This whole Tony Allen thing has got me thinking about how different the team is between this year and last, it's mind-boggling how much worse our bench is this season.
Last Year: Posey, Brown, Powe, Davis, House, Tony Allen, Cassell, Scalabrine
Basically you had a player for every situation ... need points (House) ... need a stop (Posey / T. Allen) ... need some interior D (Brown) ... need someone to give Pierce / Allen / Garnett a breather (Posey) ... need some hustle and board work (Powe / Davis) ... need someone to come in and take some bad shots while not playing defense (Cassell)
This Year: Powe (probably done), House, Marbury, Moore, T. Allen, B Walker
That's not a lot to work with ... You've got no one who can adequately give Pierce a break at the 3, you've already got Davis in for Garnett (a BIG step down) and now Moore is backing him up (Moore would have been the 13th man on last year's Celtics team.) You have Pierce / Allen trying to fill Posey's 20 minutes a game (that includes Pierce playing the 4 -- which never works well for us) while also trying to makeup for Garnett's absence. Do you really think they would be doubling teaming Pierce and over rotating toward Ray Allen if Garnett was there?
I still think this team is good enough to get out of the first round, and has enough heart to put up a good fight in the 2nd, but without some better news on the injury front I don't see the C's having the firepower to compete with Cleveland and mess up the league mandated Kobe/Lebron "Save Us from the Recession" finals matchup.
