~ Celtics: The Playoff Joke
Jim Donaldson: The only place Celts should be headed is home 01:00 AM EDT
on Thursday, April 15, 2004 Clear your throat. Loosen up those vocal
chords. Prepare not to cheer, but to do your best high-pitched imitation
of former Colts coach Jim Mora. Ready? Here we go: "Playoffs? Don't talk
to me about playoffs. Are you kidding me? Playoffs?" We're talking today
about playoffs. But of the NBA -- not NFL -- variety. Which, in New
England, results in the same sort of exasperation and incredulity
expressed so emotionally, if not exactly eloquently, by Mora back in 2001,
after Indianapolis lost for the fourth time in five home games and he was
asked about postseason possibilities. The Celtics are in the playoffs? Are
you kidding me? Playoffs? They just finished the regular season five games
under .500. When you're five games under .500 you shouldn't be going to
the playoffs, you should be putting the balls in the rack and going home
for a long, not-so-hot summer. Playoffs? Are yo!
u kidding me? Playoffs? The Celtics don't deserve to be in the playoffs.
Then again, neither does anybody else in the woeful Atlantic Division,
except the New Jersey Nets. The C's slipped into the playoffs through the
back door, even though they have the sort of team that ought to be shooed
off the back porch. Or, if you prefer, swept off. Speaking of sweep,
that's almost certainly what Indiana, the top seed in the Eastern
Conference, will do to bumbling Boston this weekend. Playoffs? Are you
kidding me? Playoffs? The Celtics head into the playoffs having lost five
of their last six. Which, by the standards of the substandard C's isn't
all that bad. After all, the Celtics won the grand total of exactly one
game between Jan. 23, when they defeated Washington, and Feb. 27, when
they beat Toronto. Starting with a loss at New Jersey Jan. 25, the Celts
dropped 13 of 14, their only win coming at Philadelphia on Feb. 7. For
those scoring at home, that's five weeks and one victory.!
Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? There's this sneaky f!
eeling t
hat no one is more surprised than Dealin' Danny Ainge, the Celts', ahem,
executive director of basketball operations, to see the C's in the
playoffs. At least this year. Boston made it to the Eastern Conference
semifinals last year, after reaching the conference finals in 2002. But
Ainge determined that was as far as the team, as constituted, was ever
going to go. So he decided it was necessary to take a step -- Several
steps? A giant leap? -- backward in order to eventually -- Hopefully?
Miraculously? -- add another championship banner to the 16 already hanging
from the rafters at the FleetCenter. None of which, of course, was won
there. They all date from the glory days of the old Boston Garden. Both
that building and those days are long gone. As Rick Pitino, himself now
back in the college ranks where he belongs, once pointed out: Larry Bird,
Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish are not going to be walking through the
door. Instead, Ainge shoved star forward Antoine Walker out!
the door last October, along with Tony Delk, trading them to Dallas for
Raef LaFrentz, Chris Mills, Jiri Welsch and the Mavs' No. 1 pick in 2004.
LaFrentz wound up playing just 17 games for Boston, averaging less than 8
points and 5 rebounds a game, before being placed on the injured list for
the remainder of the season following knee surgery. Mills was traded in
February, along with Mike James, as part of a three-way deal with Detroit
and Atlanta that brought Chucky Atkins, Lindsey Hunter, and another
first-round pick this year to Boston. By that time, coach Jim O'Brien was
long gone. He quit in frustration (although the officially-approved
phraseology of the reason for his resignation was "philosophical
differences") in January, a month after Ainge had traded Eric Williams,
Tony Battie and Kedrick Brown to Cleveland in exchange for Ricky Davis,
Chris Mihm, Michael Stewart and the Cavs' 2nd-round pick this year.
Consequently, the Celts are heading into the playoffs -- Pla!
yoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? Not with a head coach, bu!
t with o
nly an interim coach, John Carroll, who had been O'Brien's assistant. When
O'Brien left, the C's were 22-24, which was good enough for second place
in the dreadful Atlantic division. Under Carroll, the Celts have gone
13-22 and finished fourth out of seven. And how did the Celtics finally
clinch their playoff spot? Fittingly, they did it while losing four in a
row on the road, including defeats at the questionable hands of the woeful
Washington Wizards, winners of 25 games this season and the awful Atlanta
Hawks, who included 3 wins over Boston among their paltry total of 28. The
Celts will, however, have a coach on the floor for their first, and almost
certainly last, playoff series of 2004. They've activated 37-year-old Dana
Barros, the former Boston College standout who hasn't played in two years,
for the opening, best-of-7 series with Indiana. Barros has been sitting on
the Boston bench for the last month as an assistant. Now, he'll come off
the bench if the C's need hel!
p at guard in the playoffs. And we're supposed to be excited to be
excited about these playoffs? Are you kidding me?
~ Mark Stein
ESPN
Danny Ainge always says he's not going to listen to the fans or the media
during his reconstruction of the Boston Celtics and Glen Grunwald is
Exhibit A to back that stance. Grunwald did exactly what the Toronto
public -- and Vince Carter -- demanded a few summers back by re-signing
Antonio Davis, Jerome Williams and Alvin Williams to big contracts. Those
signings convinced Carter to commit to the Raptors long-term.
Look what all that got Grunwald.
Carter's constant struggles with injuries have made it impossible to count
on him as a franchise player. Grunwald was then forced to take on another
expensive contract (Jalen Rose) to move out Davis and Junkyard Dog. His
successor, as a result, will inherit one of the league's top 10 payrolls.
In spite of the existing talent on the roster, and there is some, more
than one general manager we've asked about the Toronto job tends to
scrunch up his face in an expression that translates to: "That mess isn't
going to be easy to fix."
That said ... if Ainge has made a mistake so far, it was trading 'Toine
too soon. Because of the modern-day marketplace, where only the
unquestionably elite players get the megamillions now, Walker has been
saying all season that he will not opt out of the final year of his
contract. Meaning that, as he enters that final season at $13.6 million,
Walker becomes a trade asset. Teams will inevitably want his expiring
contract, which threatens to invalidate Ainge's argument that he couldn't
have gotten more for 'Toine than Raef LaFrentz and Jiri Welsch.
~ Ainge's Celtics Can't Even Tank Right
Mark Cardinal - Bentley Vanguard
Reader Warning: You may want to avert your eyes from these numbers. 35-46,
.423 winning percentage, 18-22 at home, 17-24 on the road. 23-30 within
the conference. Losers of five straight. You must be asking yourself, what
poor lottery team in the NBA has had such an atrocious season? However,
what's sadder than these numbers is that the team with this record is
making the playoffs! How is that possible! For the remaining faithful out
there, you already realize that this record belongs to none other than
your Boston Celtics.
The Celtics are so bad they cannot even tank a season right. The biggest
loser in all of this is Danny Ainge. He did everything within his power to
strip the team of all its talent and send it into the lottery. It's a
shame the Eastern conference was not capable of cooperating with the
wishes of the Celtics. For the long-term future of the Celtics franchise,
this is probably the worst thing that could have happened. They are
backing into the playoffs as losers of five straight only to march to
their doom against the only elite team in the conference, the Indiana
Pacers. For all the Celtics fans out there who are happy they made the
playoffs, plenty of others will enjoy the nuking the Celtics are about to
receive. It will be over in 4.