celtics center 1/25

["Ozersky, Joshua A" <OzerskyJA@corning.com>]

A Question of Heart

Celtics fans have not been spared much in the last ten years.  They've seen their greatest hero 
fall, his heir apparent drop dead, and the ship of state driven into an iceberg for the sake of a 
losing gambit.  They have been jeered, melvined, and forced to watch the Lakers rebuild a 
championship squad.  But the one thing we haven't had to deal with is a team we don't 
understand -- until now.

As I write this, the Celtics are an unfathomable position, even by the standards of this strangest
 basketball season of my life.  The team stunk up the league in December, thanks largely to an 
injury to Paul Pierce and a very cruel bit of scheduling.  Neither of those factors excused losses 
to the LA clippers and other beatable teams, nor did it help much when we got Pierce back, 
returned home, and lost games to Chicago and Vancouver.  I threw in the towel after the grizzly
 loss.  I stopped watching the Celtics, unsubscribed to the Celtics email group, and made a 
point of leaving them to their own folly.  I knew of course that this was a head game I was 
playing, and that a few wins would bring me right back on board, with all my fragile, battered 
hopes intact.  And a few wins came!  We won back to back road games against division rivals, 
and then came from fifteen points down in the fourth quarter to beat rival Toronto.  Two nights 
later we blew the Sonics out of the building.  Tommy Heinsohn announced the Celtics as having 
arrived, shaken off their ills, and having put the painful past behind them as breezily as Jim and
 Tammy Baker.  

The math was simple.  We have to be at .500 to have a chance at the playoffs.  We won four in 
a row.  We needed one more win, a road game against the underwhelming Charlotte Hornets.  
Yes, Pierce got hurt again.  Why not just kill him, Basketball God?  What are you waiting for?
  But more to the point, with so much at stake, the team didn't come to play.  They let the 
Hornets walk all over them.  Three nights later, the sleepwalked through a game to Miami, a 
team they know they can beat.  We have got to come to the conclusion that the only guy who 
cares as much as we do about these games is Rick Pitino.  

So now the Celtics are Three Games Under again.  They play Orlando tonight.  If they lose to 
this grabasstic crew of journeymen and nobodies, all of the hard work (and good luck, and 
momentum) of the streak will be lost.  The Celtics will again be down in the hole, and the team's
 attendant seers will all opine about our record in the next night of back to back games on the 
road.  

More importantly, the loyalty of a million henpecked husbands, alcoholic office workers, high school outcasts, and god knows who else will have been betrayed.  I'm not talking about the jerks and gaylords
 who dance for the jumbotron at games.  I mean the true fans.  This is the real event, the seventh or eighth year of 
frustration as we wait for the team to arrive.  The talent is all here.  We have our center.  We 
have our veteran point guard.  We have a shot blocker.  We have Danny Fortson, although we 
don't seem to have the minutes for him yet.  Even with Griffin and Pierce out, we should be able 
to take care of these teams.  (And Pierce needs to take care of his damn body.  Stretch, tape 
up, ice down, whatever).  The excuses won't cut it anymore.  We've seen what the team can do 
when Pierce and Walker both bring their A games, and everyone else shows up ready to play. 
I won't accept anything less, and if the celtics cough up all their recent headway, I will seriously 
consider surrendering this column and all my loyalties to that reckless, heartless group of men. 
 The Celtics have a chance to get out of the dark wood of error.  They are facing another cruel 
western road swing in February which could put them out of the action entirely.  I don't care if 
they lose; I don't even care if they miss the playoffs.  But they have to struggle and compete, 
and put forth the effort that every Celtics team has showed, from the Chris Ford teams to the ML
 Carr teams to the first year Rick Pitino team.  So many cumulative failures and letdowns are 
taking their toll on Celtic nation.  If they don't care, why should we?  Get out and there and fight, 
damn you!  FIGHT!  Make them pay!  We don't deserve anything less, and we demand a whole lot 
more.

Beat Orlando!  Beat Phoenix!  Beat Indiana!  Beat Miami!  Beat Toronto!  

Fight!

Joshua Ozersky
Marketing Communications
Environmental Products Division
Corning Incorporated.
HP-CB-02-C6A
Corning, New York 14831
Phone:  (607) 974-8124
Fax:      (607) 974-2233