narrator

There are lots of Raptor and Bosh fans. Guess we all need to vote 3 or 4 times now.

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chulo

I have to agree with BUTR. I'm happy for the deal too. Remember when we won the atlantic and everyone wouldn't the raptors credit because we're in the worst division? Now with an improved Celtics team it gives the division back some credibility. You also have to like the trade if you like rivalries. Bosh and KG will have a lot of battles that will be talked about for years. I can't wait til the season starts.

seifer0406

If you give that US Dream teams 82 games in a course of 5 months to get in a flow, would you want to be playing them in a 7 game series at the end of those 82 games? I wouldn't.

We won't be shutting down KG either. With our perimeter D, Pierce and Allen will torch us just like how Richard Jefferson and VC torched us last year in the playoffs. The difference, Pierce actually gives effort unlike VC, so you won't see that many 22 footers and when you see them they might even go in.

I highly doubt it. We are not known for our defense and I seriously doubt we will crush any team with it.


With all that said, it's not like BC built this team to be under a 2 year time window. The Celtics will only be good this year and perhaps next year, and it will be all downhill there. Despite what happened to the Celtics, we should still be able to improve upon last year's success. We will definitely make the playoffs this year and should be able to compete for the conference title the year after.

lucky777s

The game is about TEAM scoring totals Seifer. Try to get past the fanboy stuff and fantasy ball stuff and think about real games.

Raps are going to score on Boston. Big time. So even if you spot their bigthree 60 points they need to get another 40 points from the supporting players at a high FG% to win most nights. Boston's D was horrible last year and didn't get any better with these moves.

Toronto is probably a better TEAM defense club because of the effort, bball IQ, age and depth of our club. Nobody said we would crush teams with our D. A few percentage points in FG% and fewer turnovers is all we need to outscore opponents.

Boston lost their only inside scorer in Al Jefferson. They are a perimeter club now and will have scoring droughts and bad shooting nights especially when they don't have a bench to take up the slack.

I must have missed VC torching us in the playoffs. Even the Nets board ripped him for a horrible playoff performance. Raps just didn't score enough to win. Injuries and inexperience hurt us.

seifer0406

I don't see the relationship of fanboy and fantasy ball here. Just for the record I have never been a fan of either Pierce/Allen/KG since they have begun their careers, but then again I don't see how that is relevant to me feeling they are a stronger team than the Raptors. If your point is that the only way for anyone to "predict" results is for the 2 teams to play each other, then there is basically no point for any of us to "predict" anything, let's just wait till they actually play.

Effort and bball IQ, using your own terms, clear your mind of fanboyism, please. What are you basing this on? Not only is the Raptors not a defensively-minded team to begin with, the Celtics are basically a brand new team. Don't you think it's just a tad bit too early to be making this kind of assumptions? Getting Gerald Green and Bassy Telfair to run a play isn't exactly the same as getting Ray Allen and Paul Pierce to run the same play. If anything, the Celts went from being a young team to being a veteran team, effort/IQ/execution, all those intangibles are completely different this year.

Rondo isn't much of a PG offensively but he is known for his defense. KG has proven to be a better defender than Bosh and I take Pierce over Kapono or Garbo defensively any day of the week. That is 3 spots out of 5 that the Celts have advantage in defense already. The last time I looked we don't have someone like Zo or Deke coming out of our bench, it's going to be even bench wise as well. I am not saying that the Celts are a great defensive team, it's just that they are at least adequate to the point where we don't have an edge in that department.

This has to be the funniest part because I too only remember our victories, not our losses. In games 3 and 4, especially during that first half of game 3(or 4, I can't remember), VC basically tore up the Raptors D all by himself. As I said, the only thing stopping VC from doing that all the time is himself. He let the crowd get to him during games 1/2/5 but once he got it going, we did not have anything that remotely resembled an answer. Richard Jefferson also averaged 21.5 points against us, and he wasn't even close to 100% last year in the playoffs coming off surgery and only playing the last 20 games or so in the regular season. Again, I don't see how anyone that watched last year's playoffs to not get a sense that our perimeter defense was horrid. I mean, did you, in all honestly, really miss that, or is it just selective memory? Unless Delfino transforms into the next Raja Bell/Bruce Bowen, we are basically heading into next season the same if not worse at stopping perimeter players than last year.

If you cannot stop a scared VC and an injured Jefferson, I don't see how our luck against Pierce and Ray Allen will be any better. KG and Bosh will probably cancel each other out, the other 2 strikes deep into our weakness on the perimeter. If I am BC, I would be looking for ways to negate that rightaway.

ballocks

personally, i think the celtics have become immensely 'overrated' in the wake of this one move. i think we're all wearing summer glasses to some extent- 'fantasy' basketball absolutely rules in the summer months, and it always has, imo.

i mean, you can't argue with boston's three names, but it's been proven time and again (especially recently) that that's no surefire guarantee of success. if names won games, the knicks would've won 60+ two years ago. not saying the celtics are in the same boat at all, but the point remains: the hype machine loves this stuff. that's as much (or more) of a reason for why we're reading about it this morning as the team's improvement itself. i guess it's fun... but we should be careful when we say it's real.

anyway, the only reason i wanted to say anything here was in response to the above quote, "If you cannot stop a scared VC and an injured Jefferson..." honestly, i don't think 'can' was ever the issue. do you? i think the raptors obviously can beat the nets- like the nets obviously can beat the raptors. the playoff series revealed very little to me, save for confirming the team-wide complacency that defined us last season.

but come on now, would we (as BC) really want to make some roster move to contend with the garnett trade? i don't know. the hysterics are one thing, but we can't really believe what we're being hysterical about... can we? let the celtics have their headlines this morning, imo... this is all part of the media/promotion/entertainment game. but it's something else to actually leave the advertised effect out on the court, imo. i'd still be patently shocked to see the celtics atop the conference at the end of this season but i guess that's how it goes. we'll see what happens. that's part of the fun, too.

peace

TRON

Getting KG is so much more than just a "headline grabber".

having 3 unselfish, classy and team first players like Boston has will win them a lot of games. No fanboy here, just being logical and giving credit where credits due.

they're a PG away from elite status IMO

__________________
"and they aware of us though,
but we don't give a flying 747 **** though,
stayin on my hustle" -Nas

"To be honest, sometimes in this game, telling the truth is the best smokescreen of all." - Raptors GM Bryan Collangelo

speedythief

A motivated Kevin Garnett on even a mediocre team in the East scares the hell out of me. This is the fiercest competitor in the NBA we're talking about.

seifer0406

Getting beat in certain aspect of the game doesn't mean that you will lose the series. It does greatly affect your chances, but of course, there is always the possibility of winning. In all fairness, the Raptors were one play away from beating the Nets last year, I am not ignoring that fact. Despite winning or losing last year, the Raptors' weak defense on the perimeter was a problem that needs to be addressed. Unless the Raptors demonstrated that they are capable of winning the championship while carrying such a hole in their game, they better look to cover such a hole either sooner or later.

I wouldn't necessarily call this kind of concern as "giving too much credit to an unproven team" in my opinion. Knowing and admitting your own weakness is the only way you can begin to improve in that area. And until you do so, you should be worried about teams whose strength on offense matches your weakness on defense, especially when you have players like Pierce and Ray Allen on the team and still have KG inside.

Victor Page

As noted by SpeedyThief about 300 posts ago in this thread,the Celtics are coached by one of the worst coaches in NBA history, Doc Rivers. This should not be underestimated.

lucky777s

KG is not an inside player. He is a jumpshooter. We can guard him fine. And as an O rebounder he is below average. Below Average. Ranks 26th in the league, which is very low considering only 30 teams and each team will have a leading rebounder. Most of his boards are defensive. So he won't hurt us there as much as guys like Mikki Moore, Brendan Haywood, Dwight Howard, AL JEFFERSON, David Lee, Jeff Foster, etc. Even Bosh is a better O rebounder.

Nobody has to double KG so he doesn't open up easy shots for the others unlike a Shaq or Duncan.

So I don't see the big concern. We have a bunch of guys that will work much harder on D over 82 games than Ray and PP as well with Parker, Delfino, Calderon, Dixon. Most nba stars take a lot of plays off during the regular season, especially on D, which is part of why the Raps are a very strong regular season club.

Plus the Celts need to lower their turnovers dramatically and I don't think Rondo being the main PG will accomplish that. Can't score when you turn the ball over.

And what about how our strength on O matches up with their weakness on D. Shouldn't that be worrying Boston?

They could be dangerous in a series if all 3 get hot, but any club in the league can say that if their top 3 players are going well. Raps have the balance to score 100 every night on every team. Boston has to prove they can put together an 8 man rotation for a full 82 games to even make the playoffs. Are they going to try and play uptempo in the high 90's or slow the game down to high 80's-low90's range? We don't even know that yet.

The Celt's may yet add the pieces to make them a legit contender but right now they don't have enough to get the job done imo.

TRON

while success has eluded him in Boston to this point, didn't this guy win coach of the year in Orlando, taking a bunch of scrubs to the playoffs a few years back.

__________________
"and they aware of us though,
but we don't give a flying 747 **** though,
stayin on my hustle" -Nas

"To be honest, sometimes in this game, telling the truth is the best smokescreen of all." - Raptors GM Bryan Collangelo

seifer0406