For the Black n’ Gold, the simplest precedent comes in black and white. A year ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins effectively sleepwalked through the first four and half months of the NHL season. Today, they are the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

Get the picture?

"You can write the story of a season a lot of different ways," Pittsburgh wonderboy Sidney Crosby said yesterday morning at the TD Garden before the Bruins shut out the Penguins, 3-0. "It’s not October and November or March and April. It’s a season. It’s a long road and you’re going to face tough times sometimes. Maybe you’re better off facing them early."

No analogy is perfect, of course, and the obvious truth is that there are significant differences between these Bruins and those Penguins, who were a mediocre 27-25-5 on Feb. 15 of last season. For starters, those Pens had Crosby. They had Evgeni Malkin, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz, and the last two proved critical after being acquired just before the trading deadline. Then there was the cataclysm that was the firing of head coach Michel Therrien, the man who had taken the Pens to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2007-08.

Following Therrien’s dismissal, the Penguins went a sterling 18-3-4 in their final 25 regular season games, going from an also-ran to fourth place in the Eastern Conference. Pittsburgh then needed 24 more games to hoist the Cup – six, seven, four, seven – completing a dramatic story that unfolded over the span of nearly nine months.

Crosby himself left no doubt when asked to identify the pivotal moment of that Penguins season.

"The coaching change," said The Kid, referring to the upheaval that led to the hiring of Dan Bylsma. "That was kind of our last-ditch effort. We knew we didn’t have a lot of time."

So here we are now, amid the most hyped Boston hockey season in years, and one cannot help but wonder if New England should find great solace in the words of a 22-year-old sage. You can write the story of a season a lot of different ways. Last night’s win over the Penguins gave the Bruins back-to-back victories for the first time this season, an astonishingly modest achievement for a club that finished first in the Eastern Conference a year ago. At various points this year, the Bruins have suffered from injury and ineptitude. At the worst moments, they have suffered from both.

Let’s make this clear: barring an entirely shocking development, head coach Claude Julien isn’t going anywhere. For one thing, Julien is the reigning Jack Adams Award winner as Coach of the Year. For another, the Bruins rewarded him with a contract extension before the season began. If these Bruins are indeed destined to win the Stanley Cup this season, they will have to write the story of their season in a different way than those Pens.

Still, the Bruins would be fools for failing to recognize that the reigning Stanley Cup champions plodded through the first half (and then some) of last season as if bored, complacent or both.

"We have talked about that, about how Pittsburgh did just that," Bruins vice president Cam Neely said yesterday afternoon during his weekly appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub. "They didn’t start the season very well … and they won the Cup."

Does that ensure that these Bruins can do the same? Of course not. What it does mean, however, is the early stages of this Bruins season should in no way be seen as a barometer of things to come. Before last night, the Bruins played a recent stretch of games without Marc Savard, David Krejci and Milan Lucic. Factor in the absence of Phil Kessel, who was traded to Toronto, and the result was that entire first line from last season was entirely erased from the mix. The Bruins went nearly three full games without scoring a goal, and they went a preposterous 0 for 20 on the misnamed power play.

Whether those problems will persist in the spring is certainly open to debate, but in the interim, know this: Lucic is aiming to be back in slightly more than a week. Savard may not be much further behind. Meanwhile, the Bruins have allowed seven goals in their last seven regulation games, and general manager Peter Chiarelli has made it clear that he intends to use a cache of bargaining chips to fortify the roster through trade before the deadline. As a result of the Kessel trade, Chiarelli has piled up more draft picks than Bill Belichick, meaning that a Guerin or a Kunitz (or both) appear to be in the Bruins’ future.

Certainly, the Bruins would have preferred an easier, smoother path to their first Cup since the Nixon administration. But then, the Penguins probably felt the same way last season.

"We’ve got to make sure we don’t make it like that every year," Crosby mused.

But ultimately, we’re willing to bet that all he really cares about is a happy ending.

FOXBOROUGH -- As surely as the Mass Pike intersects Route 128, the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts remain on a collision course. And as 8-0 meets 6-2 this week in the American heartland, let there be no doubt that the Patriots have more at stake.

"We always enjoy playing them. They’re a great team,’’ Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s 27-17 win over the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. "They seem to always be one of the best teams in the league and they’re good in all three [phases], very well-coached. It will be a great challenge for us. We’re 1-2 on the road this year, so we’ve got to go try to play our best game.’’

Indeed they do. Superiority in the AFC and yet another trip to the Super Bowl may depend on it.

For the moment, let’s give the Patriots their due in the wake of a win over the well-coached, pesky and resilient Dolphins. Anyone who projected this game to be a cakewalk hasn’t been paying attention. And while the AFC East is now firmly in the grasp of the Patriots, we all know that nobody in New England is particularly interested in building footbridges to the division championship.

Here, we generally focus on far more meaningful projects.

In yesterday’s win, the Patriots got 82 yards from Laurence Maroney (averaging slightly better than five yards a carry in his last three games) and big plays across the board on defense, from an awakened Adalius Thomas to an unleashed Patrick (The Missile) Chung. Bill Belichick’s latest game plan called for Vince Wilfork to play defensive end -- who needs Richard Seymour? -- with Mike Wright in the middle, and saw the coach continue to thrust more and more responsibility on some young defensive backs who have no reservations about putting their heads down.

"It’s not always perfect and he doesn’t always do everything exactly the way you want it done, but at the end of the play he makes a bunch of tackles and he’s got his guy covered, and he basically ends up being a productive player,’’ Belichick said of Chung, who plays safety like a reckless SCUD. "Patrick works extremely hard. He’s in here early, he stays late -- kind of like [Jerod] Mayo and [Gary] Guyton were last year. He really puts a lot into it. Football’s real important to him and he’s continued to get better on the practice field, both in the kicking game and defensively, and he’s taken advantage of the opportunities he’s gotten. Anybody that works that hard and has that kind of ability he has, I think he’s going to continue to improve. It means a lot to him.’’

And it shows.

This week, of course, Chung and Company will face the most difficult task of their season to date in the Colts and Manning, who is on pace for an NFL-record 5,090 passing yards. In recent years, especially, holding down the Colts has not been realistic goal for the Patriots. The ultimate question this week is whether they can contain Manning enough to emerge with what would amount to New England’s first road victory of the season -- sorry, Tampa doesn’t count -- particularly as the Colts operate with a makeshift secondary devoid of safety Bob Sanders and defensive back Marlin Jackson, among others.

On paper, at the moment, this looks to be a relatively high-scoring and even game. All of that only makes it more critical for the Pats to establish a foothold among the truly elite teams in the conference.

Let’s be honest, folks. A bye and/or home field advantage in the postseason makes all the difference in the world. During Tom Brady’s tenure as starting quarterback, the Pats are 8-0 in home playoff games, 3-2 on the road (including 1-2 in the last three). The last time New England played a postseason game on the road was the 2007 AFC Championship Game, when it self-destructed in the second half of a loss at Indianapolis. In Brady’s last three postseason road games, he has thrown four touchdowns and six interceptions while posting quarterbacks ratings of, in order: 74.0 (loss at Denver, 2006), 57.6 (gift win at San Diego, 2007) and 79.5 (loss at Indy, 2007).

Because of that, and because the Pats are currently doing the chasing, this weekend’s game is of the utmost importance to their championship hopes. With a win, Indy would improve to 9-0 while the Pats would be 6-3, and the Colts would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. A Patriots win would makes the teams a respective 8-1 and 7-2 with New England holding the tie-breaking edge. With seven subsequent games remaining for each club, the second scenario allows the Pats a very realistic chance of finishing ahead of the Colts by season’s end, meaning New England would be in far better position for a bye or home field.

This week, rest assured that the Patriots and Colts will be dissected and analyzed from every angle and cross-section, from the matchup between Belichick and Jim Caldwell, to Brady and Manning, to Reggie Wayne and Randy Moss. In the NFL, given the history of this decade, there is currently no better rivalry. More often than not, the road to the Super Bowl travels through the junction of Indianapolis and Foxborough, no matter which direction you’re approaching from.

"We're heading into the teeth of our schedule,’" quarterback Peyton Manning told reporters yesterday after the Colts escaped with a 20-17 win over the upstart Houston Texans.

Not so coincidentally, so are the Patriots.

Whom should the Sox pursue this offseason? Review the possibilities and vote.

Now begins the intriguing case of Jason Bay, a man whose contract negotiations with the Red Sox are, in some ways, unprecedented. Players have continued to come and go during the current Red Sox administration. Yet now the Sox are faced, perhaps for the first time, with a potential fight for a player they truly want to keep.

One day after the 2009 World Series concluded, baseball’s offseason officially began yesterday with the first day of the free agency filing process. Bay was one of the players who immediately declared his freedom. Most everyone agrees that Bay and outfielder Matt Holliday (who also filed) are the best positional players available on the market this offseason, and both are obvious fits for a Sox club that has both a gaping hole in left field to go along with a gaping hole in the middle of the lineup.

The questions today are the same questions that have existed throughout Bay’s tenure in Boston, during which Bay has led the Red Sox in home runs and RBI while finishing second in runs scored and OPS.

How much is he worth on the open market?

Will the Red Sox be willing to pay it given the manner in which they have approached free agency during the last seven years?

During the tenure of general manager Theo Epstein, three free-agent pursuits stand out above all others: J.D. Drew, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Mark Teixeira. Beyond that trio, the Red Sox generally have not offered any player more than a four-year deal in the range of $40-$50 million. The Sox have shown a willingness to spend big only when their preferred factors were in complete alignment, and in those cases they were at least willing to blow most everyone out of the water.

In the case of Teixeira, the Sox obviously lost out to the New York Yankees, but that’s not the point. The club still offered him the biggest contract in club history. At the time, Teixeira was a 28-year-old, switch-hitting, two-time Gold Glove winner who could hit for average and power. In terms of long-term investments, he was about as safe it gets. No one should be surprised that this Red Sox administration was willing to go to unprecedented lengths (for them) to secure his talents.

Matsuzaka, meanwhile, came with greater risk given that he had never played in the major leagues, but the other factors were otherwise in alignment. He was 26 when the Red Sox invested $103 million in him over six years. Technically speaking, Matsuzaka is on the Red Sox payroll for an average of $8.67 million per year from 2007-2012, but the $51.11 million posting fee was absolutely part of the cost for him. The reality is that the Matsuzaka deal cost the Red Sox an average of $17.17 million per year.

All of this brings us to Drew, who is easily the most comparable case to Bay given that both are corner outfielders. Following the 2006 season, Drew was precisely the same age (31) that Bay is now. The Red Sox gave him a five-year, $70 million contract that opened eyes through the baseball world and that Epstein still is defending. In late September, Epstein invited discussion on Drew on 98.5 The Sports Hub, pointing out that Drew had "the second-highest OPS" among all American League outfielders, a particularly relevant characterization given who finished the year ranking first.

That would be Bay.

Here’s the other reason the Red Sox valued Drew: defense, an area in which Bay is, on the whole, mediocre, and also one on which the Sox are likely to place undue emphasis (some media types are already taking the bait on this) for the purposes of driving down the price. But then, negotiations are all about leverage. Drew’s ability to play right field at Fenway Park – one of the bigger areas in baseball – prompted Epstein to suggest last winter that Drew had greater value to the Sox than he did to other teams, and whether one agrees with the GM is irrelevant. The important thing to remember is that the Red Sox have certain philosophies and formulas that they believe in, and they have shown a willingness to pay for it when their criteria are met.

With regard to Bay, part of the problem is that the Sox don’t appear to have any better options to replace him, be it through trade or free agency. They don’t have a hitter like him ready in their minor league system. Holliday would cost at least as much or more, and his brief stint in the AL (let alone Boston) left a great deal to be desired. A trade would require further forfeiture of young talent from a Sox system that has hit somewhat of a developmental hole, particularly after a flurry of necessary, in-season trades this year.

The bottom line is that the Red Sox seem backed into a corner here.

While representatives for Bay and the Sox have remained remarkable tight-lipped during negotiations that began last spring, it’s hard to imagine Bay settling for anything less than what the Sox awarded Drew, be it in years (again, five) or dollars ($70 million, an average of $14 million per). The likelihood is that Bay will command closer to $16-$18 million per year given his elite status on the market, which could place his final cost somewhere in the range of $80-$90 million over five years. (In case you’re wondering, that is purely an opinion.)

For what it’s worth, during his major league career as a starter (2004-09), Bay ranks in the top 10 of all major league outfielders in OPS, a statistic on which the Sox have placed great emphasis and in which Bay and Drew have been a virtual dead heat over the last six years. Bay beats Drew handily in games played (892-749), home runs (181-120), runs scored (564-497) and RBI (596-425), though the latter is a statistic, according to Epstein’s same radio interview, that the Sox generally discount entirely. Whether that disclosure is 100 percent fact or merely served as initial posturing for the Bay negotiations remains to be seen, largely because Bay’s representative (Joe Urbon) is not likely to deem his player’s run production irrelevant.

During Bay’s career as a starter, only five outfielders in the game have knocked in more runs: Carlos Lee, Manny Ramirez, Bobby Abreu, Vladimir Guerrero and Adam Dunn, the last of whom is a defensive sinkhole and whose recent free-agent contract (two years, $20 million) badly skews the data. All of the others, in the primes of their careers, earned average annual salaries between $15 million and $20 million.

Regardless, there is more pressure on the Sox to keep in Bay in Boston than there ever has been on them ever before, with possible of exception of Jason Varitek, who filed for free agency for the first time following the 2004 season. Even then, most everyone in baseball knew Varitek’s priority was to remain with the Sox – to the point where he all but spurned other suitors. In the other major free agency filings during the administration of John Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino and Epstein, the Sox either have happily let aging players depart (Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe, among others), traded them before the fact (Nomar Garciaparra, Manny Ramirez) or reluctantly re-signed them (Mike Lowell).

But Bay? The Red Sox want him and they need him.

We just don’t know if they’re going to pay him.

"In that game, he topped out at 86 mph. We had some pretty good hitters in our lineup and he took the bats out of our hands. After watching that, in that situation, there was no doubt in my mind that Pedro could pitch without the velocity."
-- Mike Hargrove, former manager of the Cleveland Indians, commenting earlier today on Pedro Martinez’s performance in Game 5 of the 1999 American League Division Series between the Red Sox and Indians.

Pedro Martinez was at the peak of his greatness then, his legend growing with every single pitch. Ten years have passed since a wounded Martinez came out of the bullpen that night at Jacobs Field and shut down the mighty Cleveland Indians. Five days later, as if to prove that the game was not a fluke, Martinez similarly mystified the eventual world champion New York Yankees, relying largely on guile.

And so, yet again, we all are reminded that the past is merely prologue.

Pedro goes to the mound for Game 6 of the World Series tonight at Yankee Stadium, and here is the absolute, indisputable truth as the baseball world focuses in on him yet again: He really hasn’t changed at all. For all of the recent talk that Pedro, now 38 years old, has reinvented himself, that he has morphed from the power pitcher of his prime to the craftsman of his age, he was always the most adaptable and versatile of tacticians. Martinez always had the mind of Maddux to go along with the arm of Marichal, a combination that ultimately made him the Koufax of his era.

"If you look at some of the games he pitched against us [in the late '90s], he went entire innings throwing nothing but changeups and breaking balls. It was almost like he was rubbing our face in it,’’ said Hargrove. "The great ones can do that.’’

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who served as Hargrove's hitting coach on those Indians teams, explained to reporters yesterday how Pedro still gets it done. "First of all, he's got a tremendous feel to pitch. He knows how to pitch. He knows more about hitters than probably people give him credit for because he'll sit there and study the game, and he'll study the hitters and he'll sit there and talk to you sometimes. That's one thing I like about Pedro: he'll come over and talk to you, and he don't listen when you tell him how to pitch somebody, he'll tell you how he's going to pitch somebody.’’

And then Martinez executes the plan as if it were all so simple.

While acknowledging that there is simply no way to know how Martinez will perform tonight, the fact is that it does not really matter. Truth be told, Pedro probably should have been done already. Martinez was too small to hold up, as Tommy Lasorda warned years ago, and the Red Sox were convinced it was only a matter of time before his shoulder exploded. Between the warnings and the inevitability, Martinez built a Hall of Fame career and won three Cy Young awards. Now he is simply reaffirming the fact that he is one of the smartest pitchers of all-time in addition to being one of the most gifted.

Martinez was the losing pitcher in Game 2 of the World Series last week, but that was through no fault of his own. Even now, he can captivate a crowd like an aged McCartney can. Martinez threw 107 pitches in his Game 2 loss to loss New York, leaving the game with a 2-1 deficit in the seventh inning of an eventual 3-1 Yankees win. According to the game log on mlb.com, only four of Martinez’s pitches climbed as high as 90 mph. Pedro altered speeds -- he threw one curveball to Melky Cabrera that registered 67 mph -- and changed locations, making the Yankees often look as if they were trying to swat away bumble bees.

Said Hargrove, "He’s the kind of guy who, when he’s pitching against you, you just want to go out there with a bat and start beating on him. He can make you look that bad."

Said Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira to reporters yesterday, "You’re not going to out-think Pedro. He’s one of the smartest pitchers in baseball.’’

Ever.

All of this brings us back to October 1999, when Martinez all but told us then to prepare for what we are seeing now. His manager (Jimy Williams) and his pitching coach (Joe Kerrigan) outright predicted that Pedro would be able to pitch well beyond his prime. After Pedro's performance against the Indians in Game 5, his brother and teammate Ramon, a former flamethrower who had been forced to change his style after an injury, revealed a bit of advice he shared with his sibling: "I told him, 'You don't have your fastball so you have to use your head.' When you feel 100 percent you can go right through the hitters. When you're not 100 percent, you have to pitch, not just throw. Tonight, he pitched."

Did he ever. Combined, in Game 5 of the AL Division Series that year and Game 3 of the AL Championship Series, Martinez barely cracked 90 mph (if at all) thanks to a strained shoulder suffered in Game 1 of the ALDS. He worked mostly in the mid-to-high 80s. In those two games, against two of the most prolific lineups in baseball, Martinez pitched 13 scoreless innings and allowed just two hits, striking out 20 and walking five. His matchup against the Yankees and Roger Clemens was a first-round knockout. His blanking of the Indians triggered the firing of Hargrove and the subsequent hiring of Manuel.

Don’t you see? Manuel, too, recognized this all a long, long time ago, when Martinez changed his stripes without skipping a beat in the midst of one of the great pitching seasons of all-time. That is undoubtedly why he remains so confident in his righthander now. Martinez’s arm is not what it once was, but his mind has not diminished at all.

"He's got a tremendous feel for the game, and he's still got talent when he executes his pitches as a pitcher should,’’ Manuel said yesterday. "He's definitely capable of throwing a very good ballgame, a real good ballgame. I'd look for him to definitely put us in a place where we can win the game."

But then, regardless of whether Martinez had a fastball, we all knew that a long time ago.

This Rajon Rondo, in particular, is worth every red cent. And so now that the Celtics reportedly have rewarded Rondo with a five-year contract extension worth in the neighborhood of $55 million, it is incumbent upon Rondo to continue earning his money.

The Celtics will not be the only ones far better off for it.

Rondo will be, too.

The Celtics are a perfect 4-0 today following yesterday’s 97-87 win over Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets, and a funny thing has happened as the Celts look to fulfill Rasheed Wallace’s preseason prediction of 72 victories: Rondo has been perhaps their best player. While Celtics coach Doc Rivers was praising captain Paul Pierce after his team’s latest victory -- "He’s been absolutely amazing," Rivers told reporters -- Pierce was transferring the praise to Rondo.

"I think he’s just mature," Pierce said in his postgame press conference. "He understands that he’s the quarterback out there, and he understands he has to do it with his defense and his distribution. He understands that we have so many weapons out there . . . I said to Rondo a couple of years ago, he should lead this league in assists with the weapons that we have out there. He’s doing a great job facilitating offense and being the quarterback. He understands that he doesn’t have to score. Last year, I think he scored a little bit more. I think that was due to a lot of the injuries we had and him just stepping up in that category. But what he’s been doing these four games into the season, his maturity has been tremendous to watch."

So has his performance.

As for the contract extension, it really was only a matter of time. If the Celtics didn’t sign Rondo before tonight’s midnight deadline -- funny how that 48-hour extension facilitated a deal, eh? -- they would have signed him in the spring, even if they had to match an offer. When you get right down to it, the final numbers were all that were to be determined. Rondo had no leverage to go anywhere, yet the Celtics paid him essentially what he asked for from the start. The Celtics and agent Bill Duffy played negotiating games from the moment Danny Ainge went public with criticism of Rondo last summer, following a postseason during which Rondo almost averaged a triple double.

These Celtics are far healthier and far more talented than the Celtics of last spring, and let the record show that Rondo has tailored his game to match. So far this season, Rondo has taken 23 shots in four games -- during last spring’s first-round series against the Bulls, he twice took more than 20 shots in a single game -- and piled up more assists (47) than any player in the league. Only Steve Nash has more assists per game (42 in three games, an average of 14.0). Rondo has the best assist-to-turnover ratio of any starting point guard in basketball at the moment (5.22 to 1). For every turnover he has committed (nine), he has taken more than his share back (10 steals).

Ultimately, isn’t that all what a point guard is supposed to do? Run the offense and set up the scorers. Protect the ball. Play good defense. Score when necessary, which is almost never at this particular point in time. For the new-and-improved Celtics, Rondo has options the way the Tom Brady of 2007 had receivers, from Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace and even Marquis Daniels.

On Friday during the Celtics' 118-90 dismantling of the Chicago Bulls at the TD Garden, Rondo took two shots. Two. He finished with 16 assists, turning the kind of pure point guard performance that would have made John Stockton beam. He also grabbed eight rebounds.

With regard to Rondo’s development, we all understand the issues here. At times during last postseason, Rondo looked more interested in collecting triple-doubles than he did in winning games. Despite his generally stellar play, he made some bad decisions and took some ill-advised shots. So far this year, those mistakes have been weeded out. The result has been a Rondo who has been playing like one of the truly elite point guards in the league, a fitting development given that Rondo and the Celtics now have agreed on a contract that will make him one of the cornerstones of the franchise for years to come.

Today, both sides are getting exactly what they wanted.

Jim Davis/Globe Staff

In Boston, Rasheed now dresses in white.

"I didn’t know if the fans wanted to keep it personal and still call me those names or what," Wallace mused in the wake of the Celtics’ 92-59 annihilation of the outmanned, overmatched and outclassed Charlotte Bobcats. "It was cool though."

Cool, indeed. Cool as Wallace entered the game to chants of Sheeeeeeeeeeeeed with 4:06 remaining in the first quarter, cool as Wallace drilled his first two shots, both 3–pointers, helping the Celtics build a 22-11 lead in the opening quarter. Cool even as Wallace dressed in front of his locker following the game, when he donned a black sweat jacket bearing the name and logo of the Philadelphia Phillies, as sure a sign as any that he has embraced Boston as firmly as Boston already has embraced him.

'Sheed, it seems, plays by the same rules many of you do. If he is not necessarily rooting for the Red Sox, he is at least rooting for whoever is playing the Yankees.

So here we have it again, yet another example of how you can go from bad guy to good guy with a simple wardrobe change. As a member of the Detroit Pistons, Wallace was perceived here as a contemptible hothead whose inability to control his temper sometimes hurt the cause. Now, as a member of the Celtics, Wallace is a highly-skilled skilled big man with what the Celtics like to call "a high basketball IQ," a man who brings passion and experience to a team that, when fully healthy, might have the deepest and most talented roster in the NBA.

The truth, as always, probably rests somewhere in between, though that hardly matters now. On both sides, never is the love affair involving a veteran player greater than that first season in which he changes uniforms. At this stage, Wallace is certainly happy to be out of Detroit following a reconstruction of the Pistons team that was once an annual force in the Eastern Conference. And we certainly know that the Celtics and their fans are thrilled to have him given what Wallace can provide for everyone from Doc Rivers and Kevin Garnett to Kendrick Perkins and Glen (don’t call him Big Baby) Davis.

"I mean, he’s such an impact on the defense end, and I think that’s where his value is coming in the most," said Celtics captain Paul Pierce. "The way he defends, the way he rebounds and also the way he spread the floor with his presence - I mean, when he’s on the court with Kevin, especially, you see the lane is open. You have driving lanes because teams are helping off of him because of the way he’s shooting the ball. And he’s the total package, I mean, on both ends of the court.

"I mean, he fits the mold of our ball club with his energy, his passion and what he’s all about – you know, winning a championship," Pierce concluded. "His personality is perfect with what we have over here."

Why shouldn’t it be? So Wallace blows a gasket every now and then. Big deal. He is clearly going to help the Celtics more than he hurts them. In just shy of 16 minutes last night, Wallace scored nine points and grabbed five rebounds while converting 3 of 8 shots, all from 3-point distance. In the Celtics’ two games thus far, Wallace is shooting as well from long distance as Ray Allen. Both are 6 of 14.

If there is still anyone who thinks Wallace may have difficulty accepting a lesser role than he filled in Detroit, remember that he was on the floor with Pierce, Allen, Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo during the final minutes on Tuesday’s season-opening victory. As anyone with a brain will tell you: it’s not who starts, but rather who finishes.

What we have here, minus the low-post game, is the closest thing the Celtics have had to Kevin McHale since McHale retired, albeit in a montage of snapshots from McHale’s career. Simply put, Wallace is a big sixth man who can play defense and shoot 3s, all roles McHale filled at assorted points of time, in varying capacities, during his time in Boston.

The technical fouls and the jousting with officials? Accept them now as costs of doing business. Even last night, after teammate Kendrick Perkins drew a technical, Wallace noted that Perkins was whistled for the manner in which he looked at an official. The new big man then openly wondered if the same official will make the same calls when glared at by certain unnamed "superstars," which certainly seemed like a defense of Perkins and a shot at the officiating, not to mention a playful jab at whiners ranging from the East (LeBron James?) to the West (Kobe Bryant?).

"I want to see if they’re going to call that all year," Wallace all but snorted.

But then, we knew the guy could snipe from long range.

Whatever your feelings for Wallace before he came to the Celtics, here’s a suggestion: forget them all. You can never truly get to know someone from a distance as well as you can get to know them from up close, and Wallace will be with the Celtics for the next three years. Upon first glance, Wallace seems far smarter than one might have guessed and a far better teammate than anyone would give him credit for, and history has taught us (Corey Dillon, Randy Moss) that players certainly can adapt to their environment.

Of course, it always starts with wearing the right uniform.

I am rooting for the Yankees. Under the circumstances, you should, too.

As the World Series begins tonight in New York, let us all acknowledge that the Red Sox have started to grow a little stale. Many of us have grown complacent, if not downright spoiled. The large majority of us now treat the postseason as a birthright more than a blessing, a once unthinkable development for a franchise that made four trips to the postseason from the start of the 1919 season through the end of the 1987 campaign.

Last year, during a season immediately following a world title, local television ratings for Red Sox broadcasts on NESN dropped nearly 20 percent. This year, they dropped an additional seven percent. The Sox are producing fewer golden eggs than they have at perhaps any other point during the era of John Henry’s ownership, which cannot help but make you wonder if the Sox need a crisis the way a depressed nation might need a war.

Be honest with yourselves, folks.

The fire is not burning quite as hot as it once did.

Enter the Yankees, who went out last offseason and did precisely what the Red Sox need to do now. They reloaded. New York brought in CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett while outmaneuvering the Red Sox for Mark Teixeira, adding three players who shared more than just talent. Combined, the new Yankees had never really won anything before. Even Burnett, who was injured during the 2003 Florida Marlins’ run to the world title, recently admitted that he was nothing more than another bystander when Florida upset the Yankees that season.

Translation: The Yankees are hungry. If it wasn’t enough that the Yankees have gone eight full seasons without winning a world title -- in New York, those add up like dog years -- the Yankees brought in even more players in search of fulfillment. The combination of talent and desire produced 103 regular season victories, and it now leaves New York just four wins from a record 27th world championship.

For the Red Sox and their following, nothing strikes a nerve quite like another parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Nothing. The irony is that another such celebration could be the best thing to happen the Sox at this moment in team history, with the Sox in the midst of a stretch during which they have made six playoff appearances in seven years. Things in Boston have reached the point where we all but write in the Sox for 95 wins every year, a terribly presumptuous and downright arrogant gesture. The Red Sox, as much as any team in professional sports, should know better.

The truth, of course, is that it takes more than talent to win. It takes some luck and some hunger or greed, too. (Greed is good.) Part of the reason the Sox lost to the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series last season was because the Rays were healthier. Part of the reason was because the Rays were hungrier. The disturbing reality for Bostonians this year is that the Red Sox really ended up no better than the Rays did -- neither team won a postseason game -- and that the only difference entering 2010 is that the Sox have more money to spend.

As for the relatively new "Moneyball" theory that postseason success is arbitrary, be careful what you wish for. For starters, the Yankees qualified for the postseason every year from 2001 to 2007, but failed to win a single World Series. Was it arbitrary then? Were the Red Sox’ world title years of 2004 and 2007 a statistical fluke? Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein himself called such thinking "a crutch" after the Los Angeles Angels wiped out the Sox in the American League Division Series earlier this month, and even that assessment was conservative. In a market like Boston or New York, at this point in time, justifying postseason failure by pinning it on a roulette wheel is an absolute cop-out, a symbol of the ultimate loser’s mentality.

Nobody ever said sports were entirely fair and nobody ever said winning was easy. But more often than not, in baseball especially, you get what you deserve.

In this World Series, in particular, the Yankees will encounter a fitting opponent. The Philadelphia Phillies are the reigning world champions. While the Phils have a suspect relief corps, they have (at least on paper) the hitters to match up with the Yankees and the left-handed starting pitching to take on the New York lineup. The Phillies are more than capable of winning this series, and logic suggests that many New Englanders will be rooting against New York out of pure instinct and emotion once the games begin.

Here’s a tip: use your head. We all could use a dose of reality and humility here. The Yankees are loaded, they aren’t going away anytime soon, and maybe it’s time we all remember what the Red Sox are against every year. A restoration of the Yankees’ rule may be as grotesque and incomprehensible to you as the existence of Col. Nathan R. Jessup, but do not underestimate the impact of another world title in New York on the passion and competitive fire in this region.

You want them on that wall. You need them on that wall.

It gives you something to fight for.

There's no shortage of things to talk about, from Big Baby and the Celtics' home opener to the World Series, so stop by at noon on Wednesday.

Another week, another game, another relatively systematic dismantling. The Patriots now will celebrate the mid-semester break known as bye week, returning in time for a Nov. 8 meeting with the Miami Dolphins. When the Patriots take to the field next, nearly a month will have passed since they last faced a legitimate opponent.

"We know the whole second half of the season really has a lot of challenges from week to week," Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters in the wake of yesterday’s 35-7 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "But we’ll tackle Miami first."

In the interim, obvious questions remain: What exactly do we have here? How good are these guys really? Are the Patriots truly a Super Bowl contender, or a paper tiger that will throttle bad teams and lose to good ones, like last year’s edition?

Seven games into the journey during which we ultimately learn those answers, here are seven observations on the 2009 Pats:

1. Tom Brady is getting there. Admit it: For all the throws Brady has made this season, none bothered you more than the interception he threw in the end zone yesterday at the start of the second quarter. Still, you can’t help but get the feeling that some of Brady’s mistakes against the Bucs came out of sheer boredom.

Obviously, the competition the last two weeks has been wretched. Nonetheless, a game is a game is a game, and Brady has piled up nine touchdown passes and 688 yards while completing 76.5 percent of his passes over the last two weeks. The numbers may not be as good in November, but the Pats will need him to be every bit as good -- or better.

2. Other than Tom Brady, Wes Welker is the most important man on the offense. Want to hear something extraordinary? With yesterday’s 10-catch, 107-yard performance, Welker now leads the NFL in receptions. And he has missed two games. Welker yesterday caught everything thrown at him -- 10 for 10 -- giving further credence to a recent Sports Illustrated poll that identified him as the most underrated player in the league.

Here? We all know how good Welker is. Of the Patriots’ two losses this year, Welker missed one (at the Jets) and single-handedly carried the New England offense in the other (at the Broncos). Can anybody cover this guy?

3. Even without Richard Seymour, the defense is better than one might have guessed. The Pats again have benefited from the schedule here, but let’s give credit where credit is due. During a first half in which the Patriots have faced just two teams that rank in the top half of the league in scoring -- Baltimore and Atlanta -- they have allowed fewer points per game than any team in the league but Denver and Indianapolis. Neither of those clubs has played as many games as the Pats have.

Take this for what it’s worth, but the Patriots thus far have allowed the fewest rushing touchdowns in the league (one). Some of that is the result of lopsided affairs in the last two weeks. Some of that is because teams like the Broncos and Ravens opted to throw rather than run. Regardless, as Belichick would say, it is what it is.

4. The Patriots might have the best tandem of safeties in the league. On some level, we expected this from Brandon Meriweather, a former first-round draft pick who started to show signs of developing late last season. Yesterday, Meriweather had two interceptions in the first six minutes, returning one for a touchdown. If plays like that continue, he’ll go to the Pro Bowl.

As for Brandon McGowan, who could have guessed this? He forces fumbles and recovers them, all while becoming a major stabilizing force in an area of the team riddled with questions to start the year. Key guy.

5. The running game still needs some work. The problem with a backfield of Fred Taylor, Sammy Morris, and Laurence Maroney is that all three of them have had a history of injuries. So here we are, seven weeks into the season, and Maroney is currently the only one of those three players standing. Presumably, Morris will be back. Taylor seems in greater doubt.

The Patriots throw first and run second. Morris was the obvious back of choice in short-yardage situations before he got hurt, so it will be interesting to see how the Pats fare in that area while he is out. The last two weeks were such blowouts that it’s hard to remember many situations when they had to rely on their running game.

6. The role of third receiver remains unsettled. Sam Aiken had a pair of catches yesterday, including the 54-yard touchdown catch-and-run that gave the Pats a 21-0 advantage in the second quarter. Still, that play had as much to do with poor tackling as it did with Aiken, who nonetheless made a play when the opportunity arose.

So, in the wake of the Joey Galloway failure, who is going to be the guy here? Aiken? Brandon Tate? Terrence Nunn? If the Pats get into shootouts in coming weeks -- New Orleans and Indianapolis are coming up -- the presence of another outside threat could make all the difference.

7. The real season hasn’t even started yet. In the next five weeks, the Patriots will face, in order, the Dolphins (home), Colts (away), Jets (home), Saints (away), and Dolphins (away). Together, those are three competitive divisional opponents and two undefeated teams. The schedule gets softer again in the homestretch -- Carolina, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Houston -- making the next five games all the more important.

Entering this season, given Brady’s knee injury and the changes on defense, Belichick certainly knew his team would need time to jell. The Patriots basically have had a half-season to come together. Because the Denver defeat could hurt New England with regard to playoff seeding, the Indy game takes on additional importance. If the Pats slip up badly in the next five games, their Super Bowl chances will take a major hit.

And here, as well know, the Super Bowl is really all that matters.