Really good article on Big 3 and 2012 team

[sed522002]

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2015/01/rajon_rondos_boston_celtics_ho.html

According to Powe, a gritty power forward who now works for the Celtics, that team held its share of “headbutts” and “clashes” on the practice court.

“It wasn’t, like, to the detriment of the team,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Nah, I’m tougher than you.’ And then we had to come to a conclusion: ‘We all tough now, man. We’ve got to take it out on them.’”

Powe remembers “G-Unit runs,” during which all the Celtics big men would beat on each other after practice. They would line up and play games to seven. Whoever scored stayed on the court, but there was one catch: no foul calls allowed. Powe laughs while recalling “everybody getting in a fight” and players “wrestling on the ground.”

“It didn’t matter if the player hit you in the head,” he says. “You’ve got to get the bucket.”

“Ask Paul (Pierce) about that,” Powe adds. “He knows because he would watch. That’s all he would do. He wouldn’t even get ice yet. He’d stop and watch the G-Unit runs. See who would get into a fight. See something.”

“When you have Hall of Famers in (the gym), you feel no choice,” Dooling explains. “You follow them. Those guys kind of led by example. They had their routines down. They’re like machines. Their habits kind of became ours.”

Even after back-to-backs, that team would hit the gym.

“Nobody’s doing that. And when I say a lift, like, a hard lift,” Bradley says, smiling. “And that’s what we took pride in. We wanted to be that type of team.”

“I remember, man, I used to go, my shoes would be untied, walking to the weight room, still had my jersey on. It was funny. We used to be so tired, but we would all look at each other like, ‘Are we lifting today?’ We used to ask Rondo and he’d be like, ‘Yeah, man. We gon’ lift today.’”

Listen, I’m gonna tell you like this here. We definitely played a lot of mental games with him,” Dooling says. “Some of the things that we said to LeBron on the court, we couldn’t ever repeat. We didn’t mean it. It was psychological warfare. It was mental warfare. But he handled it. He was all grown up.”

“Oh my God,” Brandon Bass adds. “I heard KG say some crazy things to LeBron. It helped us and hurt us, you know what I’m saying? Yeah, you definitely can’t repeat some of those things.

“But I think that’s why LeBron feels like, whenever he sees Paul or KG or anybody from the Celtics, he feels like he’s playing against the Celtics no matter what team they’re on.

“He was the best player in the league. We had to try to tear him down.”

“Every time we have dinners or anything like that, we always talk about it,” Bass says. “Every time we’re in the back of the bus talking about some memories, we’re going to be talking about that year. It’s something that nobody that was a part of that team will ever forget. It was that good of a time.”

You should read the full article..good stuff.

[KeepRondo]

Thx for sharing.

Some good stuff there.

[Clench123]

Lol that's awesome.  The Celtics is a big part of Lebron's legacy and that's saying a lot (he even said Pierce was his biggest rival in the league).  It's like that group of Celtics forced him to up his game and take it to another level and he responded.  Good read, man.  Thanks.

[sed522002]

Lol that's awesome.  The Celtics is a big part of Lebron's legacy and that's saying a lot (he even said Pierce was his biggest rival in the league).  It's like that group of Celtics forced him to up his game and take it to another level and he responded.  Good read, man.  Thanks.

That Game 6 (the dreaded Game 6) was his coming out party imo. All the disappearing in the 4th quarter jokes STOPPED after that game and I think that's when he fully realized that he couldn't be stopped.

[Beat LA]

Lol that's awesome.  The Celtics is a big part of Lebron's legacy and that's saying a lot (he even said Pierce was his biggest rival in the league).  It's like that group of Celtics forced him to up his game and take it to another level and he responded.  Good read, man.  Thanks.

That Game 6 (the dreaded Game 6) was his coming out party imo. All the disappearing in the 4th quarter jokes STOPPED after that game and I think that's when he fully realized that he couldn't be stopped.

I think that we still could have won that game had we made one simple adjustment - have Bass (as opposed to Pierce) guard Lebron.  It was, what, our sixth game in 10 days or whatever, and guys were going to be tired.  You could see it in Pierce's shots in game 6 - he just didn't have that same lift.  Having said that, we were still within 8-10 points most of the night because Rondo and Bass were answering Lebron, so I think that it was still doable.  In fact, that was a 5 game series, because the refs took away game 2 from us on that drive by Rondo where Wade hit him in the face, but still, in the first half of game 7, Lebron couldn't get anything going, mainly because of Bass' defense.  Of course, even after we lost out on David West, there were other options available to us that could have put us over the top, imo, like Erick Dampier to back up KG, or Aaron Brooks, who has been devastating for Chicago off the bench this year, instead of Keyon Dooling, or perhaps in addition to him, I really don't know, but the two guys who could have really helped us, imo, were Michael Redd and Tracy McGrady, because you know that Pierce is going to get reffed out of every game against Miami, so having those two offensive cannons off the bench would have been huge for us, imo, especially after we lost Jeff Green.  I think that Samardo Samuels could have been had on the cheap, as well, but, sadly, we'll never know.  Oh well - at least we'll always have 2K, lol.  

[jpotter33]

Yeah, the 2012 Celtics were my favorite team by far. Rondo was absolutely sick, KG had his resurgence, and PP was his good ole self. That team dealt with so much adversity, losing Green, O'Neal, and Bradley for the year,yet they still gave the Heat everything they could handle.

I drove 20 hours from St. Louis, Missouri to watch them play the Heat in game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals that year. That was the game Lebron fouled out and Wade missed the three in OT to lose it for them. Great game, great team.

[blink]

Yeah, the 2012 Celtics were my favorite team by far. Rondo was absolutely sick, KG had his resurgence, and PP was his good ole self. That team dealt with so much adversity, losing Green, O'Neal, and Bradley for the year,yet they still gave the Heat everything they could handle.

I drove 20 hours from St. Louis, Missouri to watch them play the Heat in game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals that year. That was the game Lebron fouled out and Wade missed the three in OT to lose it for them. Great game, great team.

TP for driving 20 hours from St L to see a C's game.  That is dedication!

TP for the OP as well.  Interesting read.

[jpotter33]

Yeah, the 2012 Celtics were my favorite team by far. Rondo was absolutely sick, KG had his resurgence, and PP was his good ole self. That team dealt with so much adversity, losing Green, O'Neal, and Bradley for the year,yet they still gave the Heat everything they could handle.

I drove 20 hours from St. Louis, Missouri to watch them play the Heat in game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals that year. That was the game Lebron fouled out and Wade missed the three in OT to lose it for them. Great game, great team.

TP for driving 20 hours from St L to see a C's game.  That is dedication!

TP for the OP as well.  Interesting read.

Crappy part was it was really only a 17 hour drive, but our TomTom took us on a bad route that tacked on 3 hours! lol

[KeepRondo]

Yeah, the 2012 Celtics were my favorite team by far. Rondo was absolutely sick, KG had his resurgence, and PP was his good ole self. That team dealt with so much adversity, losing Green, O'Neal, and Bradley for the year,yet they still gave the Heat everything they could handle.

I drove 20 hours from St. Louis, Missouri to watch them play the Heat in game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals that year. That was the game Lebron fouled out and Wade missed the three in OT to lose it for them. Great game, great team.

Rondo is still sick.

[Roy H.]

Great article.

The thing I don't understand is why stuff like this is in the past tense:

Even after back-to-backs, that team would hit the gym.

“Nobody’s doing that. And when I say a lift, like, a hard lift,” Bradley says, smiling. “And that’s what we took pride in. We wanted to be that type of team.”

“I remember, man, I used to go, my shoes would be untied, walking to the weight room, still had my jersey on. It was funny. We used to be so tired, but we would all look at each other like, ‘Are we lifting today?’ We used to ask Rondo and he’d be like, ‘Yeah, man. We gon’ lift today.’”

Just because the big three are gone doesn't mean that the guys shouldn't be preparing hard.

[jpotter33]

Great article.

The thing I don't understand is why stuff like this is in the past tense:

Even after back-to-backs, that team would hit the gym.

“Nobody’s doing that. And when I say a lift, like, a hard lift,” Bradley says, smiling. “And that’s what we took pride in. We wanted to be that type of team.”

“I remember, man, I used to go, my shoes would be untied, walking to the weight room, still had my jersey on. It was funny. We used to be so tired, but we would all look at each other like, ‘Are we lifting today?’ We used to ask Rondo and he’d be like, ‘Yeah, man. We gon’ lift today.’”

Just because the big three are gone doesn't mean that the guys shouldn't be preparing hard.

And we're a heck of a lot younger now than they were then.

[sed522002]

Great article.

The thing I don't understand is why stuff like this is in the past tense:

Even after back-to-backs, that team would hit the gym.

“Nobody’s doing that. And when I say a lift, like, a hard lift,” Bradley says, smiling. “And that’s what we took pride in. We wanted to be that type of team.”

“I remember, man, I used to go, my shoes would be untied, walking to the weight room, still had my jersey on. It was funny. We used to be so tired, but we would all look at each other like, ‘Are we lifting today?’ We used to ask Rondo and he’d be like, ‘Yeah, man. We gon’ lift today.’”

Just because the big three are gone doesn't mean that the guys shouldn't be preparing hard.

I noticed that too. Makes me wonder what type of culture they're building. I know it's hard when you're contending for the Draft instead of the playoffs, but still.