C's Wait Until the Last Minute to Ace the Hawks

It was like going to a friend’s birthday party on December 24—you were required to go but your mind was firmly placed in the future. It was those emotions that summed up the feelings surrounding Boston Celtics fans after yesterday’s resounding game 7 victory by their team over the ever-feisty Atlanta Hawks.

Game 7s are usually occasions that are granted immediate and eternal resting places in our sports memory banks. But this will not be the case with the 2008 NBA First Round game 7 between a top ranked Celtics team striving to regain their perch as the most storied franchise in pro basketball history and an Atlanta Hawks squad who submitted a “present” when class began on Sunday but registered little more than a peep for the remainder of the afternoon. There is no room for celebrating what should have been inevitable —a series victory by a number one seed over an eight seed in an opening round playoff series.

This leaves us with the question of how to evaluate the Celtics victory Sunday. And it is my opinion that it was a case of a top-of-their-class student pulling an all-nighter before submitting an A plus power-point presentation in freshman history class. To be sure the passage of the course was necessary but the goal—that of a degree for the student and a championship for the Celtics—are still ahead and will require much work and increasing levels of performance as time goes on.

Sunday was a day of accomplishing a goal most believed would have been completed much earlier. It is now completed and even with a good deal of momentum moving forward. But looming in the immediate future lie tests that will demand greater and greater quality. And if the Celtics hope to ace the tests posed to them by the likes of those taught by Prof. James, Prof. Billups, or Dean Bryant it is clear that their performance must not only improve but become timelier.