Before the Boston Celtics fell to a 101-116 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday, Dec. 11, they had been on a five-game winning streak. Since Joe Mazzulla began running a small-ball rotation with the second unit, Boston has been a much-improved team and has started to prove its doubters wrong.

Even after Thursday’s loss, the Celtics are third in the Eastern Conference with 15 wins and 10 losses. They’re 5-6 on the road and 8-4 at home, while also being 11-7 when facing in-conference foes. Encouragingly, the Celtics are yet to get Jayson Tatum back from an Achilles injury, and there are multiple young players who are improving on the fly. The current team can only get better.

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During a recent video from the “Backyard Buckets” YouTube channel, the host dove into the Celtics’ recent five-game win streak as he declared the team as one of the “hottest” in the NBA right now. The host also dove into some of the Celtics’ game tape to explain what has been powering Boston to some impressive victories in recent weeks.

You can watch the full episode by clicking on the embedded video above.

Watch or listen to the “Celtics Chronicle” podcast on:

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3QnlPcS

Spotify: https://bit.ly/40JRevf

Apple: https://apple.co/45sAUBG

Substack: https://bit.ly/3WoA0Cf

This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: The Celtics are the East’s surprise team this season