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With Championship Celebration Over, the Work Begins Anew
WALTHAM - Something special happened last season.
You could tell by the champagne stains on bags of media members who entered that victorious locker room. You could tell by Kevin Garnett's grin as Ray Allen spoke next to him on the podium. By the talk of ring sizing, the puff in Paul Pierce's chest during photos and by the clean 17th banner resting in the far corner of the practice facility, shining next to 1986.
It all mattered for everything. But today, it all matters for nothing.
Sure, the Celtics will have that honorary spot atop the world's Power Rankings -- which won't annoy Doc Rivers as much now that, as he says, "they've actually done something" -- but because of that special '08, the proverbial target is superglued to the shamrock for '09.
The foundation of the three remains at the helm, though, and questions concerning hunger seem largely unnecessary.
"We don't get to a level to take three steps backwards," Garnett said.
"I don't know how to do it any other way," Allen said.
"Once you get a taste of it, you don't want to let it go," Pierce added, nursing a case of laryngitis.
Despite the light mood of the afternoon, the words full and content do not apply. But Rivers said there are some concerns, not with talent, but with focus. The team isn't going to change the way it plays, having proved that their defensive style can take them the distance, but training camp in Newport, Rhode Island might be a little different than it was last year in Rome, Italy.
"I think we're going to go harder in practice at the beginning than we did last year." Rivers said. "We've got to shake ourselves out."
But as Rivers says, "The process of repeating is the same process of winning the first time."
Hopefully none of their confidence, of which there is plenty, gets shaken off in the process. Pierce was evoking the old Celtics teams, pointing out that they all won it more than once, and Rajon Rondo was already talking about a return trip to the White House. Hidden, though, in the sea of autographed merchandise, interview stations and cameras, was the wisdom of another point guard, returning for his 16th season.
"We don't want to be a sixth seed," Sam Cassell said, talking about his 1995 Houston Rockets squad that won a championship despite entering the playoffs with the sixth spot, without home court advantage.
"That was crazy," he said.
It's a small reminder of the Celtics' road difficulties for much of last postseason, when they went 13-1 at home and 3-9 on the road. To earn that No. 1 seed again, Cassell said, they just need to be steady.
So for now, as the team begins camp in Newport, there's still time for memories of that championship stage and of cigar smoke drifting over the court during the final quarter of Game 6. But the time approaches when the team must take the pole position of the soon-to-begin NBA marathon, and for the first time in their careers, Garnett says, be chased.
"The ring ceremony," he said. "It's the moment when last year is remembered, but also when this year begins."
