Whenever the Celtics are ahead late in a game that I deem important, be it for reasons of circumstance or rivalry, I start hoping for them to run the score up on the other team. For me, it's not enough just to beat the Heat or the Lakers. I want to to crush them. Win by 30. Send a message. Gain every possible psychological advantage that you can.
Whenever I verbalize this sentiment, I always get the same disapproving response from my wife (who, between being a fan and having to live with me, has an important stake in the outcome). "Don't get greedy," she says. And, she's right, I shouldn't be declaring victory before the final second ticks off the clock. It's one of the most basic and well-known rules of sports fandom, and yet I break it often. I don't intend to stray from that trend today. This series is over. The Knicks are dead. It's time to begin preparing for the Heat.
I don't think anyone will accuse me of being greedy or overzealous for declaring victory in this series for the Celtics. But, I am going to take it a step further........
I want a sweep.
I need a sweep.
WE need a sweep.
Anything less than a sweep is unacceptable. It may sound greedy, but it isn't. It's not about asserting our dominance over the Knicks. It's about an important step that this team needs to take if it wants to win a title this year.
I try to keep an ordered list of the best single days of my life. April 20, 2008 ranks pretty high on that list. It was a beautiful Sunday, I didn't have to work the next day (Patriot's Day), and the Celtics were opening up their first round playoff series with the lowly Hawks. There was a buzz in the North End like I had only heard about through the legends of the 80s told by my father and uncles. This was it. They were 66-16, the NBA's top seed, and it didn't seem as if there was a team in the East that could prevent them from appearing in the Finals. The Celtic dominance that had previously seemed nothing more than folklore to me had returned. There had been some good years in my day, but nothing like this. According to the legends I'd heard growing up, this is what it was being a Celtics fan was supposed to feel like all the time.
The Cs performed as you'd expect that night. They stayed on top of the Hawks all night, cruising to a 23 point victory before an electric Garden crowd. Up in section 309, I loudly declared that there was no way the Hawks would take a game in the series. A sweep, I said, was guaranteed. And nobody disagreed, we all felt it.
Well, obviously, we couldn't have been more wrong. That series went 7 games, and saw the Celtics unable to win a single one on the road. The same thing happened in round 2 with Cleveland. The Celtics finally got their first road win of the postseason against Detroit in the Conference Finals. To say that Celtics Nation was concerned would be an understatement of epic proportion. Everyone wanted to know why this 66 win juggernaut couldn't figure out how to bury a team once they had them on the ropes. Soon the Celtics, Doc Rivers especially, found themselves facing a barrage of media scrutiny.
This Bill Simmons piece pretty much sums it up.
It all worked out in 2008, largely because the Celtics were significantly more talented than the rest of the Eastern Conference. They also had homecourt advantage throughout the postseason. The talent edge allowed them to work through their rotation issues (largely caused by the inconsistent play of Sam Cassell, one of the late additions) without having to worry about being bounced. The home court advantage meant that even if they couldn't figure out how to mentally prepare themselves to play on the road with a 2-0 series lead, they were guaranteed to win as long as they took care of business in the Garden.
Even last postseason, one in which they vastly overachieved, we saw the Celtics forced to play more games than they needed to. They had chances to sweep both Miami and Orlando, and failed to do both. In the case of Miami, the Celtics came out sluggish in game 4, and a spectacular individual performance by Dwyane Wade led to a 9 point Heat win. That series went 5 games.
In the case of the Orlando, the Celtics had won game 3 by 23 points, and seemed in a good position to deliver a knockout blow at home in game 4. But, they couldn't. That series went 6 games, and one of the losses came in overtime.
In 2008, the inability to finish series quickly didn't cost the Celtics a title. It very well may have last year. We're talking about an extra 3 games (3.25 if you count the overtime loss to Orlando) that the Celtics could have avoided. When you've got to play 3 series on the road, you simply can't afford to squander those chances for rest.
In order to win a title this year, the Celtics will most likely have to go on the road at least twice (three times if their finals opponent is Dallas, LA, or San Antonio). In the next two rounds, they'll do so against the Heat and Bulls, who are better than any Eastern Conference opponent this group has seen in previous years. As I said last week, this postseason is going to provide greater challenges than this team has faced before. The Celtics can't afford to play extra games.
And, if rest isn't enough motivation, what about the motivation of finally showing everyone that they can slam the door to a series on the first try? Hell, forget everyone else. What about proving it to themselves? For the first time ever, this spring, I saw guys on this team questioning themselves. In interviews, they didn't have answers for what was going wrong on the court. There was no talk of switchflipping or resting guys strategically. This was unplanned poor play. They spoke as if they were confident they'd figure it out, but there seemed to be a shade of doubt.
Everyone around the league picked up on that doubt. That's why this was a popular upset pick. Everyone thought the Cs were on the decline, and the perfect matchup for the upstart Knicks. Well, the Celtics put those thoughts out of everybody's mind on Friday night. Notice has been served. This team is not going to go quietly, and everyone had better treat them like the contenders that they are.
The margin for error this season is incredibly small. Any lapse in focus on the court could cost this team everything. In order to win a title this year, the Celtics are going to have to be better than they've ever been. For that reason, today, I need them to do something they've never done. We need this sweep.
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