Go ahead and put an asterisk on the victory, if you're so inclined, but you can’t help but wonder if the Boston Celtics found the spark they’ve so desperately been searching for during Thursday’s improbable come-from-behind victory in Phoenix.



Sure, an elite NBA team shouldn’t need to dig itself out of a 22-point deficit against a lottery-bound opponent. No title contender, having dropped the first two games of a long road trip, should need to rally back from 17 down over the final seven minutes of regulation against basement-dwelling opposition.



But the Celtics are not looking for style points at the moment. What they have been seeking is signs of the uber-resilient team that routinely overcame adversity while marching to the doorstep of the NBA Finals last season.



And that’s exactly what we saw during the Celtics’ 116-109 overtime triumph over the Suns Thursday night at Talking Stick Arena.



Kyrie Irving, already having elevated his play to new heights in recent games, poured in a season-high 39 points while fueling Boston’s feverish rally, then fed Marcus Morris for the overtime-forcing 3-pointer in the final second of regulation.



"That team in the second half, I know who that is,” said Irving.



That team was the same Celtics squad that routinely overcame double-digit deficits during last year’s 55-win campaign. It’s the team that didn’t back down when Irving and Gordon Hayward were lost to season-ending injuries, taking LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games in the East finals.



While the Celtics never should have been in the position they were in on Friday night, the fact that they were able to dig themselves out is far more important.



"It’s great that we were able to rebound because you’re going to have [a poor] half, but it’s good to know that we got some of that stuff we looked like at times last year in that locker room,” said Celtics coach Brad Stevens. 'You saw it on full display in the fourth quarter and overtime.”



The Celtics were an absolute mess during a first half in which Irving was the only starter to score, his first-unit brethren missing all 15 shots they took while not generating a single point between them in 50 combined minutes of floor time. Boston shot 18 percent overall in the first quarter and trailed by as much as 18 in the frame.



Coming out of halftime, Stevens shuffled his lineup, inserting Marcus Smart for Jayson Tatum in hopes of giving his team a jolt of energy. Of course it worked and while the Celtics did little to trim their deficit, they restored their mojo a bit and put themselves in position to make the late rally.



Still, the Celtics trailed 90-73 with 6:56 to go. The Suns had a win probability of 99.7 percent in that moment. But that’s when Irving got hot and Boston never stopped trying to claw its way back.



For all his scoring wizardry on display late in Thursday’s rally, Irving’s most magical moment was a little flip pass to Morris for the overtime-forcing 3-pointer. The Celtics had put themselves in position for a final gasp and, when two defenders collapsed on Irving (and unforgivably didn’t foul him or Morris before a shot), Irving didn’t try to be a hero and flipped the ball to a wide-open Morris for a straightaway triple.



The Celtics closed out the win in the extra session, even as Irving and Devin Booker engaged in an absurd back-and-forth scoring binge. A clearly exhausted Irving savored the victory and then pleaded for patience for a Celtics team that improved to 7-4 on the young season.



"Naturally, we all want it now. There’s a key word that goes into this whole entire season and that’s patience,” said Irving. "And that’s even within the games.



"We’re going to be OK, we’re going to be fine. I’ll make sure of it. We’re going to be fine, Brad’s going to make sure of it, my teammates are going to make sure of it. We’re going to be OK, no matter what’s going on out there. And I think that just comes with trust over time and just what we got done here.”



The Celtics have a quick turnaround with a visit to Utah on Friday night, a game in which they are not expected to have Irving (who has said he will be attending his grandfather’s memorial). It will be an emotional night for Hayward, assuming he plays on the second night of a back-to-back, as he returns to Utah for the first time since he elected to sign with the Celtics in the summer of 2017.



But the Celtics will enter with renewed vigor and a fresh reminder of what they are capable of when they play to their abilities. Thursday’s win won’t mean all that much if they revert to bad habits and continue to sleepwalk at times through games.



If they harness what they did in the second half against the Suns, then maybe we’ll finally see longer glimpses of the team we expected to see this season. Regardless of the circumstances, Thursday’s win should be the sort that gets this team moving in the right direction.

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