The Injury Issue/Excuse

I;d rather have this team back then starting over with no clue. Seems that avoiding injury is the key. That’s great in theory but might I suggest we try to get a serviceable enough bench that can at least maintain a lead so we can keep these guys healthy through the season.

Who will be backing up JO?

i would first like to say i am of the opinion having the boys come back and go for another championship is/was the best way to go. With that being said there comes a point where old players playing badly because they a have a injury just can’t fly any more. If a older player isn’t playing well because it was found out he had a injury does that mean he still has it but was injured or is that just what happens when i player is on the decline. Injuries and drops in performance are just what happens when you get old. And it is up to the powers that be to determine whether or not the talent can over come the consent nagging injuries or is it better to get some fresh, talented legs.

btw if the goal is to win a championship going with a similar team to last year is clearly the best option. You guys said it best you are just as good as you options, or you could force your options. :)

Houston?

Portland?

Every team’s chances are based on being healthy.

Age is relative and for these highly conditioned pro athletes, its not like we are talking about geriatric 85 year olds with osteoporosis. The chance of incurring an injury in the NBA is not really any different for a 32 year old player than it is for a 24 year old. SOME kinds of injuries may take longer to heal by a marginal amount, but only some and not really by that big of a difference as some like to make it out to be. In other words for some injuries, a 33 year old might take 12 days to recover while a 23 year old might take only 10. But for many other types of injuries there will be no difference.

The real danger that age brings is flat-out decline, not injury. That is, simple degradation of muscle power such that speed & explosiveness are lost. But those are things you usually see happen across a 2-3 year span. During that you should see a marked drop in most efficiency stats and shooting percentages away from career averages. There is a real danger that one or more of our ‘old’ guys might finally show the first signs of decline this year.

So far, none of our ‘Big 3’ have shown any sign of decline in their key efficiency stats. When healthy, KG, Paul & Ray all performed near or better than their career averages in most of the important stats this year.

That is no guarantee that will hold up this year, of course. Ray’s type of game is in theory the most vulnerable. KG’s value on the team is primarily the way he controls the paint and disrupts passing lanes on defense – that is not likely to decline much with age. Pierce’s game is based on powering to the hoop for high percentage layups and dunks and not quickness – that should hold up well, as should his set-shot 3PT shooting and free throw shooting. Ray is a precision jump-shooter – that kind of game deteriorates with age as the explosiveness and precision is lost in the legs. We just saw the effect of him getting kneed in the thigh in Game 3 of the finals – his jump shot was toast for the next few games until late in Game 7.

That said, of the three, Ray is the one who seems to be in the most unbelievable condition – he is more fit than most guys 10 years younger. He just posted the second most minutes of any Celtic this last year (barely behind Rondo). He’s like an eveready battery – he never stops moving.

wear and tear. the more wear you got the more likely your gonna tear

Has Doc changed his philosophy? If he really believes that health is the key, will we see the the rookies get more time? I would take that, a few more regular season losses, and perhaps end up with a deeper team for the playoffs.

the last 3 years the Celtics have had 3 very physical playoffs and this year went as deep in the playoffs as you can. When the spurs (another older team) won there championships it was always every other year and based on health. Going deep in the playoffs two years in a row is extremely hard and you must be fresh. Sorry to say but the Lakers could do it because they were younger. To me the reason KG got hurt in 08-09 has a lot to do with the deep playoff run in 07-08

kwame brown would be a nice backup for JO while perk is out. Kwame based on size and athletic ability is way better than Shelden Williams.

Has Doc changed his philosophy? If he really believes that health is the key, will we see the the rookies get more time?

i would say no based on track record. i do see Harangody playing a reasonable a.mount of minutes maybe 10-12. not so much Bradley based on the comments Ainge made about him being only 19 and needing to learn the game and get physical stronger

was the result from artest kneeing him in game 3

I m ray rays life long fan, and I really have too dig deep to find missing streak that he hitted after knee in game 3. It happened in 1st or 2nd qtr and after that he went 0-14 or 0-15 during next 3 games (altogether 0-16 cause he missed one shot before being on recieving end of that artest knee), but the point is not in number of missed shots its in type of shots he was missing…
Wide open ones… I never saw him doing that more than once or twice in career, its different when he shoots 2-11 or something while shooting with hand in the face and fighting off bad screens with shoot clock on 2 and missing like this, so I m convinced his jump leg was an issue.
Being proffesional as he is he never bothered to say it out loud but the people who know his game, knew that something is wrong with that picture.

On topic I really don’t know what is more worth, thw health issue or the home court advantage…
I want to cry when I think about all those 4qtr big leads lost this past regural season (and there were deff more than 7 games like that which would put us in front of fakers and get the game 7 in garden..but thats coulda woulda shoulda sphere..) which could make it easier on us during playoffs.
So the big question here is does it matter more to have home court advantage going into playoff series or was it the freshness in legs we got by tanking the regular season a bit the reason why we won at least 2 games as guest during every playoff series on east?
 I really don’t know.

Finally although I know that this willl be tl;dr type of post I really have to say that as a Croat I had limited NBA players from my home country playing here (Kukoc, Petrovic and Dino Radja mostly) and I am a celts fan ever since ’90s because of Radja I have to say that I really enjoy every second of being contender, no matter how small the chances are, so kudos to DA, its right thing to ride this wave as long as it last.

Injury is an equalizer in pro sports. Can happen to the highest paid teams and give hope (“We’re healthy”) to underdogs. The Lakers got it done despite a gimpy center. It is a reason not to top load your roster at the expense of depth. We’ll see about that this year in Miami.

I keep seeing Erden’s name get mentioned. He did not look like aN NBA caliber player in Summer League. Better be looking elsewhere.

Can he rebound? Can he defend? Can he make ’gimme’s’? Remember our backup (barring again the injury thing) will be playing against their backup. The only two backups on the oppositions I have seen that were at all tough were Gortat and Varejo. So, I think Erden can give us a few minutes, especially if he uses his fouls when beat. And perhaps the Artsi Parcheesi Balurian can give a few. At least he can rebound.

Of course us ‘experts’ are worried….but I havent’ heard Danny moan and groan yet….but of course, what does he know!

we’re old and we just got older.

Hey mmmmm, I’d love to see the research you reference in your posts. You can probably tell I disagree with your point, but if you could provide more details, it would help the discussion. Thanks.

I recall Rhondo wearing thigh pads in the playoffs [maybe ever shoulders pads at one point ;)]. Maybe Ray needs to start wearing them, in the playoffs at least.