You might not notice him on the bench during Warriors games. But he’ll be there Thursday night at TD Garden, sitting one row behind the players and coaching staff.

Rick Celebrini’s work is never finished. But hopefully he can sit back and enjoy the moment in Game 6.

Celebrini has a huge hand in this NBA Finals run. Celebrini’s impact should be felt every time Steph Curry pushes off his left foot to splash a 3-pointer, every time Draymond Green drives the ball downcourt in transition, every time Klay Thompson lifts from the arc to showcase that picturesque shot again.

“He's a genius when it comes to the body and how the body operates,” Green said of Celebrini earlier this week.

Celebrini is always in the lab for a simple reason: He’s trying to prevent athletes from having the same fate he did.

It’s easy to spot hey-day Celebrini on a soccer field, with his voluminous mop of dark hair (is that a mullet?) flying above his shoulders. The big buzzword around the Warriors these days is “force.” The Warriors want to play with force and make the Celtics to feel them on the court, have to bend to their will.

When Celebrini was roaming as a center back for the Vancouver 86ers in the early 1990s, he played with undeniable force. He was running the show at the back line.

Rick Celebrini was a mean defender back in the day 😤 pic.twitter.com/7zq9INBqvA

Carl Valentine, currently an ambassador and coach for the MLS’ Vancouver Whitecaps, played alongside Celebrini for a few seasons before eventually becoming his coach.

“When he was without injuries, he was a very dominant player and one of the best center backs in the league,” Valentine said. “He was outstanding and he was definitely one of our best players. He was very demanding, very comfortable on the ball and very strong on the tackle.”

Draymond appreciates good defending when he sees it.

“I have seen some clips of Rick playing soccer,” Green said. “Pretty physical. Which is no surprise; that's how he is in his work here. Not necessarily that he's physical, but just the demeanor you carry and the aggression that you carry and the tone that you speak with.”

A native of Burnaby, B.C., Celebrini first played professionally with the Edmonton Brickmen out of college. He then came home to play for his hometown 86ers from 1993-96. While Celebrini initially dealt with hamstring issues and a broken left foot, multiple ACL injuries eventually derailed his playing career.

“It was such a shame,” Valentine said. “He was in the prime of his career and could have went on to represent Canada at the men’s level. He was just that good. He started with muscle injuries, but then it got to knee injuries and he just couldn't sustain it. He tried. I wanted him to come back, I wanted him to try, but his knees were so bad.”

As devastating as it must have been, those injuries also set off the physiotherapy light bulb for Celebrini.

There are worse places to work overtime than Cabo San Lucas. Whenever you punch out the clock, the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean and maybe a margarita are there waiting for you.

The second half of All-Star “break” wasn’t much of a break for Celebrini. Instead of taking a couple days off from the nonstop grind of the NBA regular season, he flew down to the southern tip of Baja California in Mexico.

It might be a paradise just a quick plane ride away, but Celebrini was in town for a hybrid work/vacation. Draymond had just spent the past few days playing a cheerful villain in Cleveland, basking in the boos from bitter Cavs fans for All-Star Weekend. Now he was south of the border for two-a-day rehabs with Rick.

“His All-Star break where he shoulda been with his family the whole time, he went with me and my family and spent the week with us,” Green said. “I don’t take that for granted. It’s the people behind the scenes that nobody sees that deserves all the credit.”

At that point, Green was about six weeks deep into his injury recovery. In a Shakespearean twist, Green felt a twinge in his calf during warmups on the night of Jan. 9 aka Klay Day. Celebrini shot Draymond a look once he couldn’t lift off his legs to shoot. Celebrini knew. He had a feeling it was a deeper issue and he was right, as it turned out to be a lower disc issue in Green’s back that sapped his lower body strength. Draymond made a ceremonial six-second start with Thompson before a two-month absence that highlighted his contributions.

When Green could barely trot, Celebrini pushed him with a target end date: March 12. Green settled on March 14, when he made his momentous return against the Wizards, in the lone full regular-season game when he played with Curry and Thompson.

Afterwards, Green spent his entire four-minute postgame press conference praising Celebrini without taking questions.

“He’s been lock-step with me, the entire 11 weeks that I missed,” Green said March 14. “I felt incredible tonight. Probably 90 percent of that is due to the things he had me doing. To him staying on me, to him having me do extra sets of this, extra sets of that when I’m tired, pushing me. I am very thankful for Rick. Because he’s been incredible.

“The relationship that we’ve built for the last 11 weeks is one that will last for the rest of my life.”

When Kevin Durant tore his achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, he leaned on Celebrini to get back to the locker room. When Klay tore his ACL in Game 6 three days later, Celebrini walked with him in the tunnel. That was just the start of their journey together.

Celebrini had a seen Thompson's darkest days of rehab. He worked with him through the midst of a monotonous grind that only has question marks on the other side.

So when Klay struggled in the first two games of this year’s NBA Finals, he wasn’t stressing. A day after going 4-of-19 from the field for 11 points in Game 2, he put it on his rose-colored glasses, as only Klay can.

“For what I've been through the last couple years, I will gladly be in this position,” Klay said. “Especially considering where I was at last year during June. Me and Rick Celebrini in the gym, just two in the arena, it was empty. There was nobody in the Bay during that time.”

After Klay dropped 32 points and hit eight 3-pointers in the Game 5 clincher against the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals, he also gave Celebrini a shoutout.

“All those emotions kind of rushed through me, and I thought about our training staff, I thought about Rick Celebrini, I thought about Steve, I thought about those days me and Rick were together in Santa Cruz and I was in a terrible mood. We were together in the summertime. All those long days. They would tell me it would pay off. It was hard to see that at the time. Now to actually be here, I can feel it paying off.”

Klay might not have understood why Celebrini pushed him at the time. Or why he had to do 1,000 calf raises a day. He understands now.

Klay’s return was just Celebrini’s first act. Then came the Draymond back rehab. Then came the Curry left foot rehab, as he was injured by Celtics guard Marcus Smart on March 16, in the trio’s second game back together. Steph sat out the final 12 games of the regular season but came back for the playoffs. He suffered another left foot scare in Game 3 of the Finals, but we all know what happened in Game 4 (*cough* 43 points *cough*).

“Great rehab, medical staff hooking me up the last two days, getting me right,” Steph said after the game.

That 2019 Finals was special for another reason, as Celebrini went head-to-head with his mentor. OK, head trainers don’t play defense on one another, but it must have been special for Celebrini to share the experience with Alex McKechnie, who is now Toronto Raptors VP of Player Health and Performance.

McKechnie is often regarded as the trainer who helped save Shaquille O’Neal’s career in 1997. Abdomen issues plagued the big man in his first season-plus with the Lakers until he started working with McKechnie. Shaq eventually started spending his summers in Vancouver working with McKechnie, who was renowned for his personalized and cutting edge techniques.

By 2000, the Lakers had to bring on McKechnie full-time. He stayed with the franchise for 11 years and won five rings. McKechnie, who also helped out Canadian men’s soccer team, has been part of the Raptors organization since 2013.

Celebrini learned from McKechnie and also cut his teeth as a physiotherapist while working with West Ham United of the English Premier League.

“They were kind of ahead of the curve with what they were doing,” Valentine said. “They may have been some of the first that were doing fitness to prevent injuries. Rather than waiting and you get injured and you get rehab, they were putting things in place to make sure players had less chance of getting injured.”

Through McKechnie and other Vancouver connections, Celebrini started working with Steve Nash. According to a 2019 story by Mark Medina, Nash once told Curry that Celebini extended his career by “three or four years.” When Steve Kerr was general manager with the Phoenix Suns from 2007-10, he first noticed Celebrini’s work with Nash.

Celebrini worked at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver before the Whitecaps hired him as the team’s physiotherapist, where he remained for seven years.

“He was part of that family,” Valentine said. “He was a great player and then he’d come and work with us as a physio. He just did a tremendous job again. Obviously, when you’re that good, your reputation just builds and people are gonna come calling for you.”

So when the Warriors had an opening in 2018, Kerr made a push for the organization to add Celebrini.

“Rick is just a fantastic human being, first and foremost,” Kerr said in March. “The way he builds trust with all the players and people in our organization. He’s a great person to communicate with. Really easy to confer with, to collaborate with. He’s flexible but he also has his convictions and knows what he wants and how he wants to manage our players. It’s been a great relationship.”

No two bodies are the same. Cookie-cutter rehabs are a thing of the past. Celebrini has been doing this for decades now, and he has gained the trust of the Warriors over these past four years.

“I think that's one of the things I think has been great with Rick is he's taught myself, he's taught Steph, Klay, he's taught us as our career has gone on how to get your body ready to go when it needs to be ready,” Green said. “That process is different for everyone.”

Green also wanted to give Celebrini credit for developing the entire sports performance wing of the Warriors, who even make off-season house calls to players.

“I think he's done an incredible job of just being a leader and building out the way he has,” Green said.

Celebrini never got to play in a World Cup. He never got to play in England or Spain or Italy professionally. But his life’s work has helped the Warriors get back to the Finals again.

“It was great to see him just get this wonderful opportunity,” Valentine said. “If he would have remained fit, he easily could have gone to Europe and played. No doubt in my mind. He didn’t reach the top pinnacle of his playing career because of injuries. When he went full-time to physiotherapy, he wasn’t just a guy who wanted to be a physio, making a comfortable living with his family and stuff like that. He wanted to push and challenge himself.”

This season has to be considered Celebrini’s finest work with the Warriors.

Aside from the injuries to the three stars this season, the Warriors have also managed Otto Porter Jr.’s workload as he played his most regular season games (63) since 2017-18. Gary Payton II made a remarkable month-long recovery from a fractured elbow to return in time for Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Challenge accepted for Celebrini, who is one win away from his first ring.