Injuries to Rondo and the timing of the Perkins trade that disrupted the chemistry caused us to lose. The Heat are vastly overrated. Bosh is a decent but unspectacular player. Lebron is still Lechoke. If we can get some young athletic rebounders to join the Core Four , we could win it all. We are missing a few pieces now. A lot will depend on the draft and if we pick up someone like DeAndre Jordan in free agency. Most of our bench has to go and that includes Murphy who is rancid ; Baby who is finished, and  Pavlovich and Arroyo who never were even decent to begin with.

Rondo's problem is not injuries, it's his outside shot and FT shooting. Both teams in this year's finals have PGs that shoot from the outside and make FTs.

I believe that Chicago has a good chance of defeating Miami next year.  We can't beat Miami unless their are major improvements to our bench. 

Look at the age of the Mavs. Made up of role players, young players, and older players past their prime. This is the  formula for Doc to follow since his big three are even better than the older players of the Mavs.  What Doc won't do is commit to play them less most every game.  Changing rotations, using big three players off the bench, and finally getting an effective big man or men a lot of ifs but it can be done. Just look at the Mavs.

In Response to Re: We can beat the Heat next year:


Agree that playing the big 3 less next year would be a great help.  Doc has to have a bench that he trusts for this to happen.  With the retirement of Shaq and Kristic leaving the Celtics definitely need another big man or two. 

From the money side of things, releasing Murphy, Arroyo, and Sasha won't help a lot. They each make about $400 K per year. Shaq also signed for "peanuts"--at least in NBA money terms. All told I think their total value to the C's is about three million. I'm not sure we can do much better on the FA market given what Ainge has to spend. Source for the salaries is www.sportscity.com. Perhaps not having Krstic and Davis will free up some more $$$'S.

Most important is our need for a frisky young rebounder. For some strange reason the C's never seem to really make this a top priority. I recognize they are scarce in today's NBA. That's the type of player I'll be looking for the C's to sign/draft in the next few weeks. We can't continue to get out-rebounded by young and more athletic teams!

If we have a short season (say 50 games) then the Celtics can contend.

The Celtics to beat the Heat next year with a 36-year old Ray Allen, 35-year old KG, 34-year old Paul Pierce, and 33-year old Jermaine O'Neal?