CELTICS GREEN BLOG by and for boston celtics fans: The Text for Today's Sermon

The Green Engine That Could(n't?)
The text for today's sermon is taken from the book of Comments From the Other Side. FlCeltsfan Provides us with this sobering glimpse in the mirror stripped of green-tint. Usually I find the comments of the fans of other teams to be filled with hyperbole but these smack of truth, and some cringing sympathy worthy of an injured animal. Read these and see if you don’t find them frighteningly on target.

they been playing like they don't care as of late
This is a desperate Boston team on the verge of collapse. I really think they have anger management issues.
The more shots Sheed gets the happier I am
BOS just looks tired and bored
Every time I watch Rasheed Wallace play, I thank the basketball gods that we didn't sign him this offseason.
Celts just look sloppy out there. They are so far away from that team two years ago that it makes me laugh.
The Celtics try to intimidate so much but they are really soft. Their bark is worst than their bite.
Maybe Pierce is still hurt, but he looks like half the player he was last year.
Watching this Celtics team play, I don't see how they make it out of the first round.

This was a game undoubtedly circled on the calendar. One of those statement games that should have brought out the best. Strangely even though it felt like a runaway I kept checking the score and the Celtics were only a half dozen points down. Then in the third quarter, when good teams start to apply the clamps on defense and create and convert good shots on offense, the C's went into eclipse. The mind was willing but the body couldn't deliver. The starters looked slow and became more and more dispirited as their loggy legs and oxygen-starved chests consistently brought them too late onto the scene of the crime. I've been up in the air about the state the Green but this game brought the picture into focus. It is not that they aren't willing, they are just not able. Even if they shake the injury limitations, the truth is that their bodies won't let them do what they see/know needs to be done.

They compensate well for their receding game-lines, at least at first. But by the third quarter the age begins to show. In the second half the starters get warm but rather than hitting their stride they begin to falter as the fatigue robs them of the ability to execute the skills that have made them great. When the second unit hits the floor they feel the pressure to salvage the game that is slipping away. At this point they have neither the confidence nor the cohesion to overcome the ebbing momentum. This malaise of the backups can perhaps improve, and must if the tide is to turn at all.

This is all teetering on the edge. If the second unit doesn't gel, and quickly, this season may become a snowball of decline. Lost the edge, lost the momentum, lost the battle, lost the war. I think I can becomes I hope I can, then I doubt I can, rather than I know I can. That's the story of the Little Train That Couldn't.
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