To Be The Best…

We’ve been disorganized in the 4th quarter of close games. I don’t they know what their best plays are or who should get the ball and where?

I know it’s early but I’d expect them to have a better understanding down the stretch than they’ve shown.

That’s why we’re struggling to close teams out in tough games.

Well, to be the best you should not lose to bad teams either. Celtics have yet to do that, Detroit has lost to Chicago, Spurs have lost to Sac, PHX lost to the Wolves etc. And Cavs really should not be put in the elite category. Interesting to me how Piston’s could lose to them in the playoffs last year. Piston’s are good but how do they get beat by Lebron by himself basically in the playoffs? We will see how well they play against the Spurs, and Phoenix who are the best in the West. Celtics have lost 3 games total they have plenty of chances to beat the ‘best’

Thing is they usually blow teams out. Celtics have not exactly played in a ton of close games together. That is definately something they have to work on though.

mcpu40 you could not be more off if you were Steven A. Smith talking up the knicks before the start of the season. Jeff that was probably your worst post since you started this blog. First of all, who said the Pistons were the best? The last time I checked, we were. You cannot talk about past history with the Boston Celtics, because there is none with this team. So yea, the Pistons have been the best of the East for the last 5 years, big deal. The East has been dreadful, and last year the Cavs were the best team in the East. Remember when Lebron James single handily defeated their whole team?

The Pistons needed every bit of lights out 45% shooting from beyond the arc and a blistering 87% free throw clip to squeak out 87 points against us! I will give the Pistons a lot of credit because they made some absurdly tough 3 point shots in this game. But outside of that, their offense was dreadful. There is no doubting that the Pistons are a veteran team and a clutch team, and WE allowed them to hang around, and in the NBA that tends to bite you in the butt sometimes. It did tonight, but do not go labeling this Pistons team the BEST. That is outrageous, right now we are the team to beat. 20-3 needs no stamp on it, it is what it is.

On top of this, we lost this game because Paul Pierce for some reason decided that he was going to play his worst offensive game of his career. As any Boston die hard fan knows, this is not something we need to worry about. This was a freak incident, and not one that will be repeated. Pierce is a big time player who has proven he can torch any team, not matter who they are. Tonight he almost seemed disoriented, deprived of any true rhythm the whole night. I do not credit the Pistons for this, because Pierce is too good to let anyone do this to him, he did this to himself.

If this is the team standing in our way, they should just role out the red carpet right now so we can waltz into the finals. This game showed me nothing outside of the fact that the Celtics are human and they let one slip away. With that said, they still showed true resilience by battling back from 6 back with a minute to play. Billups made a great play at the end, and they won the game, but for you to throw up a post that almost sounds like you have lost faith in the fact that we are the best team in the NBA right now, well thats just silly and fair weathered. You labeled the Pistons the best, they in know way have earned that title.

I agree modawg. The Pitons were once the ‘best’ when they won a championship but since then… Not sure how they have a reputation of ‘imposing their will’ if they lose to Lebron and the Cavs last year when it mattered most. Celtics will face the ‘best’ when they face the Spurs.

just wait, the Aaron Gray experience is coming to town on Friday. y’all are screwed. ;)

Celtics can’t be called the best until they beat these teams in the playoffs.

What they can do is lay down the gauntlet and say we’re coming … and they’ve done that.

I don’t think the Celtics can prove anything further in the regular season (unless they do something crazy like win every game from here on out). I don’t care if they beat Detroit in Decemeber. It still doesn’t mean they can beat them in the playoffs. Same with every other top team in the league.

Gotta wait til the playoffs.

And Cleveland is the best team in the league. They are the reigning champs. They didn’t beat Detroit by chance. They shut down their offense and Z, Bron and Gibson took turns killing them on the other end. Cleveland outplayed them 6 straight games because they were better than Detroit.

Who—didn’t Cleveland get plastered by San Antonio in 4 games? Or maybe you and I are concerned with different championships? ;)

Yes they did, still the best team in the East though.

Don’t forget the loss of Larry Hughes to injury and don’t underestimate the growth in LeBron James this offseason. He’s been phenomenal.

Oh … re-reading. Meant reigning East Champs ;D

They’re getting overlooked in the East.

i wish the c’s could play the pistons more in the regular season. this game was a learning experience and these guys want to learn. the c’s hung tough and ray is the key shot maker not pp.

Cavs should be the best team the beat Det. when it counted last year. Det. has won a championship but that was a few years ago. If they are the ‘best’ the will have to prove it when it really counts in the postseason not in Dec.

In this game, this one game mcpu40, we allowed the Pistons to hang around and did not finish them off when she should have. So yes, I am not denying that we failed to execute while the Pistons clearly did down the stretch. However, you cannot label a team based on one game. In 23 tries, we have executed and gotten it down 20 times.

In the NBA, you are not going to be perfect, this could have been a number of teams. Just because it happened to be the Pistons does not mean they are a step above us right now. A larger sample will be necessary, just as was the case when we lost to Orlando. All I’m saying is examine the body of work to date and you clearly see that we have been the best.

Even the 3 games we have lost, 2 of them we had chances to win at the buzzer and the third went to overtime. All 3 were against the top 3 of 4 teams in the east right now, us being the 4th of course. I’m begging people to stop seeing this as a negative, and focus more on the fact that the only teams that even can compete with us at this point are the championship contending ones. This is a good sign, not a bad one.

To say we don’t have experience is silly, yes we do not have experience together as a unit, but we are armed with savy veterans who know how to close out games down the stretch. Since the moment this team was put together, people have been making mountains out of mole hills. Our bench was non existent last night, does this mean that we need to worry about them? Of course not, because they have been stellar all season, again it was ONE GAME. Things happen, and sometimes you don’t bring it. This is why the NCAA tournament has so many upsets and the best team doesnt necessarily win every year.

Luckily for us, we have 7 games to figure out who the best team is. When these two teams meet, Detroit is going to need to be that perfect from beyond the arc and at the line to even have a chance, otherwise they will not crack 80 points. Our bench and Paul Pierce will not be shutdown like that again all year, so there is no cause for concern.