Fearless Season Win Total Prediction

Ball Don't Lie says 56-26. Rasheed Wallace says a record-setting 73 wins is in reach. And Rhymes With Hondo says somewhere in between.

BDL's prediction is about as low as I've seen, but I've also read a lot of stuff that says that 60 wins is a stretch. And while I give Rasheed's comments as much weight as such blustering deserves, I do find it a bit peculiar that people are so reluctant to believe that Boston can at least match last year's win total of 62.

There are a few arguments I've seen and heard for why the Celtics will be hard-pressed to match last year's mark. I think most of them are garbage of varying degrees. Let's tackle them one at a time.

1. KG's health. Look, no Celtics fan isn't apprehensive about the stability of Garnett's surgically repaired knee. I'm a big Celtics fan, so I'm very worried about it. But in terms of regular-season record, can we really predict that KG is going to miss more than a quarter of the season due to the knee? Because that's what happened last year; he hurt the knee on February 19 against Utah and missed 22 of the team's last 26 games (and then all of the playoffs). I'm not saying I think Garnett's going to play the full 82; just that if predicting regular season records is to be a meaningful exercise (which it probably isn't), you can't expect KG to miss more time than he did last year.

Moreover, we're better equipped to handle any Garnett injury this year. Wallace can fill in for him and Boston won't miss a beat defensively, where KG's absence was felt most. 'Sheed is also more than capable of filling in offensively.

In addition, the injury forced other Celtics to step up their games, something that was very clear in the performances of Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins in the playoffs. Rondo was electrifying in the seven-game series against the Bulls, and while it took Perk a while to get comfortable without his frontcourt mate, he eventually responded to the opportunity in a big way -- he was arguably our best player in the playoffs.

Whether Garnett misses games or it's just that he's not his old self, the team's in better shape to pick up the slack than it was last year. We've added new personnel; the old personnel is more ready to step up; the team now has gotten used to playing without KG; and the guys are mentally prepared to be without him on the court. Should Garnett miss the kind of time he missed last year, it seems perfectly reasonable to expect Boston to at least match their regular season record of 16-6 without him after the knee injury. That stretch included wins vs. Cleveland and at Denver.

2. The Celtics won't match their scorching start from 2008-2009. Given that the 27-2 start to last season was an NBA record and the 19-game winning streak that got them there was a franchise mark, I'll concede that it's not likely Boston will match it this year. (Although I heard someone on TNT the other day say that with 17 of their first 21 games at home, the defending champion Lakers could go undefeated for the season's first month and a half). What this argument overlooks is that the Celtics then promptly dropped seven of their next nine, an uncommonly cold streak for a team of that caliber. As rare and unexpected as Boston's torrid start was, the immediate aftermath was also a surprise.

It's all about frame of reference. If you say the Celtics started 27-2, then yeah, that seems unattainable. If you say the Celtics started 29-9, it's not nearly as daunting.

3. The rest of the league got better. I don't buy this argument for two reasons. First, we got better, too. Not only that, our better is better than the other guys' better. Only a handful of teams can boast additions as good or better than Wallace and Marquis Daniels. And hey, we were better than most of them to begin with.

Second, there are always teams that are supposed to be better than there actually are (many more of these than surprisingly good teams). Two years ago, Chicago was supposed to be better than they were; last year, Toronto was a big disappointment. So you can tell me that the Raptors and the Wizards are going to be better than they were, but I'll believe it when I see it. And again, we improved, too, and we were better than them to begin with.

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I'm not predicting the world here. We'll lose our usual share of games to teams that have no business beating us, the inevitable letdowns that come over the course of an 82-game season. And we'll certainly have our work cut out for us against the other elite teams in the league. But last year we lost to Indiana, New York, Milwaukee, and Charlotte, split four games with Cleveland and two with San Antonio, dropped a home date with Orlando, and got swept in the home-and-home with the Lakers. All that, and we still went 62-20. Again, I'm having a hard time understanding why 62 wins, give or take one or two, isn't the floor.

Anything between 60 and (sorry 'sheed) 66 seems likely. I'll go last year two better and say 64-18.