I Interrupt This Blog To Bring You. . .

A Celtics Post!

Yeah, I wasn't sure I had it in me, either, but here goes. I'm not a big Celtics fan. In fact, I've never been a really big Celtics fan. I'm not quite sure how this happened, since I grew up here in the 80s but I actually liked the Pacers for quite a while when Reggie Miller was in his prime. And by prime, I mean when he was taking 10-15 flops a game. I think I liked the fact that he looked like an alien when I was growing up and I thought that was kind of cool. And how could you not like a guy who was so proud to show off his enormous ears?

I also didn't care for the Celtics growing up because I remember going to the Real Garden and having what I thought were pretty good seats. That was until someone took a shot and once it left their hands, the ball disappered above the balcony, only to come back in sight right before the hoop. I don't know why everyone loved that dump so much.

I don't think it helpd the Celtics' cause that Larry Bird's mustache kind of creeped me out. I did always like watching Larry Bird play, only because you knew he was the kind of guy that you might not get the chance to see play very often. And talk about creepy, do you remember Kevin McHale's arms? Those things were down right freaky. I don't like to rip on dead guys, either, but DJ was the kind of guy you'd cross the street to avoid and that's all I'm saying. They just didn't appeal to me so I didn't root for them. Although, I'm not sure how a bald, African American guy who looked like an alien in Indiana appealed to me either.

So, here we are in 2007 and the Celtics are off to their best start in franchise history at 20-2, which gives them a .909 winning percentage and on pace for 75 wins. They're 12-0 at home. They have a 7 1/2 game lead over the second place team, Toronto, in their division. They look like they could coast into the playoffs. The fact that I'm talking about the Celtics to begin with is pretty amazing. The fact that I'm talking about the Celtics and the playoffs is even more amazing. They've basically stunk the last five years and that is a shame because Paul Pierce is a good player and he seems like a good guy, too.

And just so you know, since going down 3-1 to the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots and Celtics are a combined 41-2. That's a pretty remarkable stat. The Sox ran the table on Cleveland and then on Colorado. As you may have heard, the Patriots are 14-0. If you're a Boston sports fan, there have been only two Celtics losses in the past two months to get you down. And in case you're wondering, I don't care about the Bruins. Any team that holds a rally for a player that won the Stanley Cup when they were with another team doesn't deserve to exist. And I hate Jeremy Jacobs and Harry Sinden.

Amazingly, the Celtics have the number one defense in the league, giving up a league best 86.5 points per game. I thought that any team coached by Doc Rivers had to instinctively suck but it appears that his only challenge this year will be making sure that his starters don't play 48 minutes each night. They also score 100.7 points a game. That extra .7 points comes in handy when your average margin of victory is 12. In fact, I didn't even realize that NBA teams still scored more than 100 points a game but there are a few of them out there.

The Celtics have had some bad luck in the past ten or twelve years, with the deaths of Len Bias and then Reggie Lewis. There was also that very dark time called the Rick Pitino era that didn't quite work out the way they drew it up. Back on draft night of this year, it appeared that their bad luck was going to continue when they slid to the number five slot but it turned out to be the best move for them because it allowed them to get the necessary pieces to land Kevin Garnett. I always say it's better to take an up and comer and trade them away for a known commodity. In this case, not having Greg Oden or Kevin Durant worked for the Celtics. And I don't care how good any of the players that they gave up for Garnett turn out to be, I'd do the deal in a second.

Prior to the season, everyone was talking about whether or not this team would gel or if having three superstars (Paul Pierce, Garnett and Ray Allen) would cause major problems. It doesn't appear that there are any problems. Yes, the Eastern Conference is a bit like the National League in baseball. It's hard to judge just how good of a team you are until you play with the big boys- Suns, Spurs, Jazz, Warriors, Lakers and Mavericks. They play their next three at home against the Pistons, Bulls and Magic. Then they go on the road to the Kings, Supersonics, Jazz and Lakers. The upcoming seven games will tell us a lot about this team and how far they've come, how far they still have to go, and how far the could go.

So stay tuned, we may have to start wondering what it would be like to have a duck boat parade in warm weather.