Being NBA champions means more than receiving some jewelery and a cool banner
ceremony. It also means being referred to as the defending champion Boston
Celtics (really, I love that part), receiving endless media attention and
playing in front of capacity crowds at home and on the road. It also means
facing the best shot of each of the league's other 29 teams on a more regular
basis than ever before.
The Celtics play in Boston, a city known for both its rabid fans and
scrutinizing media no matter the team's record, and they were accustomed to
plenty of full houses last season. But while there was plenty of hype around
the team a season ago, there were also a few Quentin Richardson types out
there, maintaining that the C's hadn't won anything of consequence yet
(during last season, this was true). Now, Richardson seems to be the only
one left believing that the Celtics haven't "done anything." This team isn't
just an intriguing mix of superb individual talents who haven't won rings
anymore. These are the champions, which makes them by definition the
reigning standard-bearers for top-tier basketball in this league. As a
recent discussion with TrueHoop's Henry Abbott reminded me, that means
something very different from "lots of media hype" on the calendars of the
teams around this league.
It's become my understanding from watching enough interviews over the years
(and using intuition), that with the possible exception of the aforementioned
swingman from the Sizable Apple, it is going out and getting that ring that
is the surest ways for players to earn respect from their peers in this
league. Makes fairly obvious sense. But with that respect comes an
understanding that this is the level the other teams need to be at, that
these are the guys who everyone else needs to knock off.
And that's what makes the bull's-eye on this team's back larger than the one
it had last season. There is no questioning the Celtics' credibility as the
reigning champs, which means that beating them is as high a validation as
other teams can gain on a nightly basis during the regular season. In a
league in which the season is a marathon rather than a sprint and teams and
players regularly appear to not be all that interested on certain nights,
this makes all the difference in the world. There is a special high to
taking down the champs, to beating the best.
Even more so than the other top-tier teams in the league that the Celts are
likely to see come springtime, during the regular season it is the mediocre
and bottom-feeding squads whose intensity really seems to rise against the
champs. I write these next couple of sentences with the necessary awareness
of someone likely coming off as an arrogant fan of a championship team, but
that's sincerely not my intention: The truth is that for teams like the
Warriors, the Bobcats and the Knicks, there isn't a greater end coming this
season than winning a game against the Celtics. These are teams that most
likely aren't making it to the playoffs, and if by some odd confluence of
circumstances they do, they aren't likely to be there too long. There is a
reasonable chance that this will be the highlight of those teams' 2008-09
campaign. Again, that's no potshot: For example, I fortunately do not have
too many clear memories of the 36-win 1997-98 Celtics. But I can tell you
all about siting home on Halloween night and watching the Celtics open the
season by storming back from somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 points down
to top the reigning champion Bulls in a nationally televised season opener,
92-85. It was a downhill from there that season, but I'll never forget our
boys upsetting MJ and the two-time defending trophy winners.
Everywhere the Celtics go right now, they are heading into buildings full of
fans who want this game to make their season, and they are visiting hosts
ready to throw everything they have in the tank at them. There is something
to be said for being pushed to play at the level of one's competition, and
the Celtics have seen that from many of their supposedly lower-tier
opponents. Stephen Jackson, Ray Felton, Adam Morrison and the entire non-Roy
portion of the Blazers come to mind, to name just a few. The Knicks, a team
not known for their defensive effort, came out with perhaps their most
concerted performance of the year at that end against the Celtics.
Teams are geared up to play the champs, and that makes a particularly large
difference considering when one considers a big part of what made this such a
dominant regular season team last year: intensity.
A brief flashback: Back on the second day of November 2007, the Celtics
opened a new era at home against the Washington Wizards. Watching this game
on ESPN from more than 1,100 miles away, I became a fireball of energy wound
up from years of bad basketball and a six-month off season. I literally
spent the night jumping off my walls, pounding on doors and tables and
screaming after every basket. My close friend Mays stopped by during the
second quarter and made it through all of ten minutes before he couldn't take
it anymore. He left with this parting warning: "Neither you nor your team
can keep this kind of energy up through 82 games."
But much to Mays' surprise (and he has admitted as much since), the team and
its fans did exactly that. There is no doubt that the Celtics were one of
the league's supremely talented teams last season. But what made them that
extra notch above everybody else in the regular season was that they simply
seemed to be trying harder every night out. Every game was life and death,
every loss an affront to KG and Paul and Ray and everyone else's very being.
The 2007-08 Celts likely went from being a team that could have had a
better-than-very-good record to a team that had a great one simply because
they wanted it more, and their intensity was rarely matched.
It was my contention last year that part of the early trouble in the playoffs
resulted from the fact that everyone picks up the intensity when the
postseason starts. The Celtics might not have been prepared for that jolt
initially, particularly from the Hawks. This season, it seems that the
Celtics are getting nearly every opponent's A-effort each time out. That
makes it tougher to win on a night-to-night basis, and even the wins come at
more draining costs, which increase the team's fatigue for the games ahead
onthe schedule. It also makes it more likely that the team will win a few
less of the types of games it won last year, when it didn't play particularly
well but carried itself to the 'W' simply by outworking opponents. Part of
that intensity edge has diminished, not because the team's intensity has
fallen off that much but because everyone else's is up when the Celts come to
town. That the Celts' level may have declined a bit as well is reasonable,
too. It's difficult enough to do what this team did through 82 games a
season ago over the course of one year. Coming off of the ultimate glory and
doing that again for another full year is almost impossible. A letdown is
natural, and to some extent, the energy level this team has maintained on the
year as a whole (not just the recent slump) has been impressive.
This is all, it should be noted, observation and not excuse. The Celtics are
still as talented as just about any team in the league, and they still have
the capacity to maintain the insane intensity level that they did a season
ago. Further, and this can't be stressed enough, none of this is to say that
the Celtics are slumping suddenly solely because other teams are trying
harder. As of right now, this Celtics team isn't as good as the one from
last year. That makes sense given that the team lost two major pieces from
the title run (including one who was around and involved throughout the
regular season), and the bench has been a disappointment. This is still one
of the best teams in the league, and it's a team with the potential to be the
one standing at the end once more. Being a couple of games off the pace of a
group that won 66 games and had better personnel a season ago is nothing to
be ashamed of. There are clear flaws on this team that need to be fixed
(perhaps by the players and coaching staff, perhaps by the front office), and
this team doesn't have its eight losses just because the other 29 teams are
coming at the Celts harder than they were last year.
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
◆ From: 218.163.155.209