Jake Kane

The Boston Celtics
A Team, or a Dynasty?

As the Celtics edge out yet another win last night verse the high scoring New York Knicks, it really must open your eyes onto how great this team is, and how dominant they will be further down the road. The Celtics playing without Kevin Garnett, their pump up factor, and who is known as the best all around player on the team, was an extreme loss for the Celtics. But showing their resilience they turned to a seven year veteran, Brian Scalabrine for the start. Brian Scalabrine is known as the team joke, all the fans love him, but not because he is a good player, but because he is awful. This is one of those bazaar occurrences where the fans absolutely adore a player because he can merely touch net, it must be because he has the same athletic ability as half the fans in the crowd. But, in an extreme rarity, Brian Scalabrine came up enormous in this game, knocking down two threes and one long two for a total of eight points. Now this is when you start thinking, “Hey, we just beat a team who averages 105 points per game without our third leading scorer and top rebounded, why is this?” Now the reason behind this is very simple, undoubtedly through last years championship season, the Celtics became a team. Last year they were a team with three big stars, and merely a few role players. This year it is arguable that there are five stars on this team, starting with the “Big 3,” and then the two unexpected in Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins. Now you may say, these two guys are not stars, they wouldn’t even start on other teams. But after last nights performance it was very obviously seen that it is possible for a star player to be out for a game and the Celtics can still pick up a big win. They played as if they were almost unphased, like they didn’t even notice that KG’s presence was absent, which is extremely tough to do. Last night Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo combined for 30 points 16 rebounds and 10 assists. With the new and improved Leon Powe coming off the bench as the sixth man, I don’t think the Celtics have lost a beat by losing James Posey. Mister Powe has been putting up sixth man of the year award numbers with about 8 points and 4 rebounds per game. In my eyes, this Celtics team would blow the 2007-2008 Boston Celtics out of the water. This is because players like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen are playing exactly the same as they always have, but guys like Perk and Rajon are no longer cancers on the court. The have found a role for themselves, and they have been perfecting it. In previous seasons Celtics players could not pass the ball inside to Perk, because it would be passing your basketball into a black hole and expecting it back. Every touch he got on the ball in the past lead to a shot. This year he has such a great confidence in his role for the Celtics, you may even see him pulling up for a 12 foot jumper and burying it. This team is very special, for the fact they can throw out any player on their bench and win games big. These individual players absolutely know their roles on the team and they show it game in and game out, it is safe to say this hasn’t been seen since the Chicago Bulls had their reign over the NBA, but here is the true test. Can the Celtics repeat?