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| C/O Chris Forseberg's twitter. |
So here we are, on March 29, still on the dark side of the moon. The playoffs are just around the corner and the Celtics seem to be spiraling downwards. They are currently 51-22 and tied for the 2 seed come postseason. What makes this worse is that they're losing games to teams they have no business losing to: New Jersey, Charlotte and Indiana, for example. I don't know if they'll be able to catch Chicago for the 1 spot. The Bulls have won 8 of their last 10 and their remaining schedule is a cakewalk. Last night they got their bums handed to them by the Sixers. If the Celtics could have pulled off a win against the Pacers, they would have been 1 game behind Chicago, instead of 2, and they would have been .5 games ahead of Miami, instead of being tied... But they didn't get the win, so it is what it is.
Just for the heck of it, I decided to check out what their record was at this time last season. On March 29, 2010, the Celtics were 47-26. That is a full 4 games behind in the win column from where they are today, and that was a season in which Kendrick Perkins played 101 games in a Celtics uniform (playoffs included). I will not chalk this recent Celtic slump up to the fact that Perk is gone. It's just not that simple. Did it shake things up and have an effect on chemistry? Yes. Are the Celtics kinda standing around scratching their heads and wondering what's going on? Yes. But the Celtics are 27-9 with Shaq in the starting lineup and arguably played their best basketball of the season with him starting. I love Kendrick Perkins and it's sad that he's gone- but I don't think he is the end all, be all. This is a team that's fully capable of getting their legs back under them. You'll recall that they lost a whole bunch of easily winnable games last year, too: New Jersey, Washington, Milwaukee, for example, and those all came at the end of the season, like they are now.
Yesterday I read that Chris Mannix from Sports Illustrated went on WEEI and went on and on about how the Celtics have a "horrible attitude,":
“Imagine before the season if we thought getting into late March, early April, ‘If only Shaq and Jermaine can come back, we’ll be OK for the postseason.’ To me, that’s a horrible attitude to have, if that’s what this team is thinking, that one of those guys can come back and be a difference-maker. Once Shaq comes back, he’ll only play for about two months, and who knows what kind of physical shape he’s in at this stage. And Jermaine has given you nothing all season long, so there’s no reason to believe he’s going to add anything to the equation.”
Wasn't being ready for the end of the season and the playoffs the exact reason they were brought here? It wasn't about what goes on in January and February. It was about May and June. There was always the possibility that Perk wasn't going to be around- except at the time that they made the deals for the O'Neals they were probably thinking because of an injury, and not a trade- but the end result is the same. He's not here. The Celtics were out-sized by LA in the finals. It was and still is about having more bodies come postseason time.
News on Jermaines return after the jump
