As I was watching the Celtics at the Garden last night, lets not toot my own horn or anything, my friends and I were talking about the game. We came to the conclusion that this year the Celtics have succumbed to playing to their competition. Meaning that they only play has hard as they have to when they have to. Case in point is last nights victory over the Washington Wizards.

In the fourth quarter my friend and I looked at each other and said “How are we down 13 to the Wizards??” The Wizards have been good lately but they are not as good as the Celtics by any means. Up until that point the Celtics had been making sloppy passes and playing a very soft defense. There must have been 6 or 7 times when the guard would drive to the lane, bring the defenders and pass it off to the big man standing behind the defense. Zero help defense whatsoever.

In the fourth quarter things started to change with 5 minutes left. The defense was causing turnovers and the offense turned it up a notch. Ray Allen got his shot going, thankfully, and bailed out the offense in a lot of ways. My whole point is that with 5 minutes left the Celtics came to play. Having said that 5 minutes is not enough time to make a comeback all the time, you have to play like there is 5 minutes left at the tip off. Otherwise you let the other team dictate how the game will turn out and you may loose by 2 or 3 points because it was to little to late. Play up to your ability all the time and do not worry about what the other players, teammates or coach might say. Your coach will love you for it and I guarantee your teammates won’t mind either.