If you’re like me you have enjoyed the hell out of these basketball playoffs, which have been awesome, but you also have had a weird, foreboding feeling when the Lakers and Spurs got knocked off by younger, more athletic teams who just wanted it more. I was rooting like crazy for the Mavs and Grizzlies but their upsets of the aging Lakers and Spurs made real Celtic fans a little queasy heading into this epic series against the arguably the hungriest, most athletic team in the playoffs, the Miami Heat.
The queasy feeling was ratched up 18 knotches as soon as Pierce’s fadeaway game-winner clanked off the back iron in game 4 and the C’s had to go to overtime with the much more athletic and energetic Heat squad, who predictably took it to the Celtics in the extra frame. It all goes back to Lebron’s decision last summer. We all immediately crushed Lebron for how horribly he handled it, but in the back of every smart Celtic fans mind was the little voice saying “wait, if that team puts it together, how will we ever beat them 4 times out of 7?”
Fast forward to tonight. Now we don’t have to beat the Heat 4 out of 7, we need to beat them 3 times in a row. With a point guard with one arm. Fuck. Going down 3-1 was an especially bitter pill to swallow because there’s a finality about all this. The shelf life of a NBA dynasty is usually 3-4 years and we’re on year 4 of the big 3 era and our youngest and most athletic player, Rajon Rondo, dislocated his elbow in Game 3.
So is there no hope? No reason to watch tonight? Not so fast. The group of guys in that Celtics locker room understand that in all seriousness this is their last legit shot. They’re not stupid. KG and Ray Ray have one more year in Celtics green after this but the best players on the Heat and Bulls are entering their primes and the best players on the Celtics are exiting theirs. And that’s what makes tonight so huge. Tonight is the key. If they can win tonight in Miami then they come home for game 6. If we know anything about this team - about KG and Pierce and Ray Ray - it’s that they might lose this series, but they’re not losing on their home floor. Pierce won’t let it happen. That takes us to game 7, and anything can happen in game 7, right? Pierce could blow the fuck up for 50 points and will his team to victory. KG could actually outplay Chris Bosh for once. (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence but it’s true, KG has to show up tonight, he just has to). So who knows, but I’m not ready to give up on this team yet, and no I have not already starting take notes on my Celtics obituary blog that would hypothetically focus on the Kendrick Perkins-Jeff Green trade.
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