SI's Chris Mannix was on WEEI today and he's no fan of what the C's are doing…. mostly because they seem to be pinning their hopes on the return of two guys who haven't really done a lot this year.
“Imagine before the season if we thought getting into late March, early April, ‘If only Shaq and Jermaine can come back, we’ll be OK for the postseason.’ To me, that’s a horrible attitude to have, if that’s what this team is thinking, that one of those guys can come back and be a difference-maker. Once Shaq comes back, he’ll only play for about two months, and who knows what kind of physical shape he’s in at this stage. And Jermaine has given you nothing all season long, so there’s no reason to believe he’s going to add anything to the equation.”
Hard to argue that mentality but Shaq IS down about 20 pounds and Jermaine has been playing without any recurrence of swelling. So there's at least some reason for the C's to be hopeful.
The best point Mannix made was regarding the #1 seed.
“…the difference between playing the 8 seed and the 7 seed this year is like playing the 16 seed in the NCAA tournament vs. a 2 or 3 seed. Whoever winds up in that 8 spot, be it Indiana, Milwaukee, Charlotte, I think they’re going to be a relative pushover in the first round. Maybe they take a team to five games. Most likely they get swept in four.
“That 7 seed, whether it’s New York or Philadelphia, those aren’t going to be easy games,” Mannix continued. “They’re going to be kind of knock-down, drag-out games. They might push you to six, maybe even seven games. I think that’s something Boston really has to start to consider going into the postseason.”
I guess New York would be tough because they've got great players… but they're really not playing well right now and I really don't fear them. I'm much more afraid of Philly. They have played the Celtics really well. I do NOT want to face them in the playoffs.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
