Celtics' Big Three needs repeat to join greats

WALTHAM, Mass. -- Last spring the Boston Celtics won their first NBA title in 22 years. Now comes the hard part. Now they want to repeat. "We want to be remembered as one of the great Celtics' teams," said Paul Pierce. "We want to be talked about when our careers are long gone." Pierce knows. He finally gets it. Maybe that's because he's been here 10 years now, no longer the young kid from L.A. who joined the Celtics back when the glory days were as gone as Larry Bird, and all those championship banners in the rafters spoke of long ago and far away, like artifacts in some basketball museum. Maybe that's because after all the money and all the points and all the celebrity he's come to realize that it was never any better than it was last spring when for a few weeks the Celtics were right there with the Red Sox and Patriots. Maybe that's because he practices every day in this small gym with all those championship banners on the walls, a daily reminder that once upon a time the Celtics were the biggest name in basketball, and the Celtics' players ran through the history of the game like young princes on a fast break. Maybe that's because he's now 31, closer to the end of his career than he is to the beginning, and has come to realize that winning makes the world seem sweeter, even for rich NBA superstars. Maybe that's because he's been here long enough to know that to be truly beloved in Boston, to become an iconic Celtics' great, the ones whose careers are remembered long after they're gone, you have to win championships. Whatever the reason, there was Pierce Monday at the Celtics' practice facility saying all the predictable things, like how everyone is going to come gunning for them like some young gunfighter in the Old West trying to bring down the big dog. Then he said something else, how the Celtics have to worry about "not being bored by the process." That will be a big part of the challenge. In many ways the Celtics will not play another huge game until next spring. That's the reality of the NBA, certainly for the good teams, who play 82 games over nearly a six-month season, many of which ultimately are just for seeding in the playoffs. Who will have the home-court advantage next spring when the real games start? That's the new reality for this team, and it's a very different one that it was a year ago. Last year the challenge was to see if Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen were going to be able to complement each other. Would they be able to get by with only one ball? Would they care who took the last shot? Would they be able, when it really counted, to not care which one got the credit? These are the things that determine whether a team is going to be merely good, or great, the subtle behind-the-scene things that ultimately determine everything. Which is why coach Doc Rivers told the Big Three before last season that how much they committed defensively would determine the success the Celtics would have. Which is why he met them early one morning in downtown Boston and took them on a Duck Tour through the city, the same Duck Boat tour the Red Sox and Patriots championship teams had taken in their championship parades. Which is why he told them before last season that this had to be the year, that next year they were either going to be too old, too hurt, too something. That was last year. This year is a new challenge, requires a different kind of motivation. You could see that during training camp when Garnett essentially said that if you win one title it can be dismissed. So this is year's challenge is to win again, to make a statement that this, indeed, is a great Celtics team, not just one that happened to win last year. "Now everyone's trying to take it away from us," Rivers said. "Last year we were trying to take it away from someone else." So everything has changed. Each year is different, even if most of the players are the same. Staying hungry is difficult in the NBA, especially for a team that won the year before. Getting great players to keep digging in defensively is never easy, not in a league where there are too many games, and too many trips before the playoffs start. Not getting bored with the process. That's Rivers biggest challenge. He says "our goal is to be a better basketball team," but that's only half of it. The other half is to keep this team motivated day in and day out, to keep it from getting ahead of itself. A season is indeed about one day at a time.So the Celtics set out to defend their first title in 22 years, complete with a championship banner, one that doesn't speak of long ago and far away. Getting another one is now the new challenge. That, and one day being remembered as one of the great teams in Celtics' history.(Contact Bill Reynolds at breynold@projo.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)