As far as I'm concerned, the regular season ended a month ago on March 18th after our spectacular game vs Miami... We went 16-7 including that game post-Rondo (note: 4 of those losses shouldn't even count, because they happened during he Barbosa/Crawford transition). We proved that we could hang with any team in the league. Then the team took a month off to prepare for the playoffs.
Admittedly, I haven't bothered watching a game since March 18th. Boston had nothing to play for... so I had nothing to watch for. I'm completely serious on this... after March 18th I literally said, "Good way to finish out the season. Now we'll have a month of nonsense as we twiddle our thumbs and wait for the playoffs". Everything over the past month has been as worthless to me as preseason games. It's a veteran team. I knew better than to get suckered into lackadaisical purposeless end-of-season halfassery.
So... I'm fairly excited for the playoffs. We're a solid team that finished the regular season going 16-3 and has had a month of rest.
Would you be more excited if the regular season officially had ended on March 18th?... probably. So suck it up, and gear up for the playoffs. Hopefully you didn't waste too much time watching over the past month. Those games didn't count.
Lol, of course you can say anything after that March 18th game not to defend the OP! And I don't even know if they're prepared for the playoffs. They can't even beat Brooklyn and New York when it should've mattered for them. All 81 games did count, even before the Rondo injury. No excuses. If the C's don't flip the switch this Saturday, it's gonna be a looong series.
Nah, he's right. Regardless of the lip service this team fed the media, they clearly shut it down over the last month or so.
This team played to get into the playoffs. They don't care about seed or home court advantage. So they turned it on just long enough during the season to assure themselves of a playoff spot, and then went conservative and tried to keep their main weapons healthy. It makes sense; this is a veteran team who can win games away from Boston. Home court advantage would only potentially make a difference in the Miami series, and they weren't taking HCA away from Miami anyway.
We're going to find out how good this team really is. Miami is this team's real goal, but it's going to take a heck of an effort to even get to them.