Less than one year ago, the Celtics were one game away from their third NBA Finals in five seasons.
Doc Rivers is still standing on the sideline, Kevin Garnett is still working on the block and Paul Pierce is still operating around the perimeter, but Ray Allen is running around baseline screens in Miami and Rajon Rondo’s ACL injury has turned him from a playmaker into a spectator.
The foundation of Boston’s recent renaissance is in fragments. The once veteran-filled lineup now has just three rotation players over the age of 30.
After losing the first game of their first-round series against the Knicks, Rivers knows he can’t count on past playoff success and experience to carry the Celtics tonight in Game 2 at Madison Square Garden.
“I’ve said it before, this is not that group,” Rivers said at yesterday’s practice at Madison Square Garden. “This is not the group we’ve had. This is a bunch of new guys with two guys. Without Rondo, you have Kevin and Paul. It’s not that group and that’s the difference.”
Rivers played three reserves in Saturday’s 85-78 loss: Jordan Crawford, Courtney Lee and Jason Terry combined for four points with zero field goals. The coach said he may try to play them more, to keep Pierce and Garnett fresh late in games, but Rivers is finding his substitution pattern more challenging than ever.
“You tend to trust the guys you know, but I don’t know any of them,” Rivers said. “I don’t know a lot of them, so you kind of throw that out, to be honest, and you just go with your feel. … You know you’re going to shorten your bench a little bit, and even if you don’t shorten your bench, you’re going to shorten the minutes of the bench. That’s just the way the playoffs go. I would still rather play Kevin and Paul and Jeff [Green] and those guys.”
The Celtics’ road record this season (14-27) was the worst of any playoff team and still a concern for Rivers, who is 0-2 in playoff series after going down 0-2 since joining Boston in 2004.
To salvage a split in New York, Pierce finds optimism in what his Celtics have been known for, no matter who is on the court.
“The field-goal defense is right where we want it to be, the number of points they scored is right where we want it to be,” Pierce said. “Overall, if we’re going to hold a team over a seven-game series to 40 percent shooting, 85 points a game, then I like our chances.”