What's Up, Doc?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the 2007 New England Patriots. The Pats were heavy Super Bowl favorites, but they had also just come off of a particularly trying and exhausting undefeated regular season. The NFL playoffs, of course, are always win (every game)-or-go-home no matter what you did during the season, but that's a harder mentality to deal with when you've already been playing under that burden for 17 weeks, and eventually, the Patriots just couldn't take it anymore. The end of a grueling season came one game too late.

We all remember what happened in the Super Bowl, but the signs were there in all the other playoff games, and even a few regular-season games. The Patriots were one of the best teams ever assembled, but they began to buckle under the weight of their expectations. One of the most dominant teams of all time was forced to hold off the likes of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Baltimore Ravens, not exactly top-tier teams, with little more than smoke and mirrors. In those games, and in playoff games against Jacksonville and San Diego, the Patriots still won, but every down felt like a strain. They strayed from the game plan that made them successful in the first place, opening their games by passing on every down as though they were down by 10 in the fourth quarter. Despite always being the superior team, they played as though they were desperate underdogs.

So why am I talking about the 2007 Patriots in May of 2008, especially when I underwent months of intensive electro-shock therapy to cleanse all thoughts of the 2007 NFL playoffs from my mind? Because the Celtics are starting to cause me similar heart palpitations. They're definitely the best team in the East, perhaps the best team in the NBA, and all of a sudden they're the team that has to pull out all the stops to dispatch the Atlanta Hawks. Now that they're in the playoffs, they've strayed from the game plan that got them there. As many have already pointed out, they didn't exactly play like champions in the fourth quarter last night, and any win where their opponent scores in triple digits is not the way the Celtics want to win. Their defense suddenly appears porous, while their offense at times becomes the basketball equivalent of passing on every down.

So yes, there are similarities between the Boston Celtics and the New England Patriots of this past year, but there is also one important difference: the Patriots had an excuse. To me, the 2007 season was proof that no team will ever go 19-0 (and especially not 20-0, if that 17th game ever does get added to the regular season). My personal opinion, after watching every down of that Bataan death march to the Super Bowl, is that the pressure of going undefeated is too much for any team to take now that the schedule runs 19 games. Given that, it's hard to blame the Patriots' coaching for their psychological collapse. Bill Belichick, controversies aside, is an undeniably brilliant coach, and if his team couldn't make it, I'm willing to believe no one could. It's not his fault.

The Celtics, however, have no such excuses. Sure, there's pressure on their heads--two newcomers and Paul Pierce have basically been charged with the task of triplehandedly restoring Boston's love for basketball, and that's no easy job. But it's no undefeated season either--we're just asking them to win, not win every time. One team does it every year, and it's certainly doable for the Celtics this year. And yet, they seem to be caving in to pressure much in the same way that the Patriots did, even though they face much less of it.

And that's what it boils down to: Doc Rivers is no Bill Belichick, and probably isn't even a Pete Carroll. His team has more talent on paper than any other team in the East, so theoretically a Yorkshire Terrier should be able to serve as coach and just watch the team win from the sidelines (and it would get to wear a little suit, which would be adorable). No one's asking Doc to be a miracle-worker; his only job is to make sure that his team plays up to its potential. And when all the series go to seven games and the Celtics have just one win on the road, it starts to seem as though all the intangibles that Doc is supposed to deal with are really dragging this team down. It makes you wonder what this team could do with basketball's version of Bill Belichick at the helm. Or even Pete Carroll.