Honorable Mention:
- The Celtics pouncing on their two biggest Atlantic Division rivals, the Nets and Raptors.
- Restoring order in the TD Banknorth by defeating the LA Lakers and not having a repeat of the infamous "cheering for Kobe" incident of last season.
- The birth of the Scal-a-brine chant at the tail end of blow out victories.
- Some promising play from Glen Davis.
- Eddie House and James Posey.
"Swamp thing!"
"Denzel...Washington!"
9. December 8, 2007 - I realize that second Bulls/Celtics game was more of a decisive victory. But the first win meant so much. The Celtics went on the road, played one of their most complete games, denied a struggling team a huge morale boost and exorcised some recent demons. Bonus points because KG seemed to levitate before he blocked an Andres Nocioni shot.
8. November 29, 2007 - The Celtics made their triumphant return to TNT and absolutely thrashed the Knicks in the process. If it were a fight they would have stopped it. And let's not forget that prior to the game Quentin Richardson questioned how good the Celtics were. To top it all off every individual involved with the broadcast - announcer, color guy, sideline reporter and studio guys - called out the entire Knicks organization. The game was so one sided that Charles Barkley held interviews during the action in which they minimized the game footage itself. And it actually made sense. Crazy times.
7. November 2, 2007 - It's easy to forget now but a lot of people, myself included, were cautiously optimistic as the season approached. In hindsight I underestimated Ray Allen's all around game, Kevin Garnett's presence and how improved the Celtics' defense would be. A lot of that became clear on opening night. Throw in the first truly raucous crowd since the epic comeback against the Nets in the playoffs and/or Lucky's rollerblade dunk, ESPN and Gilbert Arenas' ill-fated guarantee and opening night was fantastic. Even now KG's outrageous rejection of Arenas stands as one of the signature plays of the young season.
6. January 1, 2007 - Delonte West kicked off the new year with his, "If we gonna play with a sock we gonna play with a sock" comment. Unfortunately West's ground breaking wire hanger commercial was a 2006 phenomenon. You see what I did there? I slipped it in anyways.
5. May 22, 2007 - I did not believe in tanking, never really expected the Celtics to win the lottery and was still devastated by the lottery results. It was downright depressing to try and figure out what the hell plan B was while people around the country enjoyed the irony of the entire situation. Those were not fun times. However, that did set in motion one hell of a plan B.
4. March 17, 2007 - The Celtics headed to San Antonio on St. Patrick's Day and overcame Brian Scalabrine's absence and a combined 43 minutes from Allan Ray and Michael Olowokandi to defeat Tim Duncan's Spurs for the first time...ever. Just an "exorcised the demons" style win for a franchise that had already lost 18 games in a row and only won 24 all season. Make sure to watch the clip. Remember how clutch Paul Pierce was down the stretch? It was one of those nights that made watching nearly every game worthwhile, no matter how bad things got.
3. April 16, 2007 - In the second to last game of the season, which also doubled as the second to last game of Al Jefferson's Celtics career, Big Al dropped 20 points, grabbed 13 boards and hit the game winner. Granted the Heat did not trot out a murderer's row for crunch time. But I was completely unsurprised by Jefferson's evening. That's how far he came in his third season in Boston. And this has to be included because the #1 event on this list does not happen without Jefferson's progress.
2. June 28, 2007 - The Boston Celtics trade Jeff Green, Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and several brilliant quotes to be uttered later by West for Ray Allen and Glen Davis. Little did we know that Allen's arrival made Boston attractive to Kevin Garnett. Meanwhile, Davis serves the dual purpose of replacing some of West's comedy and bumping Brian Scalabrine down the depth chart.
1. July 31, 2007 - Barely over a month after Ray Allen landed in Boston Danny Ainge pulled off one of the trades of the century by obtaining KG. I celebrated with an outrageous night in an English pub. By the end of the evening I pretended to be scouting for the Celtics preseason European trip. Don't ask. And yet as happy as I was, I still greatly underestimated KG's impact. In fact without him this is probably a list of the worst Celtics moments from 2007. And it would be a long one.