Some Thoughts on the Celtics

My favorite Boston sports team is, by far, the Celtics. I grew up in the era of Bird, McHale, Parish, Johnson and Ainge. This was back when nobody went to Red Sox games and the Patriots were a joke.

The Celtics had a great year this year and came within a few minutes of advancing to the third championship of the "Big Three" era.

The consensus seems to be that the "better team" -- the Heat -- won.  I disagree completely. What happened on Saturday night was more about health.

The Heat got their third best player (Chris Bosh) back full time and healthy in game 7.  It's that simple.  That's why they won.  He hit three three pointers and took the Celtics' big men way out of position to open up the lanes for James and Wade.  He had 19 points, 8 rebounds and a very key block.

If the Celtics got their fourth best player (Avery Bradley) back full time for game 7 it would've been a different result.  The better team didn't win; the team that got healthy just in time for when it mattered won.

No doubt this is the end of the road of the five year run of the Big Three in Boston. It was an unforgettable group. Their heart, commitment and unmatched defense will be remembered in Boston for a long, long time to come.

Bill Simmons wrote a column about the team back in March the day after they beat a very tough Clippers team in Los Angeles. He ended the column with these words and I'll do the same with this post.

We’ll always have that final minute after the Clippers fans filed out, when it was just the sea of green and a nodding Pierce happily soaking in those "Let’s go Celtics!" chants again. Leave them alone and the 2012 Boston Celtics will go down swinging. That’s all we know, and frankly, that’s good enough for me.