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Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen are not walking through that door — at least not together or accompanied by Rajon Rondo and Doc Rivers. Yet the Boston Celtics have still found a way to become a thorn in the side of the Miami Heat.
If pundits are being honest, no one would have predicted that the scrappy Beantown bunch would be one of the hottest teams in the league, let alone their own Eastern Conference. However one look at the standings and it is clear that the current No. 3 seed is literally outshooting everyone’s expectations. Not only are the Celtics the fourth highest scoring team in the NBA (106 PPG), but they sport a top 15 defense and control the boards with 49 per game — good enough for a sixth place ranking.
Not bad for a superstar-less team of players all under the age of 30 and sharing the one career All-Star nod on the roster in the form of this year’s selection of Isaiah Thomas.
Fans can thank management for not messing up the roster with a deadline deal for Dwight Howard. They can thank them even more for hiring a coach like Brad Stevens, who has Boston competing every night the same way Tom Thibodeau did in Chicago with whoever he had on the court.
But with the Chicago Bulls out of the way, the Celtics have jumped back into the picture as tormentors. Their 2-0 status against the Heat this season has made it harder for Miami to jump up a spot to assure themselves that dodging a second round matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers is possible. It could all come down to the last game of the season between the two to see who escapes the early wrath of LeBron James. And it could all get worse next year if Danny Ainge uses Boston’s free agency money to sign a player of Al Horford’s caliber and get a lucky ping-pong bounce from the Brooklyn Nets’ first-round pick and turn it into LSU’s talented freshman forward Ben Simmons.
Miami could have more basketball problems on the horizon.
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