Alright, I hate to be the one to throw cold water all over your dreams, but someone’s got to do it. Here goes: The Celtics will not win a championship this season. Not one for the Eastern Conference, and certainly not the whole damn thing.Now calm down, everyone. We’re in the middle of a fantastic ride here and by all means we should enjoy every second of what’s become Boston’s favorite franchise (right now, at least). The C’s are playing some inspirational ball and since the re-acquisition of Employee #8, they’ve gone from a sub-.500 club to a powerhouse in the East. The coaching staff looks like they’re doing a sound job, and incredibly, Danny Ainge might even be the front-runner for executive of the year.
Right now, everything is clicking for the green and white. Antoine Walker has stayed on the box and refrained from hoisting numerous treys. Paul Pierce finally looks happy again and is back to playing smart, efficient basketball. Ricky Davis has proven he is much, much more than a headcase and has to be the leading candidate for the Sixth Man of the Year award. Mark Blount appears to have awakened since being benched, and the C’s are getting some production from the rookies and youngsters that fill out the roster. Finally, need we remind you, since Walker’s triumphant return to Beantown, the Celtics have played 12 games, and won 11?
Obviously, things are going great, but we owe it to ourselves to keep things in perspective. Let’s start off with the obvious statement that the Celtics have not faced the toughest competition since beginning their current roll. If you add up the game time record of the Celtics’ opponents over the last 12 games, you get an unimpressive 288-359. Those numbers are not completely accurate, though, because Boston played Charlotte twice. If Charlotte’s record is counted for both games, which it should, the point becomes even stronger, as the combined records of the teams is 300-402. All of this goes without even mentioning that Steve Nash, an MVP candidate, did not play in Boston’s victory over the Suns; while Phoenix is a fine club even without the talented Canadian point guard, their record certainly would not have been nearly as remarkable had he been absent the entire season.
Moving on to a an even more troubling aspect of the team is their woes on defense, specifically in the fourth quarter. Before last Wednesday’s game against Toronto I asked Coach Doc Rivers about their defensive issues. He said to me, “I don’t know if there’s a problem. I don’t know if you’ve looked at our defensive field goal percentage recently.” I responded to him that I had merely looked at the Bobcats scoring 68 points against his club at the half the night before. For that, Doc pointed out that “We’re in the top ten in opponents field goal percentage, and really, our defensive lapses sometimes come because we’re scoring 119 points.” True enough. The Celtics’ opponents’ field goal percentage is 44.3%, tied for tenth in the NBA.
However, after watching his team barely escape from an inferior Toronto team after leading by 16, Doc strolled into the pressroom, looked me squarely in the eye and said “You’re right. We don’t play any defense.”
Given that Doc was nice enough to throw me that bone, I’m not going to turn his tongue-in-cheek statement against him. But the reality is, the Celtics give up an average of 100.1 points per game and have had their hands full stopping almost everyone in the clutch. The Celtics allowed Phoenix to rally to tie the score and send a game into overtime, lost their lone game on a last-second Latrell Spreewell hoop, lucked out when Al Harrington’s foot was on the three-point line at the end of the Hawks game, twice blew two-point leads against Detroit to send a game into overtime and then double-overtime, not to mention how they squandered a 16-point sixteen-point lead against the Raptors. They were also a rimmed-out Kobe Bryant three away from losing to LA, and lucked out when an official didn’t call an offensive foul on Ricky Davis’ game winning basket with 21.1 seconds left against Washington.
But you know what? I’m willing to overlook that. After all, even with all that, they are still 11-1 during the Second Coming of ‘Toine. I’m even going to make the jump and say that the Celtics have a shot of getting by Detroit in the second round of the playoffs. Do I believe they’ll win? No, but I will accept that the argument can be made, especially given that Walker, Pierce, Davis & Co. beat the champs in the double OT thrilla a couple weeks ago. So let’s make that enormous leap of faith and say that they can outlast the Pistons and make it to the conference finals to play the Miami Heat. If that happens, will someone please tell me exactly who on this team is going to stop the man they call Shaq?
Don’t give me the “Raef LaFrentz will take O’Neal to the perimeter with his outside shot” argument. That only answers how the Celtics will get Shaq out of the paint when he’s playing defense and really doesn’t address this question at all. God knows LaFrentz is waaay overmatched against the Big Aristotle. Although Mark Blount’s defense and overall game has picked up since being moved to the bench in favor of Antoine, he’s nowhere near tough enough to take on a 325-pound monster. And no, second-year center Kendrick Perkins is not ready to play more than 15 minutes a game against the big guy. Oh, and don’t tell me that Detroit was able to hold Shaq in check in the finals last year with only single coverage. When the Celtics have a big guy that’s even a fraction of the defensive player that is Ben Wallace, then we’ll talk.
By the way, besides Shaq, the Heat have some kid named Dwyane Wade who I’m told is a pretty good player in his own right. Stopping those terrible two is going to prove to be impossible for the current version of the Celtics.
All of this is not to say that the Celtics aren’t good. They’ve already proved to me that they’re one of the best teams in the league. But they’re not the best and that’s the bottom line. When it comes right down to it, though, the fact that there’s even an argument less than a month after watching this squad limp out of Denver with a record below .500 is incredible. As I said, enjoy the ride.