The Wizards almost knocked us off last year with a starting frontline of Gortat and Morris, and we struggled to deal with that.
So essentially, yes. Give them the most dominant center (and perhaps big man) in the entire game and there's no chance we beat them in a 7 game series with Marcus Morris and Al Horford.
Right, because we beat them last year and added Hayward and Tatum but that counts for nothing. But losing Porter + what little depth WAS has for Cousins is more than enough that we would have "no chance".
I swear, the angst, self-loathing and hyperbole on this site sometimes...
With the depth they will have for getting Cousins i doubt they even make the playoffs..
And how much depth did we give up when we dumped Olynyk, Zeller and Jerebko and replaced them with Baynes and bunch of rookies who have never played an NBA game?
How many combined seasons of NBA experience does our entire bench have right now?
* Baynes has 5
* Smart has 3
* Rozier has 2
* Brown has 1
Wait - is that it? Are there legit only three players on our entire bench who have played more then one NBA season?
Lets not kid ourselves.
The future of this Celtics team is very bright no doubt about it - but our position this season isn't as great as people seem to think it is. Getting cocky and failing to respect your opponent is not the path to victory.
Last season we were the #1 seed and still every series we playoff series we played in proved more difficult then they should have been. We were blown out way too many times by teams who had no business blowing us out. Multiple 15+ point losses to the Wizards is not an acceptable result for a team that people are placing such high expectations on.
Be happy with the team we have by all means, but don't underestimate our opponents. We struggled mightily to beat the Wizards last year and managed to cling on by the hair of our teeth thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime performance from Kelly Olynyk, then got utterly embarrassed by the Cavs. Lets not get carried away with out own superiority, the Celtics have their work cut out for them.