Seven

Sean Grande's From the Booth

You can hear the voice of the Celtics, Sean Grande along with Cedric Maxwell call each and every game on the WEEI Celtics Radio Network. You can send him .

From the Booth Archive

• June 5: Your Time
• May 18: Seven
• May 4: Wet Cement
• April 18: Altitude
• March 31: Trading Places
• March 5: The Snapshot
• February 8: The Homecoming
• January 31: TNT
• January 21: MLK Day
• January 2: While You Were Sleeping
• December 12: Right Now
• November 27: The Big Brothers
• November 17: Sugar Ray
• November 2: The Noble Chase
• August 1: Garnett Brings Energy, Enthusiasm

From the Booth
By Sean Grande
Special to Celtics.com
May 18, 2008

Deja vu...all over again.

And I mean, really, we need to stop meeting like this. Sunday afternoons, weight-of-the-world seventh game pressure. No time really for small talk.

And I know what you're thinking. I think we've developed a certain simpatico here in our "From the Booth" world. You think this is going to be another piece about how last year this team won twenty four games, and today, they're playing a seventh game with the whole of the basketball world watching. One of those essays, one of those speeches that would point out that if the Celtics win today, they will in the span of twelve short months, have gone from pining for the draft lottery, to playing the game at which they hold it at halftime.

(Although you would have to love the poetry if it plays out.)

But it's not about last year anymore. The biggest one-season turnaround in NBA history, is just that. Dye-cast, ink-dry history. No, this is about this year, and how while things never, ever happen the way we think they will, the end result is often much, much closer than we think.

Travel back with me now, if you would, to October.

When the season began, the landscape in the Eastern Conference was different, but not hard seemingly, for people to handicap. There were four choices. The defending champons in Cleveland, the perrential contenders in Detroit, the upstarts seemingly on the verge in Chicago. And the Celtics.

Of course there were a few still holding on to New Jersey or Miami, but for the most part, those were the four.

And it seemed inevitable, that the Celtics would have to beat one of them, to get back to the Conference Finals. And if on opening night, I gave you the option of a seventh game at home to do just that?

You would have signed off in a heartbeat.

And what that means today, if I have to spell it out, is that for everything, the wins, the 29-3 start, the sweep of both west coast road trip and the Texas Triangle, the buzzer-beaters and the forty point beatings -- for all of that, the Celtics are in a Game 7 with the Conference Finals on the line.

In other words... say it with me at home..."they are what we thought they were."

And of course, they could end up being in the next month or more than that. Much more. They could end up being not just what we thought they were, but what you hoped they could be. But for today, it's worth remembering that the effects of a regular season, especially one so historic, so dominant, can act like those lenses they put in front of you during an eye exam... they dramatically distort the perspective.

See, the unforgettable regular season, the winter of content in Celtics Nation, did come with some baggage.

The 66 wins broke records.

The 66 wins tested the history, of the most storied franchise in the history of the game.

The 66 wins raised already frenzied expectations to astronomical levels, creating an anticipation of a championship that back in October was a pretty excessive reach.

But the 66 wins came with something else.

The one thing you work all year for. The one thing that's been more valuable in this playoff year, than anyone can remember.

Home court advantage.

It's why Game 7 will be played on the parquet this afternoon.

It's why the backdrop today will be a sea of green, of Red Sox hats and Mike's Pastry bags, just as it used to be, just as it's supposed to be. It's why Game 7 will be played under the 16 banners, twenty retired numbers and Johnny's microphone...and with Gino waiting in the wings.

After the trade for Kevin Garnett, there was one recurring thought I couldn't get out of my head. The trade meant a lot of things, the Celtics were going to be good again on the court, the Celtics were going to matter again off it.

But mostly, as I watched the flashbulbs light up the room as Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett together for the first time, it was this.

The Boston Celtics, were the Boston Celtics again.

And what the Boston Celtics do is play Game 7s.

Previous generations can conjure the memories within an instant of closing their eyes. Today, we'll all get ours...in real time.

It was in Game 7 where the Celtics climbed on Max's back. In Game 7, Larry and Dominique dueled for the ages. It was in Game 7 that Havlicek stole the ball.

Over the last two decades, as the Celtics fell farther and farther back in the NBA pack, coming perilously close to becoming just another NBA team, you can understand why some people would forget. But things, history, and life has a way sometimes of coming full circle when you least expect it. And so last summer, twenty-one years after the last title, and ten weeks after the draft lottery gut shot, the Celtics overnight, became the Celtics again.

And what the Boston Celtics do, on warm, May Sunday afternoons on Causeway Street, is play Game 7s.

And more often than not, win them.