I blame Doc Rivers and the rest of the C's organization for.

[Celts17Pride]

Last Year we won a championship because of our HCA. How many playoff games we won AWAY last year.

Exactly

One year is not the same as the next year. The Celtics are proven champions. They will be better on the road in the playoffs this season. They were better on the road against Det & LA then they were against Atl & Cleveland in last year's playoffs. Experience counts.

[tombattor]

One year is not the same as the next year. The Celtics are proven champions. They will be better on the road in the playoffs this season. They were better on the road against Det & LA then they were against Atl & Cleveland in last year's playoffs. Experience counts.

Dude, come on man. It's so obvious that Atlanta was better than LA or Detroit last year. I mean, they took us to game 7 while we took care of LA and DET in 6. And we won on their home court. Remember, there are no such thing as momentum, comfort, confidence, etc.

[SichtingLives]

I've been posting on Celtic boards for years and lurking RealGM for a while, and I must say.......For a complete lack of perspective and understanding of the physicality and grind of an NBA season, you are about as on point as anyone I've ever come across. Congrats, you're lost!

What do you suppose would happen if we sat, say, our best 8 players for every game the rest of the season? Who would play? Pruitt, Doc, Tommy T and Kevin Eastman maybe? And then we'd be in just stellar shape when the playoffs started, right? You've got it backwards, chief, you prepare for the playoffs by playing, not sitting. Sitting causes rustiness. Tell me you're 13 and I'll understand.

So do you suggest that we rush back our best player from injury to win a few extra meaningless regular season games? Besides, KG will be back to play the last few games to tune up. Although they might sit everyone in the season finale, since that's the 2nd of the back-to-back games.

Would you rather have a less than 100% KG or healthy and rested KG, who may take a few final regular season games to get into the flow?

tom,

Who's talking about KG? Of course I want him healthy for the playoffs. If he isn't healthy, I don't see how we defend the title this year. Yet, he has a legitimate injury. What I gathered from the OP's post was that he wants to sit everybody just because some are a little nicked up and perhaps someone else could get hurt in the last 7 games. Even more, these injuries in some rediculous way are Doc/FO's fault??

It's not about winning meaningless games, it's about the ever popular "developing chemistry" and continuity factor. Professional athletes in general thrive off of repetition and flounder with inactivity. Look, whether anybody likes it or not, we face the possibility that we may not be able to run all our guys out there 100% healthy for the post-season this year, whether they play 27 mpg or 34 mpg until the end of the season. But sleep-walking in just because the end of our season is the easiest part of our schedule is asking to be bounced in the first round. We've seen time and time again this year that these guys can't just turn a switch on and off, they need to have some degree of rhythm going for the playoffs, regardless of who's ready to play or still hurt. If you want to give each starter a game off during the last two weeks, then I'm fine with that. But if you want to keep all our key players under 25 minutes/game for the rest of the way? I fail to see how that's plausible given the fact that we're already shorthanded, or how it will benefit the team overall. Maybe I missed OP's point, but I don't think I did.

I don't know if Paul, Ray or Rondo need to be pulling 40+ minutes a game right now, but I don't think a two or three week breather for anybody relatively healthy will be beneficial to them or the team. And just to re-state, I'm not referring to KG, Powe, TA or anyone coming off of a serious injury.