MY CELTICS TRIBUTE

BELIEVE IN UBUNTU!
by Jose Antonio A. Conde

Countless injuries and transactions—-that’s the 2008-09 NBA season for the Boston Celtics, defending the title was really difficult for them.

Celtics started the season having a good and decent record, even topped the NBA standings early in the season. But one game in the season made things starting to shake, a defeat vs. the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day, Celtics felt like they were the losers, and it started to affect the entire team.

First, they lost many games, and also made some transactions, like losing Sam Cassell to the Kings (the NBA’s worst team this season, he did not even played a single game with both teams) and the resurgence of bad boy Stephon Marbury, who was marred by rumored trades and controversies. But there are also some players, who emerge a lot, despite losing its major players, and now that’s how Rajon Rondo, Leon Powe, Glen Davis, and Kendrick Perkins are described. Oh well, deep bench.

Despite the emergence of the Celtics’ bench, the Celts still show some signs of failures, losing to less-known teams like LA Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Chicago Bulls made them lousier than ever. Because of this, they still had a good and decent record in 62-20, they took the 2nd seed in the East.

Playoff time! Time goes on but two key players became a huge loss to the franchise, Kevin Garnett (who suffered a knee injury) and benchwarmer Leon Powe. And it started to show it, when they were almost upsetted by the Chicago Bulls, who are actually an upstart team having Derrick Rose and Vinny Del Negro as the key people in the franchise. But the Celtics showed their big heart and Green pride during the 7th game, and so they won the series. This was also Rajon Rondo’s breakout series, who was averaging double-double every game, which made the team impressed a lot.

Their next competitor was the rising force of Orlando Magic with Dwight Howard. And they showed another big heart and pride in the 7 games they have played, especially in Game 4, when Glen Davis made a crucial shot which made them very powerful and also a haunting performance by Stephon Marbury, who scored the reamining points for the C’s in the final period of Game 5. That became the turning point of all of their failures. But they showed all their frustrations again in the next 2 games, but they still gave it all, without Garnett.

This was a good year for them. Pierce even admitted that if not for all those injuries, they would already have a good season. Have a great next season, Celtics! We still believe in you!UBUNTU!