Mike Fine: Celtics have the depth to contend this season
They'd played almost 45 minutes at the Air Canada Centre Sunday afternoon, and the Celtics were showing signs of breaking down.
Having led the entire way, their onetime 12-point lead (10 points in the fourth quarter) was dwindling, the Toronto Raptors were chipping away and, in fact, had tied it at 72 with 3:22 remaining in regulation.
The natural assumption would be that Paul Pierce, Ray Allen or Kevin Garnett would take over, but it's never that simple. Intense defense and simple weariness were wreaking havoc on the trio. The Raptors, who aren't exactly slouches, were getting energized by their crowd. The Celtics needed a hand.
This is where we look back just a bit to preseason analysis of the Celtics.
Everyone on earth knew that this reformulated Celtics team would be good to go for the playoffs, and was even a favorite to win the Atlantic Division.
But there seemed to be a growing consensus that this team was flawed because of its depth. You just can't rely on three players to do the job night in and night out for 82 games.
Flash ahead to Sunday. The Raptors were surging, on a 14-4 run to tie the score at 72. Newcomer James Posey took a Garnett feed and canned a 3-pointer with 3:03 left. After two Chris Bosh free throws, Garnett fed Posey with 2:24 left in regulation.
Because of those two 3-pointers, the Celtics were able to keep the Raptors from taking the win, forcing overtime, and down the stretch, acting Celtics coach Tom Thibodeau was able to platoon youngster Rajon Rondo with veteran Eddie House for offense-defense purposes.
Garnett and Allen scored all but two points in overtime. The other two were free throws by House with seven seconds remaining, given the Celts a three-point lead. They managed to take a 98-95 win.
Make no mistake about this: Anybody who feels that the Celtics don't have the horses, i.e. the depth, to contend this season is flat-out wrong.
Director of Operations Danny Ainge has done a masterful job of assembling this team beyond the acquisitions of Garnett and Allen. Playing his first game after his one-game suspension, Posey demonstrated why he's a valued NBA sub, both for his defense and his perimeter shooting abilities.
He finished with 11 points, three rebounds and a block, but the beauty of his 24-minute performance was that he was able to step right in and make a contribution.
House is a journeyman guard who's playing for his eighth team in five years (he managed to hang in with the Heat for his first three seasons). He's averaged 7.5 points over his career, but is an accomplished veteran who has accepted a key, if subordinate, role.
You add Brian Scalabrine, Tony Allen, Kendrick Perkins and Scot Pollard to that group and you've got some depth. In that Sunday game, Scalabrine had a +7 plus/minus in just 17 minutes, while Perkins was a +6. Pollard was -8, but is still trying to get in shape after having missed most of the preseason. Posey was even.
There have been many great teams in the NBA who have played with several great players with a supporting cast that seemingly couldn't beat a Division II college team. But in reality, their particular second-string skillset has been wonderfully complimentary.
Sure, we could talk about some of the great Celtics teams that relied on everyone from Jim Loscutoff to Satch Sanders to Scott Wedman, but many other NBA teams have done even better, perhaps.
The 1980-81 Philadelphia 76ers won 62 games because of players such as Lionel Hollins, Caldwell Jones and Clint Richardson. The 1990-91 Bulls, who won 61 games, weren't all about Michael Jordan. They also had Stacey King, Craig Hodges and Will Perdue. The 1984-85 Milwaukee Bucks, in the midst of a seven-year Central Division championship run, weren't all about Sidney Moncrief and Terry Cummings. The Bucks were also dependent on Paul Mokeski, Randy Breuer and Ricky Pierce.
The Celtics are going to find themselves in the same boat. They're going to depend on the Terrific Trio for two-thirds of their points, but they can't do it all.
Posey was a key component of a title run in Miami, while House has been an all-around, competent player who has never quite found a home.
So many times in the NBA players kick around because they're at the wrong place at the wrong time, or the fit is just not right. It doesn't mean that they can't play. See Raja Bell of the Suns or Bruce Bowen of the Spurs.
What's also obvious is that the Celtics have already bonded quite nicely. It's got little to do with the European trip. Sure, that helped them cement some personal bonds, but this team already appears to have bonded on the court. It's a testament to the veteran leadership and smarts.
"The team has great potential," said Allen, who scored 33 points in Toronto, including the winning 3-pointer with 2.6 seconds left. "Based on the parts we have put together, there's so much growth for us.
"I think we can only go up because everybody's head is in the right place and we want to do the right thing and make each other better. We score points, we've made All-Star teams, we've played on Olympic teams. There's nothing for us to prove individually. We want to play basketball and we want to be riding that duck (boat) at the end of the year."
"We don't know when it's going to happen, how long it's going to take," Pierce said. "We're just going to constantly go out there and do better each and every game and then one day its going to click and we'll think, 'hey we've got it,' and hopefully we can get on a roll and play a string of games where we're really playing well.
"You never know. It could be at the start of the season."
You never know, but it looks like it already is.
-- The Patriot Ledger