pitaph for Boston's Big Three
Garnett, Allen and Pierce gave it all they had, so what do they have left?
Updated: June 10, 2012, 1:18 PM ET
By Ric Bucher | ESPN the Magazine
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AP Photo/Steven Senne
When they came together in 2007, Pierce, Garnett and Allen were the toast of the town.
Another era has passed for one of the most historic franchises in NBA history, the Boston Celtics. It ended with their loss to the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the 2012 Eastern Conference finals.
Let's not kid ourselves -- whether or not the Celtics bring back the current core, there's no getting around the fact that this group's elite days, collectively, are over. Sure, there's a chance one of them will go somewhere else and contribute to another championship run. Kevin Garnett still has something left as a defender, jump-shooting big man and overall emotional catalyst. Ray Allen, if he gets healthy, can still be a 3-point threat and overall high-IQ contributor. Paul Pierce assuredly has some big 30-point nights and buzzer-beating game winners left.
But no matter how much Rajon Rondo improves, he can't make Allen and Pierce more effective defensively or Garnett more agile around the rim. Thinking they have the requisite reserves to march through another 82-game season and then put together 16 wins against the league's elite is simply not realistic. Even relieved of guarding LeBron James down the stretch, Pierce didn't have enough left to carry the offensive load. Garnett, once his size advantage was negated by the return of Chris Bosh, couldn't consistently finish around the rim. Allen did his usual best getting open, but he can't guard his position anymore against the league's best and his driving finishes are few and far between.
Their will didn't give in; their bodies did.
So before we turn the page and watch Generation Rondo evolve, how should we remember The Era of the Three Amigos?
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In context with some of the franchise's other hallowed eras, this one does not seem all that gilded. In the five seasons since team president Danny Ainge reintroduced the idea of a Big Three, bringing in Garnett and Allen to form a nucleus with incumbent star Pierce, they made two trips to the Finals and won one title, that in their first year together.
Yet, somehow, it seems as if they accomplished so much more. Maybe because they did.
Garnett, Allen and Pierce were in their 30s when they came together, not just stars but straws that stirred the drinks of their respective teams. They all had to squash their egos and accept more menial duties. Garnett had to adjust to being a defensive quarterback. Pierce had to accept Garnett coming to his team and watch his town, his fans, embrace KG with a fervor that they'd never quite mustered for Pierce. Allen had to accept being a third wheel, quietly dealing with all the questions about why his game had fallen off from those failing to see he wasn't getting the same opportunities, staying ever ready for the few that came along. Pierce and Allen had to play defense at a level higher than ever before.
And they did it. Proud, exalted veterans put aside all their individual interests in the hope that it would get them the one accomplishment that had eluded them: a title. And it did.
And then they did something else. They tried to get another one.
Did they win enough?
The idea of teams winning multiple titles is tossed around so lightly, and LeBron James isn't the only guilty party. I've heard others talk about the Heat winning "two or three" championships. Now that the Oklahoma City Thunder are in the Finals, they're supposedly a lock to return for the next several years. Is anybody paying attention? The Lakers are the only team to repeat in the past 10 years, and even they did it with two noticeably different rosters.
Brian Babineau/NBAE/Getty Images
Boston's Big Three were good, but did they win enough?
Such speculation ignores how everything changes once a team wins a championship. How difficult it is to find the requisite hunger to chase a second title even harder -- which is required -- after finally tasting something you've wanted for so long. How the celebration of that first ring delays preparation for the next season, when winning it all again will require more effort and discipline. How a franchise must pay to keep its talent together, or smartly find replacement pieces. How some players are far more effective as hunters than being the hunted. How playing deep into the summer raises the potential for injuries and fatigue the following season. How the fanfare and accolades that come with being champions can tear at the chemistry of a team.
It also overlooks what made these Celtics special in spite of the fact that they won only one ring in five years: They never stopped for a minute trying to get a second one. Think about that. They had their ring and they were at an age when they had to know they weren't going to get better. Their chemistry suffered at times as they tried to incorporate a young, talented brooding point guard, Rondo, with the Big Three. Their bodies broke down, time and again. Younger, faster, stronger opponents popped up everywhere -- in Miami, the Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City.
Everyone else knew it. How many times did the Celtics feel the fork tines? Certainly both of the past two seasons. Yet can you remember a game or a series when the Celtics gave the impression that their resolve was punctured?
They were hard to like at times. They could be cocky and eccentric and, well, rude. They could look downright awful. In Game 6, leading this series 3-2, they went home and looked tight, disorganized and flat. They took the appropriate beating for it. But then they came back in Game 7 as if it had never happened. They led for most of the first 3½ quarters. Then they conjured the image of Tom Hanks as army captain John H. Miller in "Saving Private Ryan," when he's lying on the bridge, mortally wounded, and a tank is bearing down on him. He continues to shoot his pistol, wildly, almost reflexively, at that huge hunk of impenetrable metal.
"I was really proud of our guys, especially early on," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said afterward. "Honestly … I just felt we had nothing left."
That's just it. These Celtics didn't give us the best five-year run that's ever been seen, not by a long shot. They simply gave us, and each other, everything they had.
Topic: rick bucher article....espn insider (Read 1998 times)