Filed under: Boston Celtics
To make the playoffs. Simply said that should be the biggest goal of the Boston Celtics this year. Yes it sounds obvious and very un-prophetic, but it is important. I think we can all agree that this is not our year. I think it is also safe to say that this could be what is considered in sports a ‘rebuilding year’. So as fans we need to look at the small successes. Really put everything in perspective. I am sure if we drop a few more games out of that eighth playoff spot then it might be easier to start rooting for a draft pick. At least it might be a little better on our sanity. Nothing is worse than having a lame-duck season that ends without a playoff berth or a top ten first round draft pick. However there is one reason to root for the 2005-06 Celtics team to succeed and that reason exists in two words: Playoff Experience.
We could have a million excuses and justifications for why we didn’t make the post-season. But when it comes down to it, it would be much more beneficial for this team to participate in the playoffs. For one thing it would be a small victory in and of itself. If this team continued to battle and then ended up beating out other teams for the final play-off spot, believe it or not it would show a lot of character. Simply making the playoffs would be an accomplishment for this team. However everyone on the planet would probably admit we would not make it past the first round. Which in all honestly would not be the worst thing in the world. Then we could start issuing our excuses. They are incredibly young, they are just learning to play with each other, blah, blah, blah.
The best thing about making the playoffs, however, would be that it would give the younger guys on the team a taste of the postseason and the feel of a truly competitive atmosphere separate from the day to day grind of the regular season. It would give them motivation to get back as well. And, perhaps most importantly, it would give them another notch on their totem pole of experience and would truly be their ‘coming of age’ experience in the NBA. So in two or three years when (hopefully) this rebuilding experiment does pan out and Ainge’s young’ens grow up a little and put together a competitive team that could be dangerous in the playoffs, no one on TBS or NBC will pull out some grotesque statistic that states that “only two players on this 2007-08 Celtics team has playoff experience.”
I know as much as anyone that watching this team can be maddening. They’re more inconsistent than a bipolar weatherman and sometimes seem about as old as Freddy Adu’s younger siblings. But there have been flashes of brilliance. And with a team that is anchored by a perennial all-star having a career year, there is hope in the horizon of Celtics basketball. No one is expecting them to end this year with champagne and cigars. But a playoff berth might be just as valuable. And for a team that is only a couple games out of that last playoff spot, its enough for this fan not to quit on them just yet.
theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com
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