Although this situation is obviously not ideal, I feel like the Celtics can finally get the opportunity to get their big man rotation fleshed out more clearly.
We've seen glimpses of Sheed, Perk, Baby, and Shelden step up. Lately it's been more Baby.
What I personally want to see is Sheed start, and Baby remain on the bench. I want Baby to be used the way TA was used yesterday....as a 6th man sparkplug doing the essential dirty-work. In order for the bench to function at all the right way, I think it's absolutely necessary that Baby holds down the fort with Shelden, rather than Sheed. That is important for THIS game.
Still even more important in the long-term is getting the opportunity to observe Sheed and see if he really CAN flip the switch. I thought he did okay yesterday...he really didn't do anything good on offense except his 3 point play...but he did play very, very solid defense in the second half.
I want to see him initiate things on offense. I don't necessarily think he didn't try on offense yesterday, I just think he wasn't aggressive. Notice that when he DID aggressively move towards the hoop on his own volition (once) during the game, he finished on a fantastic and difficult 3 point play.
I've got a nagging (and good) feeling that Sheed merely needs consistent touches in order to flourish offensively. The one major thing that was stopping this from happening was the dysfunction of the bench, and its incapacity in knowing who the 1st, 2nd and 3rd options are on offense. I think this very knowledge (specific to strategy against Miami, but ALSO relevant to future series) is what Sheed needs in order to know how and when to step up. The good news is that yesterday's game did much to solidify this knowledge.
Tuesday is the chance to see whether Sheed can step it up as a legitimate offensive threat. We need him for those games in which Perk has happy feet and stone (Shelden-like) hands. We need him to draw fouls on Miami/Cleveland bigs. Finally, we need him to serve as a steady future source of baskets for the partial bench lineups...even more so in order to keep TA and Baby focused on defense, rebounds, and ball-movement.
I actually can't wait to see how it pans out on Tuesday. I'm confident that both Sheed and Baby will step up to the opportunity of playing large minutes and making an impact. Call me optimistic, but I expect a win on Tuesday.