... but when you settle into your recliner (or barstool at your favorite watering hole) to watch Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen join the rest of the Celtics in taking on the Sixers in Saturday night's Game 7 (8 p.m. Eastern, ABC), you may be doing so for the last time.
When those two signed up to join Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo in green in the summer of 2007, Celtics fans knew two things: We were now contenders for multiple NBA championships, and we had better get those titles fast, because a window propped open by 31 years of NBA experience doesn't stay open long. Due to contracts and the practical considerations of the age of the "Big Three," three years seemed like a reasonable statute of limitations.
Due to the improvement of Rajon Rondo, the now-departed Kendrick Perkins, Avery Bradley, and yes, coach Doc Rivers -- plus the remarkable longevity of the vets -- the Celtics have stayed postseason-relevant for a bit longer than expected. But this run is coming to an end, sooner rather than later. As recently as the trade deadline, with the Celtics foundering, Danny Ainge was shopping his aging stars, and every NBA junkie with a publishing outlet was urging him to "blow up" the team and position it for the next run. This is no time to speculate or get into the details of how much money it might take to re-sign Garnett and Allen and whether the team will want to pony up, but it suffices to say that if both of those guys are on the roster next year, it'll be a surprise. Which means, in turn, that if things go bad on Saturday, it'll likely be the end of this chapter in Celtics history.
I, for one, don't expect things to go bad. If there's one thing that's been apparent to me from this series, it's that Philadelphia isn't good enough to beat a Boston team playing moderately well. Even with all the injuries, this series should have been over in five games, and the Cs were in position to win Game 6 despite playing some of the worst basketball they've played in years. I would expect a much different Boston team to show up on Saturday. As poorly as the Celtics have fared recently in road closeout games (2-11 in the last five years), they've been nearly as good in series-clinching games at home (7-1 over the same period, the lone blemish being Orlando in the conference semis without Garnett).
If those statistics strike you as irrelevant, I won't blame you. But in recent years, I -- against all logic -- have come to believe in sort of an order to the NBA universe. By and large, the NBA postseason is a pyramid that must be scaled step-by-step. It's the reason the Heat didn't beat the Mavericks in last year's Finals, the reason the Clippers got swept in the second-round this year, the x-factor that I think tips the scales in favor of the Spurs in their much-anticipated Western Conference finals matchup with Thunder. And beating two solid, battle-tested teams in a row -- even with the help of big-time injuries to those teams -- is just too big a jump.
Finally, I just can't believe that this era will end at home in the conference semis to a team like Philadelphia. That's not the personality of these Celtics. A championship attitude will only take you so far (see last year's loss in five games to Miami), but it should be enough to beat an inferior team like the Sixers. Boston's season may well end in a loss, but if it does, it will be to the Heat or the Spurs.
Not Philly. Not in the Garden. Not in Game 7.
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