Remember Larry Bird? How 'bout Kevin McHale? OK, now try Robert Parish. Put those three players together and you'll get a pretty good picture of what the Boston Celtics used to be. It's called the 'Glory Days', folks - and unfortunately for Boston Celtics fans, those days are loooong gone.
With their recent loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves - which marked their 18th straight - the Celtics are in jeopardy of breaking the NBA's all-time record for consecutive losses of 24. Star Paul Pierce, who recently returned to the team from an injury, summed up the Celtics' emotion right now fairly well.
"You can feel it in the locker room, each loss definitely hurts," Pierce said. "These guys are going to keep playing hard. We just need to get it out of our head."The saddest part about this Boston team though is that they have talent. It may be wasted talent and it may be overrated, but its talent nonetheless. And in professional sports nowadays, there is little to no excuse for a team with even the tiniest amount of talent to lose 18 straight games...especially in the NBA. Blame the star player (Paul Pierce), or the coach (Doc Rivers), or whoever else you want (I picked Sebastian Telfair, only because I hated his ESPN documentary). In the end, it comes down to chemistry. This Celtics team simply doesn't have any.
Back in the day, the Celtics exemplified team chemistry. Bird was a star, yes, but was McHale? Not really. Was Parish? No, but he was tall. These guys simply worked well together, they played as a team. Hell, they even had Bill Walton at one point. Toss in guys like Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson and Dee Brown and its still a wonder how this team played so well together throughout the 80s and into the early 90s. To put it simply, Pierce is going to have to play the hand he's been dealt and do his best impersonation of Larry Bird.
Luckily for Boston, their next game is against the Milwaukee Bucks, not exactly a perennial powerhouse in the NBA. However, if the Celtics can't pick up a win there, they'll have to pull out a miracle in one of their five...count 'em five...West Coast matchups against either the Kings, Suns, Lakers, Jazz or Rockets.
These guys just can't catch a break, can they?
7 comments:
Boston should just write off this season, and hope and pray they get the No. 1 pick in the draft this summer. With the top pick, they could go for Oden, Durant, or Noah. I'd say go for Oden because a frontline of Oden, Al Jefferson and Paul Pierce isn't too shabby.
As for the rest of the season, they did get Pierce back Sunday so maybe this streak will be snapped before it reaches even more epic proportions. Poor Doc Rivers.
That's true, Pierce should help them out a bit and drafting Oden or one of those two other players would help them immensely. It's just still so pathetic to see this team play what they think is basketball. I don't really know what you would call it.
People always used to talk about the "Curse of the Bambino" when it came to the Red Sox. But one has to wonder whether the CELTICS are truly the cursed team. Let's review:
1) Boston's #1 draft pick in 1986, Len Bias, overdoses at a party shortly after the NBA draft.
2) Kevin McHale's body breaks down about 3-4 years before it should have, which contributes to Bird's body doing the same.
3) Celtics star Reggie Lewis dies of a heart ailment just as the team is re-tooling for the mid-90's.
4) Paul Pierce nearly gets killed in a bar brawl.
5) Boston hires Rick Pitino and Doc Rivers as coaches within a 10-year period.
6) Top draft picks such as Acie Earl, Eric Montross, and Eric Williams all end up as colossal busts, while players like Chauncey Billups and Antoine Walker don't live up to their hype until well after they've left for less green pastures.
Very, very little has gone right for the Celtics since their last title, which was so long ago that Brent Musberger was still the lead broadcaster for CBS. Some of it has been mismanagement, some of it has been sheer bad luck.
It's hard for me to drum up much sympathy for teams like the Celtics or the Bulls when they fall on hard times, though. I'm certain that Celtics fans weren't sparing any thoughts for the misfortunes of other teams while they were running off those consecutive titles in the 60's.
Wow, what do you know - the Celtics actually won...and by 20 points too. Did Larry Bird start tonight?
they beat the bucks. lets not get too pumped bout that
Hey, at this point, a win is a win for the Boston Celtics. It's like cheering for the little kid that just learned to ride their tricycle. It's still fun though.
I agree with you that the Celtics have some talent on the team, but the problem is that the talent level of the Guards/Small Forwards is so close that Coach Rivers does not have a steady lineup. Before Tony Allen went down with a season ending injury, the Celts had 8 players playing for 3 positions (PG, SG, SF). Tony Allen, Rajon Rondo, Sebastian Telfair, Paul Pierce, Wally Szczerbiak, Gerald Green, Delonte West,and Allan Ray.
It would be tough for any team to find chemistry with a rotation like that because besides Pierce no one is guaranteed steady minutes from game to game.
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