TONIGHT!

With game 7 of the 2010 finals lingering less and less in my mind and a crazy off-season behind us it is finally time to start all over again.  Amazing what the NBA will do to you if you are both a passionate basketball fan and your team is a title contender.  Evenings are crossed out on the calendar for games to attend or watch on TV, fantasy basketball re-emerges as you always think your team is stacked, and that amped up feeling starts to come back.  For me it is both a level of excitement that has steadily been building over the last six weeks and a sense of pride as being a Celtics fan has always been about that for me. 

When you start a season with a roster that consists of KG, Pierce, Allen, Rondo, Shaq, J O’Neal, Nate Robinson, Glen Davis, Delonte West and Marquis Daniels after losing a heartbreaking game 7 after an amazing run to the finals and you are playing the Miami Heat, the easiest team in the world to hate unless you live down there you know you are in for a heck of a ride.  Thankfully tonight is a Tuesday and besides some of the Dime crew coming through for the game it will be a somewhat calm evening, well, until it starts. 

 

What is great about tonight is that it proves the old angry NBA hater theory of “the NBA regular season is completely meaningless”, completely wrong.  Is it one game? Yes.  Is it a long season? Yes.  But this game, in this setting, between these two teams is going to feel and sound like a playoff game from the moment these teams come out for warm-ups.  Kevin Garnett has been waiting for this opportunity for over four months.  The opportunity to be as healthy as he has been since 2008 and to start a new journey towards another title, a title that was just so close last year that they could not close out.  The real laugher here though is that all the “experts” are giving the Heat the eastern conference championship already.  Coach really loves that.  Just like last year when no one thought the Celtics could put it together, the basketball media guru’s are picking against them because the Heat were able to put James and Bosh next to Wade.  If only the games were played on paper.  If only chemistry needed to win the title happened overnight.  If only coaching and managing the personalities of these players really didn’t matter, than maybe some of these predictions that the Heat will DEFINITELY win the east wouldn’t annoy me so much. 

The Celtics will have stretches where they look like a well-oiled machine tonight, and while Lebron will have some spectacular moments, the better TEAM will come away with both the win, and their first major statement on their way to BANNER 18.