Breaking Down the Celtics

When evaluating the play of the Boston Celtics at the All-Star break, it’s important to recall what Danny Ainge told us to expect from this year’s club following the disastrous 2003-04 campaign: Ainge said that this season the team would be better than last, but they were still at least a couple years away from competing for the Eastern Conference crown.If improving on last year’s team was the goal, we can all admit without any hesitation, mission accomplished.  The C’s are four wins ahead of last year’s pace at the break (27-26 vs. 23-31), are currently over .500 for the season and dare we say it, in first place in the pitiful Atlantic division.  More importantly, this year’s squad appears to be peaking. Last season, the Celtics lost seven of eight games prior to the All-Star break and proceeded to lose the next five following the mid-season game.  The current bunch has won seven of their last ten and, aside from the 24 point shellacking they received a night after sending Walter McCarty to Phoenix, have looked pretty solid of late, even in their losses.

At the same time, one would have to expect that the ‘04-’05 Celtics are superior to the ‘03-’04 version.  The biggest overall reason for that would have to be continuity. Nine days before last season began, Antoine Walker and Tony Delk were shipped out of town. Raef LaFrentz, the key acquisition from the Walker deal, had to shut it down due to season ending surgery after just 17 games. Immediately following a five game win streak, Ainge pulled the trigger on another deal that sent Eric Williams, Tony Battie and Kedrick Brown to Cleveland for Ricky Davis and Chris Mihm. Vin Baker was suspended indefinitely on January 23 after numerous alcohol problems. Finally, on February 19th, the Celtics traded point guard Mike James for Chucky Atkins.  

With all the activity last year, the Celtics had no real hope for a meaningful season, even as they backed into the playoffs with a 36-46 record. To this point, it’s been a very different story in Doc Rivers’ inaugural season as the Celtics’ head coach. For one, the only major player shuffling came in the off-season, as Atkins, Mihm and Jumaine Jones were shipped to LA for Gary Payton and change. McCarty’s send-off to Phoenix was not unexpected, as Walter had pined for a trade just a few games into the season. Unless Ainge has something major up his sleeve, and the possibility of that grows smaller the closer it gets to the February 24th trading deadline, this should be the Celtics team for the remainder of the season.

The other reason the Celtics are performing at a better clip than a year ago is that the talent Ainge has assembled has finally come to play. LaFrentz has come on strong of late after gaining confidence in his surgically repaired right knee, upping both his scoring and rebounding totals. After struggling to knock down his treys early in the season, the forward/center from Kansas has found the range and in doing so he has spread the floor, helping out the rest of the offense. Davis has found his niche as the team’s 6th man while saying and doing most of the right things both on and off the court, and appears to be the new go-to-guy in crunch time. Rookies Tony Allen and Al Jefferson have proven to many other NBA front offices that they should consider revamping their scouting before this summer’s draft. And anyone who doesn’t see Payton’s value doesn’t watch much pro ball.

All of this goes without even mentioning Celtics’ lone superstar, Paul Pierce.  Without a doubt, Pierce is the team’s best player, and has been for the entire season. The offense moves through him and defenses focus on him, making his contributions all the more impressive. However, one of the major reasons for the team’s inconsistency for the first couple months of the season was Pierce’s reluctance to buy into the system.  Last season, after everything went to hell, the offensive sets were as follows: give the ball to Pierce, and hope things work out OK. Most of the time they didn’t, but it still got to be habit forming for Pierce, and he expected the same coming into this year. When Rivers insisted he share the ball with his teammates, Pierce balked and his overall game suffered. At one point, Rivers had to pull Pierce from a game late in the fourth quarter when Pierce refused to run the floor, settling instead for a three-pointer.

Since then, things have run a bit more smoothly. Pierce’s relationship with his coach, while not on the level of say, Norm and Cliff, is still better than Kobe and Phil, or Kobe and Shaq, or Kobe and Karl or Kobe and Philly fans. While his scoring is down slightly, Pierce is once again getting to the free throw line and is slowly learning to trust his teammates and share the ball. Not to go unnoticed is the fact that his shooting from the field is up from 40.2% last season to 44.4%, his second highest percentage since coming into the league, and his defense, an area that was extremely lacking early in the season, has picked up of late.

So it’s clear, the Celtics are better than they were a year ago.  No matter what you think of Ainge, it’s very hard to argue that the trade that brought Davis here was an unmitigated success and it seems that fans may finally be ready to admit that the Walker deal wasn’t so bad after all.  But at the same time, this isn’t what the people in Boston, City of Champions, want, either. After practice last week, LaFrentz was asked about being a game over .500 at the break and he responded, “It is what it is. It’s average.”

LaFrentz is right on in his description of the Celtics. They are average, not championship driven.  Is this a reason to doubt Ainge and his “vision” of the Celtics? Absolutely not. People in this area have become spoiled given the success of the locals. The Sox won it all for the first time in 86 years. The Pats are being fitted for their third ring and Boston College is ranked 6th in the country.  The Green weren’t that good when Danny got here and they’re not that good now. The difference between then and now is the directions those teams were headed. Before the Celtics were on the way down whereas now they’re looking up. Remember, we were told beforehand that the club would be better, but not a contender for a little while longer. The first part came true, shouldn’t we wait to see if Danny was right about part two?