For a championship-tested team that appears to be a lock for a top-three spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs, the Boston Celtics have certainly provided a fair share of controversy in the opening weeks of the season. With each passing day, we seem to read another story that implicates Rajon Rondo as being an enigma in the eyes of his teammates and coaches. Strangely, Rondo was rewarded for his mysterious antics earlier this month when the very man who ripped him last offseason, Danny Ainge, offered him with a 5-year, $55 million extension.

In another strange Celtics tale, Glen “Don’t Call Me Big Baby Anymore” Davis broke his hand the night before the Celtics kicked off the season against the Cavs. That even seemed weird by Baby’s standards. His account of the injury started out as a tale of how one of his buddies attacked him. He claimed he broke his hand trying to protect himself. Where it went from there is still a question. Somewhere along the way, Danny Ainge decided Baby would benefit more from hanging around the team over the next six weeks rather than suspending him and watching him mope around on his own. If that seems like enough controversy for a veteran team like the Celtics through the first two weeks, consider the fact that I haven’t even mentioned Kevin Garnett or Rasheed Wallace. Let’s evaluate the key story lines after the Celtics’ first eight games.

Rondo, "I'm better than you." (AP)

The quest for 72 wins: One of Rasheed Wallace’s first predictions after he reported to Celtics training camp in early October was that the Celtics would rival the Chicago Bulls’ record of 72-10 from the 1995-1996 season. That Bulls team’s record — 62 games over .500 — currently stands as the best in NBA history. After the Celtics opened 4-0 last week, even The Boston Globe started running with the 72-10 theme, hypothesizing that it could be possible since the team had outscored its first four opponents by an average of 20 points. Let’s put an end to this talk. For one, the team is old. Not kind of old. Really old. Rasheed Wallace (35 years old), Kevin Garnett (33), Paul Pierce (32) and Ray Allen (34) have a combined 56 years of NBA experience. Here’s what Doc Rivers said Sunday about his team’s victory over the Nets, which happened to be the Celtics’ eighth game in 12 days.

“We can play better,” Rivers said. “We know that, but we’ll take the win right now … I didn’t think we had a lot in the tank. I could see that. That’s why we sat our starters long stretches. I was just trying to milk the game as long as I could get it and then I’d pray at the end that we’d have enough to win it.”

Reminder to Celtics fans: That was a November 8 game against the Nets. And Doc Rivers was worried his starters didn’t have a lot in the tank. There’s no reason for this team to go for 72 wins. If the Celtics win 55, and everyone is healthy at the end of the season, Doc will be thrilled. This team won’t win an NBA title by pushing the pedal to the metal for 82 games. Doc will have to keep his older players’ legs fresh all season. That might mean taking an occasional road loss on the second night of a back-to-back in February.

Is something wrong with Rondo? That seems to be the question of the moment for the Celtics. We’ve heard the story of Rondo organizing a team meeting last year to demand respect from the Big Three. We’ve heard the story of him heckling Chris Paul by saying he’d never win a title. We know Danny Ainge had a problem with his lack of focus last year. There seems to be more than meets the eye when it comes to Rondo. Watch him on the floor, and you’ll say he’s a top-tier point guard who just needs to add a jump shot to be on par with the best. Listen to the stories off the court, and it seems he has an inferiority complex when it comes to his place on his own team, and his place in the NBA pantheon of top point guards. Regardless, 20 teams in the NBA would love to have Rondo as their starting point guard. The question is: would Rondo rather be somewhere else, too? The five-year contraction extension would seem to answer that question, but it’s hard to turn down $55 million when no other team can offer you a deal for another 10 months.

How’s the ‘Sheed experience treating you? Well, he was lights-out in the first six games, hitting 15 of his first 33 3-point attempts. He likely bought himself some good will from Celtics fans who were suspect about the addition heading into the season. Rasheed has been pretty bad of late, hitting only 2 of 17 3-point attempts over the last three games. On the season, he’s averaging 10.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 0.5 blocks — all while shooting 40 percent from the field and 34 percent from 3-point land. Not great numbers, but his teammates really seem to appreciate the way he spreads the floor on offense and protects the basket on defense. The bottom line is he’s Kevin Garnett insurance, and he fills that role better than someone like Mikki Moore or Leon Powe. And while we’re tracking stats, ‘Sheed has three technical fouls in eight games. If he keeps it up, he’ll have 31 technical fouls this season, which would earn him eight one-game suspensions for surpassing the allotted 16 technicals. Tone it down, ‘Sheed. And start canning some 3-pointers.

How is KG doing? It’s tough to tell. He’s putting up serviceable numbers (12.9 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.4 blocks), and Doc really hasn’t removed the governor on Garnett’s engine just yet. We really haven’t seen Garnett take over a game to the point where we could say, “There, he’s back.” But in all fairness, Doc hasn’t played him more than 35 minutes in any of the Celtics’ first eight games. He’s had some good nights (26 points, 8 rebounds vs. the Suns) and some bad ones (3 points, 6 rebounds, 5 turnovers vs. the Sixers). It’s difficult to say if we’re watching something similar to what Tom Brady went through in September or something closer to what Chris Webber went through with the Sixers. At some point, there will be a huge regular season game, Garnett will get caught up in some trash-talking, and we’ll see him push himself to the limit. We’ll have a better idea of what he can do at that time. For now, he looks like he’s getting his bearings.

What will happen with Big Baby when he returns? I thought it was smart of Ainge to opt not to suspend Big Baby. That’s a prime example of knowing your personnel. If he suspended Baby indefinitely, the sensitive big man would have gone into a funk. He would have been nervous about reporting back to the team and having to face the consummate professionals, Garnett and Ray Allen. He would have felt like the Celtics didn’t want him anymore. He might have even requested a trade. Now he’s hanging around the guys. They’re making fun of his stupid cast. He’s laughing. Ainge is even taking subtle jabs at him. Baby can’t wait until he can play again. It went from an awful situation to a pretty good one. They’ll need Baby when he’s healthy. Now he’ll have time to sit back and identify his role. Ideally, he’ll knock down 15-footers on offense and commit five hard fouls per night on the defensive end. More likely, he’ll knock down 15-footers on offense and attempt to commit hard fouls on defense. But he’ll fail to sell them, and he’ll get called for flagrant fouls.

Why does everyone love the bench so much? Because the Celtics have one of those fun-to-watch benches. Most NBA teams have one or two good bench players. So the coach has to substitute one or two players at a time and go entire quarters without having his best five players on the floor. Doc Rivers isn’t afraid to pull all five starters to start the second and fourth quarters. He might take out Kendrick Perkins, Garnett, Pierce, Allen and Rondo and insert Shelden Williams, Rasheed, Brian Scalabrine, Marquis Daniels and Eddie House. And the best part about the five backups is they don’t try to imitate the other unit’s style. They do their own thing. Basically, Rasheed and Eddie House hang out in 3-point land, and the other guys try to draw double-teams and kick it out. When ‘Sheed and Eddie House are knocking down threes, the Garden is a fun place to be.

3 Comments for “Easy on the 72-win talk for C’s”

1. NC Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 9:47 am

   I agree. 72 wins isn’t the goal for this team. It’s not realistic either. Even if everyone stays healthy, their age will show a few times in the 2nd game of back-to-backs. The #1 seed is worth playing for but they’ll give that up if its the difference between being healthy for the playoffs or not.

   Rondo is fine. He’s just a little gassed up on himself and hypercompetitive. As we saw in Springfield a month or two back, these traits can lend themselves to success in the League.

   Also, 13/8 out of KG is pretty solid at this point. I wouldn’t expect too much more from him the rest of the way. He only put up 19/9 two years ago before the injury (while the whole league gushed about his impact), he’s playing less minutes, and Sheed will pick up the scoring void.

2. albe318 Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 9:05 am

   daniels is key for this team, having someone who can spell pierce and allen from time to time will go long ways come april. altho if they keep playing at this rate 72-10 may not be entirely impossible. i agree it shouldnt be the goal for this team. banner 18 is the goal and if this team keeps it up, that goal will be met

3. TheGravy Says:
   November 12th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

   This team is a T-E-A-M: beating Utah by more than 10 points while no player scored more than 16 for the first time since when Heinsohn was playing way back when… what this means is everybody is scoring and everybody is playing defense. BALANCE. And they did it over a good team, a playoff contender in the Western Conference.

   I think they will coast to 65 wins, barring injury to Garnett or (surprisingly) Rondo. Looking at their bench, he’s the least replaceable player on the team.

Leave a Reply