BOSTON -- If Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens has his way, his family will maintain its recent New Year's Eve tradition on Saturday by watching the ball drop in London at 7 p.m. ET. His kids will set off noisemakers and neighbors will wonder why there's such a commotion five hours before the new calendar year truly arrives here. Stevens will then celebrate what he considers a wildly overrated holiday with a rare night of early slumber.

Forgive Stevens if he's eager to bid farewell to December. Boston's brutal travel schedule this month afforded him just four nights to eat dinner at home. He will have slept in his own bed just eight times.

The Celtics played 10 of their 15 games this month on the road, and just 68 days into the NBA's 170-day season, Boston has already completed nearly half (20) of its 41 regular-season road games. For the sake of comparison, the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers have played only 12 road games through the first two months of the season.

In December, Boston took 15 flights spanning roughly 12,000 total miles. That is essentially one trip halfway around the Earth. The Celtics spent more than a full day in the sky this month, logging about 30 hours in the air, according to average flight-time data provided by flight-logging website FlightDiary.net.

NBD, the Celtics traveled halfway around the Earth in December: pic.twitter.com/2Uk4cDTveL — Chris Forsberg (@ESPNForsberg) December 30, 2016

Boston's travel took the team to eight different states, including multiple trips to both Florida and Texas. There were three road trips of 3,000 total miles or more, one of which began with a bomb scare during the team's flight to Oklahoma City.

Sure, the Celtics fly in style on a chartered jet with plenty of amenities. It was still an absolutely grueling month.

On Friday, the same day that the Celtics made their final flight of the month with a red-eye trek home from Cleveland, Boston closed out its December slate with a 117-114 home triumph over the Miami Heat. Despite all the obvious travel obstacles, Boston was 10-6 this month (a .625 winning percentage), including a 6-4 mark on the road, and sits in third place in the Eastern Conference.

At 12-8 (.600) on the road this season, the Celtics are 20-14 overall and have the second-best road record in the East behind only Toronto (11-5). The visit from Miami on Friday night was the start of a stretch during which Boston will play 14 of 18 games in the comforts of TD Garden.

Before the Celtics settled in for a rare three-day break, Stevens was asked if it's nice to reach the finish line after a long December.

"It’s nice to see your family," said Stevens. And yet he has repeatedly implored his team not to downshift too much heading into January, when the Celtics will play only four road games and travel a mere 5,500 miles despite the fact that none of the road games is blocked together.

"I don’t ever think that there’s a finish line, because if you take your foot off the gas in this league, you’ll get pounded. ... I just think you have to stay in that rhythm of preparation all the time. Certainly, you have to get your rest physically. But I think emotionally you have to stay in that kind of season rhythm."

Jae Crowder, a veteran of five NBA seasons, didn't hesitate when asked if this was the most grueling month of travel during his pro career. He's certain it was, and in his mind, there's nothing close. So much time in tight quarters left Celtics players doing their best to avoid spreading illness among one another.

"Woo, brutal," Crowder said of December. "We’ve got the sick bug going around the team. I didn’t feel well on Christmas Day, didn’t know if I was going to play that morning. It’s been tough. Just the traveling and all that has really taken a toll on us. But I feel like we’ve gotten better this month.

"With the schedule being as brutal as it’s been, we got better. And I think that’s what tough teams do with a tough month like that. But we’re ready to get out of it."

The Celtics could have really dug themselves a hole at the start of the season, especially limping to a 3-4 record over the first two weeks. But even as the travel-heavy schedule cranked up the early-season degree of difficulty, the Celtics responded by playing some of their best basketball, especially in late December, when they won seven of their final nine games.

Boston is far from a finished product and has rarely put together a full 48-minute effort. On Friday night, the Celtics needed 52 points from Isaiah Thomas to fend off a Heat team playing without star guard Goran Dragic.

But there's obvious optimism about the team's ability to soar in the new year. The home schedule will help, but so will the ability to get some rare practices and clean up the defensive slippage that has occurred recently.

"I'll take the next couple of days [to analyze Boston's play] -- and I’ve already started doing it a little bit over the last week -- but we’ve been running through games like it’s going out of style," said Stevens. "I’ll take the next few days and really look at what we need to get better at. And as much as anything, we’re going to have to balance practice with rest. I think that that’s going to be important to rejuvenate and be ready to go.

"I’m really excited about the way that we’ve played in a lot of ways this month. But we’ll get a good combo of rest and practice and hopefully get better at what we do."