HOLLINGER picks celtics 3rd in East 43-23

[MBunge]

I stand by the notion, however, that the Boston Celtics since 2008, have played worse after Christmas, and its because the older players get tired, get bored, or get injured. The condensed schedule only emphasizes this, it doesn't help it.

But the late start and condensed schedule actually work against the boredom issue.  There just isn't the same time to get bored this season so, as long as Doc can figure out how to manages minutes in this new grind, there's a chance this could be somewhat beneficial for the Cs.

Mike

[Brendan]

A starting center away from being a real threat...

I wonder if a big lineup of:

KG / JO
Bass / Wilcox

would cover a lot of that up.

I agree West's injury was under rated - he was the best Rondo backup we had since, well Delonte's first time through.

I think Dooling is a better fit as a backup PG (rather than a combo) if Green get's himself right.

[BASS_THUMPER]

hollinger needs to linger on..

he know nada

[mctyson]

I agree with the sentiment we needed more rest for Rondo. Yet, in the end he was still performing in the playoffs as expected before the injury. Fact is we never really got to see how we stacked up with a healthy Rondo. We were a Rondo missed layup from a series at 2-2. Honestly the cold 4th qtrs is what did us in. We were in every game of that series until the 4th when Miami went on runs. Miami didn't really upgrade that much with Battier and basically stood pat. We have a better team today then we did in the playoffs last year if Quise is playing like he was pre-injury.

This gets it exactly correct.

Many people forget how close that Miami series really was, how poor our 4th quarter offense was, and how much the Rondo injury hurt us.

Additionally, we traded for Jeff Green to upgrade our offense (with KG at the 5)  but more importantly to have an athletic 3 who could guard Lebron when Pierce was resting.  So losing Green hurts in this regard, but Marquis should be able to fill that void.

If Rondo stays healthy and is playing his best in the playoffs, assuming we don't lose any of the Big 3 to injury, the Celtics will be extremely hard to beat in a 7 game series.  The addition of Bass lets us go small in the 4th quarter without losing athleticism, like we did when BBD was at 4/5.  Dooling should be able to give Rondo rest without losing the D.  And we need some consistent perimeter offensive production from the Pav/JJJ/Bradley combo so the starters can rest.