Reasons For Hope (Or Platitudes)

Depending on your glass of water (half empty or half full) the following points are either something to hold onto until game 2 starts or platitudes to be dismissed until proven otherwise.

1) It was just 1 game: Also known as "They start 0-0 in game 2."  Each game has its own story lines, subplots, and chose your own adventures.  The teams will look at film, make adjustments, and execute differently on Tuesday.  The team the adjusts better will likely be the victor.  I thought that with a week to prepare the Celtics would be able to pick apart the Heat, but the didn't execute like they should have and Miami's talent won out for one game.  If you think about it, we don't have any film of Dwyane Wade dominating against us with this current team.  Now we do.  Will it help?  I hope so.

2) They were supposed to win at home: Also known as "The series doesn't start till a team wins a road game."  The goal is still to steal one of two games from the Heat in Miami, thus stealing home court advantage.  So far the Celtics are 0-1 but they have another shot at that on Tuesday.  There's a good chance that we could win game 2 and take that momentum (if you believe in such things from game to game) home with us.

3) Never count out a Champion: Also known as (well, maybe not known, I may have just made this up) "the Rocky effect."  Sure, he's a fictional character, but you have to love the spirit of a guy that just keeps getting knocked around (with poor boxing technique, hands down) until he digs deep and finds a resolve that will just not be defeated.  There were plenty of times when things looked bad in 2008.  There were times when things looked pretty bleak last year.  Yet the team fought back and made it to the Finals both times, taking home a banner on one of the trips.  This is only the first loss of the post season.  This is just the first punch that rang Rocky's bell.  He's gonna get hit a lot more, but he's not going down without a fight.

Bonus reasons for hope:

• Wade can't play much better than that.  Likely to cool off just a little.
• KG didn't score much but he locked down Bosh and rebounded a bit.
• Ray Allen is still shooting well (knock on wood).
• James Jones won't have that kind of game again.  He won't.
• Rondo got better as the game went along (zero dimes in the first half, finished with 7)
• Delonte West and Jeff Green showed some signs of life off the bench.
• Heat are still top heavy.  85 of their 99 points came from 3 people.
• One of these days, we're bound to get Shaq back... I hope.

I'm sure you could flip many of these bullet points on their head and create reasons for pessimism, but that's just not in my nature.  Game one speaks for itself.  There is plenty of reason to worry and nothing but a victory in game 2 is going to wipe those reasons away.  Even if we win game 2 this Miami team is still going to be a threat until you knock them out of the playoffs.  Here's hoping that process starts on Tuesday.  Otherwise, all the platitudes in the world won't help us remain optimistic.