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Even though the newly-acquired Jeff Green doesn’t have a ring to show for it, he actually played a role in the Boston Celtics’ 2008 championship run. He was originally drafted by Boston in 2007, but only remained with the team for a short period of time as they shipped him off to Seattle along with Delonte West, and Wally Sczerbiak for Ray Allen and Glen Davis that same night. Davis and Allen ended up becoming, and have remained, huge parts of the Celtics and they never would have landed in Boston if it wasn’t for Green’s value being so high.

That trade didn’t just work out great for Boston, either. Green got the opportunity to play immediately in Seattle that he may not have gotten with the Celtics. In just over four years with the organization that moved to Oklahoma City a year after the trade Green developed into a very solid forward. He’s been good for 15 points and five rebounds throughout his career that includes being a part of the Oklahoma City Thunders’ first ever playoff appearance.

However, Oklahoma City decided to part ways with him at the trade deadline with his pending restricted free agency status being one of the main reasons why. They weren’t unsure of their ability to keep him long term and jumped at the opportunity to ship him back to Boston for the traditional center they’ve been lacking in Kendrick Perkins. Also included in the trade was Nate Robinson and Nenad Krstic.

Green’s second stint in Boston has obviously been much longer-lived than his first stop. This time he’s actually donned the green and white and it feels just right.

"I’m adjusting well," Green said to HOOPSWORLD. "This is a great team. It’s like a brotherhood. They’ve accepted me well. They’re trying to get me used to a lot of situations so it’s been easy for myself to get comfortable with what they do."

Growing up and playing his college basketball on the East Coast, Green is very familiar with the Celtics’ tradition that Krstic had no idea about.

"Most definitely," Green said. "Larry Bird was one guy who I looked up to growing up being on the East Coast. I’ve met Bill Russell when I was in college. When I got drafted there I got a lot of history there and I met Red Auerbach when I was in college too. So I met a lot of the greatest Boston people to be involved with this franchise. It was great for myself for me to be back here. It’s a great situation, great opportunity for me to do great things here."

{AUTHOR_BOX}Green’s production as a Celtic has been modest at best so far as he tries to find his niche with a championship-caliber ball club. It’s not the easiest situation to come into, though, but Green is finding his way. 

"It’s tough especially when you had to break up a team that just came from 7 in the NBA finals," Green said. "It’s tough to do that and it’s tough to bring in five guys to fill in late in the season like that. It’s been great. We had our slumps, but that’s what you have to do to get better especially when you have five new guys. We’re making strides and we’re getting healthier. Jermaine O’Neal is back, Shaq will hopefully be back soon. We’re making strides to be the top team again."

Green knows that his numbers won’t matter at all if he helps the Celtics win another championship. That’s what will make him beloved by the Celtics’ faithful and likely earn him the long-term contract that he wasn’t able to get with the Thunder. He hasn’t let those factors apply additional pressure to himself. Instead, he’s using the same approach he has his entire career and that may be the best thing for him to do.

"Not at all," Green said. "There’s no pressure at all. I put pressure on myself to play hard, play my game, do well and help this team win."

That One Stings

The San Antonio Spurs, in the midst of their longest losing streak since 1997, took on the likely-lottery-bound Houston Rockets on Friday night looking to get back on the right track. The Rockets had lost two of their last three and are a team that the Spurs had already beaten three times this season. With the team fully healthy for the second-straight game things looked promising for the Spurs, but the Rockets came to play on their homecourt.

Led by the Kevin Martin’s game-high 33 points the Rockets’ kept their playoff hopes alive with a 119-114 overtime victory. To make matters even worse, the Spurs once again got torched by Luis Scola. Scola, who the Spurs’ originally drafted and held the rights to for several years, flirted with a triple-double with 21 points, 14 rebounds and six assists.

Martin and Scola’s big nights weren’t surprising. They’re borderline All-Stars who are capable of going off like that on any given night. What was surprising was how poorly the Spurs executed down the stretch. Their mental errors helped the Rockets nearly as much as Scola and Martin did, leaving Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich very frustrated after the game.

"It was a tough loss and Houston played great," Popovich said afterwards. "We played with more of a purpose in the second half and that was the good part of the game. We threw the ball away when we had chances at the end. It’s unbelievable that could happen again."

"We know it’s always a tough game in Houston," Spurs forward Tim Duncan added. "We didn’t finish the game and they made more plays than we did. We were focused to start the game and they made shots early. We countered that in the second half but we just couldn’t finish."

With their losing streak now hitting six games the Spurs have squandered what was once a very convincing grasp on the league’s top record. Now they only stand 1.5 games ahead of both the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, who they meet up with on April 12th in Los Angeles. Having homecourt advantage was one of the things the Spurs sought out to get at the beginning of the season and to lose it at this point would be really disappointing after how well they played during the first three quarters of the season. They can still stay on top, but they have to get back to executing down the stretch like they were earlier in the year.

"We’re going to see what we are made out of," Popovich said. "If we can dig down deeper, we’ll see if we are worth the way we played this season or not."

Yannis Koutroupis is a senior NBA and NCAA writer for HOOPSWORLD. To reach him you can follow him on twitter.