C’s know you play to win
Team has right guy manning the ship
NEW YORK — I’m trying to put the Celtics and their best plans for tonight’s draft and the future into perspective with what we witnessed in the NBA Finals, and I keep thinking about a Patriots playoff game against Indianapolis in January 2005.
The Colts were staring at a 20-3 deficit when they got the ball with 2:59 left in the game. To my great astonishment (and that of the gang of North Shore ne’er-dowells gathered in Las Vegas for the weekend), Peyton Manning started throwing short passes. It was what the Pats defense was graciously giving him, but damn, if you were to have any chance of winning, you had to heave the ball deep downfield. Instead, Manning looked content to add the 63 yards to his passing stats, pushing him past 200 for the day.
His team is down by 17 points, and he’s hitting Edgerrin James for 6 yards. Even through our day drinking, it seemed a clear case of a guy playing for numbers instead of the (profoundly slim chance to) win. Manning and the Colts lost, but, hey, he threw for 94 yards more than Tom Brady.
The ultimate objective for any team is — realistic in the present or not — to win a championship. Anything that does not contribute to that goal is superfluous in the main. Winning an extra playoff round when you’re on your way up the ladder is beneficial, but giving up a potentially valuable asset for short-term veteran help that wins you that round is not.
And not that you needed the reminder, but the Finals told us again the distance between the Celts and Warriors is more than merely the 3,092.8 miles from Boston to Oakland via Interstates 90 and 80.
If the Celtics are to compete on that level, it will require major strides forward and few, if any, missteps. Danny Ainge undoubtedly will have opportunities for moves that will make the C’s better next season, but if said deal isn’t in the recipe for getting the club to legitimately contend for a title, then it’s simply not worth it.
None of this is to suggest Ainge start throwing bombs in the hope he gets lucky. There is not 2:59 left on the Celtics’ clock. Patience is the death of the party, but it’s a necessary invitee if you want to complete your studies and ace the final. Or Finals.
Sure, if the NBA was going to cease operations after the 2017-18 season, the C’s and every other team in the league would throw development into the shredder and amass every piece of ready-to-contribute talent they could get.
But that still wouldn’t get the Shamrocks past Goliath State.
Their only hope in the near term is to get lucky in the free agent market with Gordon Hayward, make a trade with players and picks from the Nets and the Philly deal for another star and hope that the player they take at No. 3 and Ante Zizic spend the season running neck and neck in the Rookie of the Year race.
And even then, the Celts might need LeBron James and Kevin Durant to prove their devotion to Michael Jordan by spending a season with the Birmingham Barons.
According to the odds on offseason likelihoods, the C’s will be best served by this summer by taking their shots when presented. We’re talking basic opportunism.
And if people like Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown could climb a few rungs on their personal ladders, well, so much the better. There is already value in others who make up the club’s core, and that is critical if Ainge is to get the Celts in the proper position to score a big deal.
It’s still dumbfounding that national commentators continue to state as fact that Kevin Garnett was acquired because Kevin McHale and Danny are friends. The C’s got KG because McHale was ordered by Timberwolves ownership to move him, and the package led by Al Jefferson was demonstrably better than anything else Minnesota was offered.
In other words, continue to enjoy the players who allowed you to watch games from the Garden deep into May, but don’t get overly attached. If this team is to get where it wants to go, it will, by necessity, look quite different than it did when it walked off the parquet floor on May 25.
You knew that then, and you know it even more thoroughly after watching Golden State meet Cleveland for the third straight Finals and take five games to get past the club that got past your Shamrocks in five games.
So the bad news is that the Celtics aren’t nearly ready to beat the Warriors or the Cavaliers. The good news is that they’re closer to that goal than maybe everyone in the league, save for San Antonio.
The better news is Danny Ainge isn’t Peyton Manning.