Why I'm not scared just yet

[myteamisbetterthanyours]

As we all know, and as Lebron has told many a reporter, "Rome was not built in one day."  We have a bunch of new pieces that just don't really know the Celtics defense yet.  Add to that, the fact we haven't had el Capitan Pierce on the floor, who is a much more capable defender than both marquise and sasha, along with the lockout and a shortened training camp/preseason, and you have a C's team that went 0-2 against 2 of the top 4 teams in the Eastern Conference.  How long did it take the newly assembled Heat to figure out how to beat the Celtics last season? *ding ding ding* It took until Playoff time..

Which brings me to my point.. I believe that all we need is Pierce to come back healthy, and more time for all our new pieces to get comfortable with the Celtics defensive schemes.  We also need Pietrus who is going to help a lot both defensively and offensively when he takes over Sasha's role and allows Marquise to play his more natural 2 position.  I predict that this is going to take a couple weeks and that we'll be going through some more growing pains for the time being.  However, we will eventually hit our stride and it's going to be smoothe sailing all the way to the playoffs.. Where of course.. Amazing happens.  So sit back, sip that Green koolaid, and hope for the best.

Then again, I could be wrong and we really could just suck, and if that's the case, I blame it on the Perkins trade.. lol

Thoughts, comments, observations and lamentations all welcome.

Go C's.

[RyNye]

I'm fine with losing games early in the season if it means we peak in the playoffs. A big problem for us in recent seasons was peaking early and petering out.

[lukiz]

I'm not scared yet either:

-Shortened off-season
-2 games in
-2 tough opponents
-not %100 healthy

It'll all come together soon.

[snively]

I'm scared at how slow KG looks.

I'm scared that we won't be able to get anything from JO (either on the court or in trade).

Other than that, I'm not scared.  The return of Pierce and the addition of Pietrus will rectify a lot of our issues.

[arctic 3.0]

yes, we competed against the knicks and heat w/o pierce and pitrius (playing shasha and marquise against mellow and lbj non the less)
but rebounding...
rebounding
rebounding.
good grief, rebounding.

[Q_FBE]

We have a very favorable schedule in January and February. Lots of home games and not to many back to backs. We should be able to get a team together PROVIDED THAT we stay healthy.

We played competitively on the road against two top teams and unfavorable refereeing.

[the_Bird]

I'm not scared yet either:

-Shortened off-season
-2 games in
-2 tough opponents
-not %100 healthy

It'll all come together soon.

When was the last time the Celtics were 100% healthy?

Haven't the last three postseasons all been cut short, mostly because of injuries?

What are the odds of Pierce, KG, JO, Pietrus, and Quis all being healthy come the playoffs?  If we're missing one or two of these guys (all of whom are either battle injuries with the potential to nag, or who have proven to be very injury prone), how are we going to adjust?  

If Pierce's heel takes longer to heal than expected (a distinct possibility), and Pietrus remains limited because of his knee, just how far are we going to go with Quis and Sasha getting most of the small forward minutes?  What about when Quis misses his usual 10-20 games?

Who's going to play in the middle when JO inevitably goes down?  KG and Bass will be the starters, but are we comfortable with Chris Wilcox being the only other real big man on the squad?

That's why I'm scared.  We need a *lot* of things to go right, injury-wise, to legitimately compete with Miami and Chicago.  Most likely is that we'll spend most of the season short-staffed and scrambling as a result.  

[Weediam]

To the OP:

Although I completely agree with your points, I'll contend that our back-end starting defense, J.O. and KG, have had plenty of time together and still is medicore at best, at worse porous.

Both KG and J.O. are well beyond their best athletic years, and help-paint defense must be a combination of knowing the system, athleticism and size. If Bass and Wilcox (and Wilcox doesn't look hopeful) don't get it together we could be in deep trouble defensively. Our whole philosophy is predicated upon having strong help defense, especially from our big men.

Moreover, KG is just not intimidating as he used to be and both NY and MIA smelled blood and took it right to the rim on us.

No matter how many wing players we accumulate, this won't change unless we either make a move for a defensive big or someone steps it up.