Celtics go 5-0

The Celts have run out to a quick lead, not surprising with all of their
veteran star players. They beat the Nets last night, but I still pick the
Nets to win the division and the Celts to fall back to earth as the season
progresses. The boxscore in last night's Celtics win over the Nets provides
a clue why this will happen. Pierce played 40 minutes. Garnett played 43
minutes. Ray Allen played 48 minutes, never leaving the floor the whole
game!
These guys are all in their 30's. They have to play minutes like this
because the Boston bench stinks to high heaven, most of it having been
gutted in the off-season to acquire Garnett. Can they all play 40+ minutes
a game in February? Seems dubious here. The oldsters are going to wear
down as the season moves forward, with risk of injury increasing
commensurate with all the minutes played. Even if all three manage to stay
healthy, which has to be unlikely, they are going to get just plain tired
and productivity will suffer accordingly.

----- Kurt Straub

On Nov 11, 6:09 am, "Kurt Straub" <jkurtstr....TakeThisOut@comcast.net> wrote:
> The Celts have run out to a quick lead, not surprising with all of their
> veteran star players. They beat the Nets last night, but I still pick the
> Nets to win the division and the Celts to fall back to earth as the season
> progresses. The boxscore in last night's Celtics win over the Nets provides
> a clue why this will happen. Pierce played 40 minutes. Garnett played 43
> minutes. Ray Allen played 48 minutes, never leaving the floor the whole
> game!
> These guys are all in their 30's. They have to play minutes like this
> because the Boston bench stinks to high heaven, most of it having been
> gutted in the off-season to acquire Garnett. Can they all play 40+ minutes
> a game in February? Seems dubious here. The oldsters are going to wear
> down as the season moves forward, with risk of injury increasing
> commensurate with all the minutes played. Even if all three manage to stay
> healthy, which has to be unlikely, they are going to get just plain tired
> and productivity will suffer accordingly.

I think the Nets game was more of an anomaly as all three players were
having minutes squarely around the mid-30s in most of the previous
games. This game was tighter than most and the players were probably
feeling extra incentive to stay in to win the game since Rivers was
just coming back the same day from a funeral. The overall injury
concerns seem a bit overblown to me as well considering that they're
all in their very early 30s (Allen the oldest at 32) and all three
have actually, with some exception for Allen, been pretty durable for
their careers. Garnett, for instance, has only missed 16 games in 8
years, and except for last year (when it was widely thought the
Celtics were keeping players out to tank for the draft) Pierce only
missed 8 games in 6 years. It's always possible that one of them may
get significantly injured, but little more than any other group of
stars. In fact, since you were talking about the Nets, the Kidd,
Carter, Jefferson trio would seem more injury prone than the
Celtics'. Also, if the Celtics can continue to run out and put some
reasonable distance between themselves and the rest of the Atlantic,
it wouldn't be surprising to see them try and pace themselves more--
both resting their vets and allowing time to develop their three
rookies--for the playoffs.
Their bench might be a problem but seems adequate enough barring major
injury to one of the starters. Eddie House has been playing great and
they seem to like Glen Davis a lot. Posey is apparently out but is
generally quite serviceable. So that's a workable 8-man rotation
right there and I wouldn't be surprised to see them pick up another
serviceable vet or two around the trade deadline. The injury specter
will hang over any contending team (compare for instance the usual
worries about Nash and Stoudamire in Phoenix) but as long as there's
nothing season-ending for the Celtics their year looks pretty bright
to me. Rather than the Nets, I'd say their big competition will be
Toronto. They've been rather up and down so far and Bosh has
apparently been bothered by his knee but their roster is pretty
stacked and they seem deadly when their shooters are clicking.
As for the Sixers--the fact that Kevin Ollie got on the floor again
today pretty much encapsulates where they are right now. Too bad the
Celtics don't have any expiring contracts/prospects left to trade for
Miller--could help both teams.

--IK