I feel the same way, how can a team be so dominant for the first 20 games and so shaky in the interim?
We beat the Cavs easily on opening night, but we’ve lost 4 straight to the Hawks, we lost to the Lakers by 1 and dominated for most of the game. Its been a rollecoaster, you just don’t know which team is going to show up.

Nevertheless, the team as presently constructed wont beat the Magic or Cavs, and maybe even the Hawks without home court advantage in the playoffs. I agree if we trade ray it has to be for K-mart or Iggy or Ellis, I don’t even think the salmon/hinrich/thomas helps us that much. I think Iggy is the best fit because he would be the best cover for Lebron/Kobe.

Like you ’m shells hocked and disappointed in this team, if I can draw one positive from this season its Rondo, hes hands down the best Point Guard in the East and on his way to greatness.

Unfortunately that wont satisfy Celtics nation when many including myself thought that this was the season of banner 18.
It looks incredibly unlikely now, and uncertainty reigns supreme for all of us right now.

The irony is that Ray is playing better than Pierce and Garnett, who have been stinking it up.

But Ray is the one with the expiring contract.

When does Rondo start completely taking over? Its evident that the offense is running ENTIRELY through him when the team is playing at his best. When do we stop forcing the ball to the Big 3 and use them as complimentary pieces to Rondo? I think that time is now.

Do we make a trade, and if so, who? Obviously Ray Allen is the first option to be traded, but what about Big Baby and Sheed, who have been pretty disappointing so far. My heart tells me that we keep the team intact (how can a person WANT to trade a guy like Ray Allen?) but my brain tells me that something needs to change.

And latched onto that last point, we should seriously consider trading for someone who is either a great defender or a great rebounder (both would be nice), but the Celtics are lacking in both of those fundamental categories. Perk has sucked for the past month, KG isn’t the same and he never will be and Sheed is just plain lazy. We need a young guy (Tyrus Thomas) who can provide energy, rebounding, and defense, but not be to short to do those things effectively (Big Baby, Shelden).

So many questions, still have a big headache from today’s game, and it doesn’t seem like its gonna get any better in the near future. Thank god its almost the All-Star break.

…“uncertainty reigns”?

—all moves should be with an eye on rebuilding.

Shouldn’t we let the full complement play say five games together before we talk blowing up the team?

This year is toast with the status quo so why the worry about making a trade? Also why does no one mention how Perk stinks. He has either regressed badly or just hit is ceiling and we all missed it.

W.e trade the celtics do for Ray.. they need to let the other team know to cut him.. A young rebuilding team would probably do it. Why? Because Ray would be taking valuable PT from younger players for the rest of the year when he’s not in their future plans.

It’s more important to move Sheed… gotta cut the tumor out. But I have no problem with moving both, in the right trade. (Would love to see Iggy on this team, btw.)

pp never should have been out there yesterday and i blame him and doc for that. rest your stupid ankle and stay away from your ego driven allstar contest, pp. instead, he plays but does not put out the whole game. will kg ever get healthier? that is the real question because this is his team. he sets the tone. when he takes time off in a game, they all do.

Was at the game yesterday and the first half Celts could compete for Championship. 2nd half, well we know what happened.
Everyone builds a Championship team around veterans. We’ve got them. Can they lift themselves to it? Not sure if they can if they couldn’t in such a “show me” game as yesterday. But the options are 1. Build the team you got to a peak for the playoffs 2. Sell Ray for good value 3. Sell Ray and get worse.
I like #1 because I just can’t believe that a player of better playoff value than Ray will come our way. #2 may be possilbe. Danny has shown a knack for such things but how will the rest of the players react. After all, if KG isn’t peak for playoffs we’re not going far, with Ray or without Ray. I don’t see KG getting emotionally fired up following a trade deadline fire sale of a guy of such quality as Ray. As for #3, some bloggers may bloviate about the end of the Bird/McHale era and be OK with abandoning quest for this year’s banner, but I don’t think ownership.Ainge are thinking that way.
So, there were some good things to see yesterday. Glen Davis doing man’s work three games in row. Daniels helped. That can be a good bench. I think it is about KG’s health and Doc. Doc’s tendency is to double down on his starters when they hit a bad patch. I advocate for “Steady” at Danny’s level but not at Doc’s level. He needs to be more creative given the tendencies of his veterans.

He is never going to be the 2007-2008 KG again folks. Time to move on off of that idea. can we buffer him with enough help to still get a title? Possible, I guess. Might it take a significant deal to get it done? Also very possible. I feel they need an upgrade over Allen at this current stage to get to the title level again. Can Ainge pull it off? We’ll see….

I posted this question in a thread on the forum. I believe the answer is that it is a rarity when teams intentionally or unintentionally coast through the season and then are able to turn it on and win a championship. Yes, you had a Houston team in the mid-90’s and the Celtics back in 1969, but how many others? That’s the problem in a nutshell. It just is not going to happen here. So, Danny can do one of two things: start rebuilding for the future now or let it ride for the rest of the year. Either way this team is not winning a championship.

I’d trade Ray Allen for any solid young player. I don’t see any reason to worry about getting someone in return who can fill Ray’s role. He can no longer fill that role. He’s healthy and has good stamina, but no longer has the athleticism to get off and make hard shots against a good defense. We need to rid ourselves of one of the old guys and Ray is the only one tradeable. Logically speaking, it’s a no-brainer. Almost any of the names mentioned in the various rumors would make us better not just for the future, but for this year. They’d boost the almost non-existent title chances to minimal.

In addition, I think KG should be playing Sheed’s role, coming off the bench, and Sheed should play rarely. Baby, with all his limitations, can move around energetically like an NBA player. We need that sort of thing to compete with other NBA teams who’ve had the audacity to fill their rosters with good athletes who run around the court at high speed.

I couldn’t understand why Doc didn’t start to sub his younger faster bench players as the lead slipped away in the middle of the 3rd yesterday. Those were the guys that built the lead. He seems dead set against rocking the boat even when it’s clearly starting to take on water. It’s mystifying.

And Pierce should be taking the next 10 days off so he can come back with some spring in his step, like he had at the beginning of the year.

I still think we have a championship quality team positions 1 — 8. I am thrilled that Marquis came back yesterday looking as sharp as he did. Glen Davis, while he is hustling and clogging up the middle, still has a way to go. He has to learn how to finish or how to pass.

I get the feeling that we are living in the one hour television age, where positive results are expected in an hour. Life is not like that. What happened to all the people who were screaming for Doc to rest everyone until after the All Star break…and not to worry about W’s and L’s. This team will be back to strength in a couple weeks, barring more injuries.

Davis has played with passion the last couple of games. I hate to say it, but I kind of hope Danny is showcasing him to trade, and will bring back Daniels off the bench.

The reason I can be quite sure of that is related to something Doc said post-game. He said (paraphrasing now) that “they could have scored ZERO points in that 3rd quarter (and that would have been something he could accept) but they should NEVER have have allowed 36 points. That was unacceptable.”

You can have a bad game. Your shot can be off (see Allen, Ray). But if you do your job… the job they know perfectly well how to do… you can still win on the strength of your defense. That’s the whole point of being a “defensive team”. It’s smart, and it wins championships. But…. you gotta actually DO it. If you take a quarter off, as the Cs did, and let the other team — in this case a well-known 3s-shooting club — run riot… well, you’re gonna lose.

So my need, my urgency, to trade and trade is not great. This team is ready… it needs to be better motivated. It needs focus. But it can go all the way as constituted.

However, if motivation and focus are the issues, there is one player they need to get rid of. And that would be Sheed. Because that guy is toxic to this team… he’s the least motivated, he’s a vet, and he’s in the top 6. If anybody’s pulling motivation out of this team, he’s suspect #1. Perk’s recent Sheed-like changes attest to that.

So…. bottom line… other than getting rid of Sheed, I don’t think there’s a strong urgency to make a major move. Adding a backup PG would be nice. Another wing guy to spell PP, sure. But it’s not a sine qua non.

Seemed to fire the squad up at the end. KG started talking trash and arguing with Howard. I think he needs to bring that fire more.

Gotta make the trade now before you lose him for nothing and can’t sign a top 30 player because of cap restrictions. Trading is the only way to do it.

Make Ray Allen the 6th man and start Daniels. He is not the shooter Allen is, but he brings energy, athleticism, defense and quickness. Our perimeter game will suffer a bit, but I like the idea of Ronda and Daniels as slashers. If we trade anyone, let it be Sheed or BBD for another, younger big. BBD had no lift yesterday and had about 5 or 6 shots blocked under the basket. He should not be playing power forward and seems to have gained back the weight he lost in the offseason. As for Sheed, I doubt there would be many takers. The guy is a drain on this team right now.

Sidney Wicks?

Just asking.

for making lemonade out of lemons but you can go to well only so many times.
Aquiring Sheed was not a smart move.

Lets build around Rondo before he gets old.

We play some outstanding basketball every night including against the best teams. We were winning in almost all the games we played against the elite at one point only to blow it later. So to me, are we good enough? Hell yea we are we dominate the elite teams for most of games. Then, we blow it. We gotta find a way to dominate more and struggle less when in game. If we contain yesterdays third (not stop) but contain it we win that game.

I propose that we tell our players if we don’t win by 7 we don’t win. Giving them an incentive to play a closer game than the score shows and hopefully stop them from falling asleep after incredible first halves

Which only Danny really knows and that’s KG’s health. If he’s going to get better, stay the course. If not, then you probably need to make a move.

Looks like Simmons was right about KG and his ‘mileage’ — until proven otherwise and as yet it has not been proven.

There’s no time for chemistry if a big trade is made and you won’t get Allen or Sheeds value in return. You will need Sheed’s size, defense, post game and spacing in a 7 game series. Rondo, Pierce, Allen & KG have chemistry. Basically it all rests on KG’s health for the second straight season. Boston with a gimpy KG can knock off a Magic, Cavs or Hawks team but I don’t think they can knock off 2 in a row and certainly not 2 in a row and have something left for Denver or the Lakers.

that we have a serious problem with defensive rebounds, whereas we did not have it in the playoffs, despite of playing undersized BBD and Perk as a frontcourt. The thing is that KG doesn’t jump at all, he barely can catch an alleyopp pass from Rondo. I know that is a little unfair to demand it from our point guard, but Rondo has to to get himself involved in rebounding even more than currently, even if that means that we give up fastbreak points. Second chance points often kill us, so we must make some adjustments as soon as possible. Moreover, if I had a chance to bring a player of Tyrus Thomas’ kind, I would take it. We are definitely too weak physically in comparison with Orlando, Atlanta and Cleveland, so Danny must figure something out with it.