To describe the Boston Celtics as enigmatic would be like calling Metta World Peace of the Los Angeles Lakers a little loco. The Celts are turning in a truly head-scratching season, and the only certainty is that absolutely nobody knows where they’ll finish in the standings at season’s end.
Just two and a half weeks ago, the Celtics snapped an embarrassing six-game losing streak by stunning the defending champion Miami Heat in double overtime. What made the victory so impressive was that it was the first full game without Rajon Rondo, who is out for the season with a torn ACL.
With the all-star point guard running the ship, the guys in green were consistently inconsistent. The team managed to string together a four-game losing streak immediately followed by a six-game winning streak and then a six-game losing streak.
After Rondo went down, experts and fans expected the ownership to blow up the non-contending team to prepare for the future. Old grizzled vets Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett had different thoughts as they led the team on a seven-game winning streak without him. A streak that ended with a woeful loss to the Charlotte Bobcats, a team would would probably finish fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Confused? So am I.
Aside from the loss to Charlotte, the Celtics recent win streak sans Rondo has been the most interesting. How can a team lose its best player and play its best basketball? Though Rondo is a point guard and therefore dominates the ball, he’s a distributor and leads the league in assists. He’s also a good defender and rebounder.
His attributes make it almost mind-boggling that the Celtics have not gone into an all-out freefall since his diagnosis. Teams are sometimes better off without lazy, greedy or selfish scorers not all-star, all-around, awe-inspiring point guards.
Yet somehow the team has come together in the loss of its star player. The wins didn’t come by way of a soft schedule as it included victories against the Heat, Nuggets, Lakers and Clippers. It seems as if somehow Garnett and Pierce remembered they had boss-game capabilities. They were also able to ‘rally the troops’ and get guys like Jeff Green, Jason Terry and Avery Bradley to step up their game and levels of contribution in Rondo’s absence.
Also, as strange as it seems, the injury has forced the Celtics to work harder to create opportunities for each other instead of waiting for Rondo to create opportunities for them. Much like in Michael Jordan’s heyday when teammates would sometimes sit back and wait for him to make a great shot, the Celtics may have fallen into the trap of moving around and waiting for Rondo to give them a great pass to put them in a solid scoring position. Now the players are forced to work together to create shot opportunities and so far it’s worked. Or has it?
The team has already proven itself to be very streaky. Dropping one to the Bobcats could simply be the result of tired legs after winning an overtime game at home the night before then high-tailing it to Charlotte still half asleep. Or it could be a sign of the ever-swinging pendulum taking the Celtics back to the side of mediocrity and bad basketball.
Should management keep the team together and the players hold on to the current playoff position, they’re certainly not a title contender. Yet they have potentially enough experience and star power left to serve up an upset special to one of the top Eastern Conference foes. Of course, that’s a big if.
The uncertainty around the Celtics makes them one of the more interesting teams to watch heading into the All-Star break and the trade deadline. Will they be buyers or sellers? Contenders or pretenders? Studs or scrubs? Honestly, just like the enigmatic St. Louis weather, it’s likely they will be all of the above, depending on which day or week you’re watching.
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