That won’t fly in Boston. So watching the Celtics stuff that Cup in some vacant corner of the Auerbach Center and never talk about it again would speak volumes, too.