Boston Sports Then and Now

State of the Green with Jessica Camerato.

Jessica Camerato from WEEI.com, was nice enough to answer some of my Celtics questions and hot topics.  We touch upon the playoff series with the Heat, ‘Sheed, and the future of the Green.

Be sure to check out Jessica’s blog,  Green Street on WEEI.com.

BST&N: The Celtics have not lived up to expectations this season. What would now be considered a successful 2010 for the C’s? 2nd round exit? EC Finals? Finals? Banner 18?

Jessica Camerato: The Celtics don’t play basketball to win division titles or make it as far as the Eastern Conference Semifinals, like they did last year. Regardless of how they performed during the regular season, this team was built to win another championship. That has remained their goal the entire season.

JC: Rasheed Wallace has been disappointing during the regular season, so the true test will be in the postseason. If he can make a positive impact in the playoffs, that could change his mark on the season. But that’s a big if.

There's no cure for this. Not even old-school penicillin.

I didn’t watch the Celtics get completely outplayed by the Wizards in another home loss on a Friday night against a supposedly  much-inferior team. I didn’t watch them get polished off by the Knicks on Tuesday, either. For someone who writes about the Celtics, I admit that I don’t watch them much. It’s not because I didn’t pay my cable bill. It’s not because I’d rather watch the Sox – although I would, and I did. It’s because I can’t take it anymore.

As human beings, we develop (sometimes) meaningful and lasting relationships with other people throughout the course of our lives. Some of them last, some of them don’t, c’est la vie. As fans, we develop meaningful and lasting relationships with our favorite teams, and they almost always last – through relocation, through bad ownership, through strikes and lockouts and through quarter-, mid- and three-quarter-life crises. Some of those relationships are thrust on us, usually due to family tradition or geographic proximity – I grew up in Syracuse, and the SU men’s basketball team will always be my favorite team in any sport, ever. Some of them are misinformed decisions we make on our own, like when someone opts to root for a hockey team in Phoenix or baseball team in Toronto.

Here’s the problem. If we’re friends with a person and they change, we can walk away. If we’re dating someone and they do something we don’t like, we can leave them behind. That isn’t really a luxury we reserve with our favorite teams. If they change, we have to roll with it. If they grow a tumor (or sign one in free agency), we have to believe the rest of the team can pull through it. If ownership make a decision we don’t like, we can complain about it on message boards, call-in radio shows or Twitter, but we generally go back and root for the same team. And even if that team chronically underperforms, every time they suit up to play another game, we’re left thinking, “this is gonna be the one that turns it all around.” It’s an inherent truth in sports. It’s written in stone. It’s unchanging. No matter how bad a team is, fans will always approach a new game thinking “this is the one.”

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Expect to see a lot of this look as the Celtics get older the next month

Not sure if you’ve seen it or not, but ESPN has a lot of free time on their hands and created this NBA playoff simulator – in order to further aid our counterproductive tendencies as a sports-loving people (this is the same ESPN who created the NBA trade machine and if you can honestly tell me that you haven’t spent at least the better part of an afternoon at work trying to figure out how to get LeBron in green, you need to see a therapist or a priest).

As it stands, the Cs are 4^th in the east, on a one-way track for the upstart Bucks. Well, I ran the simulator, and although their chances of beating Milwaukee are listed at 73%, the Green did the definitely-not-unthinkable and lost.

All year, we’ve heard about how they’re just getting ready for April.

All year, we’ve heard that they just need to get healthy and they’ll be fine.

Well, it’s April. And they’re healthy.

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Celtics 3-0

The Celtics have started out very strong, going 3-0.

Beating teams by an averages of 22 points, the Celtics have shown us that they are still the team to be reckonedwith in the East– possibly the league. KG’s, over-scrutinized (yes– I’m guilty of it too), return to action has shown to be successful thus far. Though Garnett (13 ppg, 7 rpg) is still not in game shape, his impact just being on the floor, is overwhelming opponents.

Rasheed Wallace (9.3 ppg, 3.7 rpg) is a great fit. He is raining down shots from downtown (it seems) on every possession. Most impressive is the team’s defense, holding opponents to 79 points and 38 percent shooting. The combo attack of Wallace, Garnett and Perkins has devastated opponents with help defense, talk defense and the refusal to allow opponents to get easy buckets. Length, strength and depth on the front line is certainly not an issue for this year’s team.

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KG and Sheed are already making their defensive presence felt.

Yes, it’s early. Only two games have been played in this infant 2009-10 season but the Celtics have made a statement thus far. This team will not be scored upon or give up easy baskets.

Through two games, the C’s have kept their opponents to 36 percent shooting, 22 percent three point shooting and forced 17 turnovers per game. Talking on defense has dominated the front line of Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins and new comer Rasheed Wallace.

Boston’s ‘SOS’ style of defense is not a concept endorsed by most teams in the league as a priority. Though “help defense” is a fundamental of basketball, the mentality taught by most coaches is, responsibility to your man first, if all else fails– help.

Doc Rivers and Tom Thibodeau have ingrained the idea that “all defenders are responsible to each other FIRST”.  An impression that has been effective and lasting for the Celtics. This mind frame has spilled over into every aspect of the player’s culture and is exemplified through the team motto of “ubuntu”.

After the Celtics routing of the Bobcats on Wednesday night, Doc Rivers discussed the team’s defense, telling reporters,

“I thought it was terrific. What did you think? I thought it was great. I thought, obviously, very active early. Tons of deflections. We keep that number and it was extremely — as high as you can possibly probably get it at halftime. And I thought we carried it over, contested starts. Last two nights, I thought it has been absolutely wonderful.”

After the same game, team captain, Paul Pierce added,

“We always stress hot hands, and when we’re able to get in the passing lanes, force turnovers, get out on a break– it makes things easier when your doing those things.”

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Paul Pierce and the C's pushed past LeBron and Cavs in the opener.

The Celtics finally broke a losing streak that loomed over their heads at the Qfor 5 years. In the opening quarter the C’s again seemed to be caught in the glare of the Q’s pregame pyrotechnics.

The Cavs ran out to an early 17-4 lead and the Cleveland crowd erupted into early MVP chants, seeming to release their pent up frustrations from last years, surprising playoff loss to the Magic.

As the teams settled down and the emotions of opening night faded away, the real matchup started. The Celtics exploited the weaknesses of the Cavs and LeBron’sfamiliar solo act  became apparant, showing that the addition of Shaquille O’Neal had not changed much early on for this team. Possibly more apparent then the addition of Shaq, was the subtraction of Delonte West — still out with depression issues.

It may be a new year and the Cavs may have added Shaquille O’Neal but LeBron was still on his own offensively. James’ 38 points led all scorers. The rest of the Cavs starters scored just 41 points combined, proving not much has changed for the Cavs in a season.

What was more impressive was the play of the Celtics second unit, out-scoring the Cavs reserves, 28-10. Doc Rivers went to his bench with 4:54 remaining in the first. Rasheed Wallace made his debut in green (white actually), nailing his first shot attempt. Wallace, one of the early candidates for sixth man of the year (is it too soon to discuss awards? lol), scored 12 points in 23 minutes. Sheed, sporting an afro, played excellent defense, grabbed 3 rebounds and his presence was most felt when teamed with Garnett on the defensive end as they talked with every squeak of the sneaker.

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