Viewing Alert

It's not yet Halloween, but it might as well be Christmas Eve. The long national nightmare is over, and basketball is back. I hardly watched any of the baseball postseason, and my interest in the NFL seems to get weaker every year. These next eight months are what I live for.

Three games on the NBA slate Tuesday night, two on national TV, and one of those includes Boston. I'd like to say it's just another game, Game 1 of 82, but we all know that's not true. It's Boston at Miami on ring ceremony night, when LeBron James and the rest of the Heat receive the treasures the Celtics came within a quarter of denying them last spring. You can bet Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo and especially Kevin Garnett aren't going to like witnessing that.

And, of course, watching right along with them will be Ray Allen -- only he'll be congratulating his new teammates, rather then trying to ruin their night with his old ones. Allen won't start, which means we won't get to see him interact pre-tip -- generally the most cordial moment of an NBA games, when the players get together and bump fists in a mutual show of respect -- with his former brothers, a couple of whom barely will acknowledge his existence. But once he enters the game...well, it's going to be interesting.

There's a basketball game to be played, too, and there are a lot of reasons for Celtics fans to be excited on the eve of the season. Sure, the (new) Big Three era is over, and its memory may be forever tainted for some. But I think we're better this year than we were last year, when we came within just a few minutes of our third, and most surprising, trip to the Finals in the last five years. I haven't been able to make the time to do a full-on season preview, and I'm not going to do that now, but here's a quick viewing guide if you haven't been paying close attention in the offseason.

New faces. Boston's got a lot of these, and the good news is that most of them are passable NBA rotation players. That seems like a small thing, but when you've been reliant on the likes of Keyon Dooling and Marquis Daniels -- both good teammates, to be sure, but of limited effectiveness -- it's a nice luxury to have. Courtney Lee, Jason Terry, and Leandro Barbosa will bolster the backcourt, while rookie Jared Sullinger joins journeymen Darko Milicic and Jason Collins as new faces up front. And all eyes will of course be on Jeff Green, who has recovered, thankfully, from the heart problems that kept him out last season. In a vacuum, Green isn't worth what the Celtics are paying him over the next four years, but it's money they couldn't have used elsewhere this season. So as long as Green looks even decent in the early-going (and he was impressive at times in the preseason) that should keep the pressure off of him until Pierce and Garnett leave and the Celtics are trying to building around him and Rondo.

New style? I only watched one preseason game (the blowout of New Jersey) but I was struck by just how fast Boston's pace was. Rondo is always looking to run, but last year in particular, he didn't have anyone to run with him. That'll change this year, at least for as long as he's paired with Lee. (The presumptive starter at shooting guard, Avery Bradley, is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.) Lee likes to get out on the break, and I'd expect a lot of two-on-ones and one-on-zeroes for him -- at least early in the season. Rondo was looking for his own a bit more than usual in the game I saw, to mixed reviews. I like that he's looking for his offense more, but for as long as he's a poor jump shooter, he's always going to have however many open 15-footers he wants. He needs to be discriminating and not take them early in the shot clock with no rebounders.

New rotations. Part of the reason Boston couldn't run that much in the past is that they didn't have the horses -- or even the bodies, really -- to play at that pace and preserve the aging legs of Pierce, Garnett, and Allen (something that may have made the difference in the playoffs). Now we do, but with all that depth comes Doc Rivers' responsibility to define roles and find minutes for everyone. Doc's already announced that he will use three starting lineups, which is a little terrifying given that managing minutes and lineups is his weak suit as a head coach. But there's no denying that the possibilities are exciting, with Doc able to go big or small according to matchups, or to ride the hot hand on offense, or field a lockdown defensive team -- whatever he wants.

8 p.m. Eastern on TNT. The only excuse for missing it is not having power.