Was the 2008 squad simply stacked?

[TitleMaster]

In 2008, our bench was Posey, PJ Brown, Powe, House, Cassell, and BBD.

And then, the starting five: PP, RA, KG, Perks, & Rondo.

Here's my question, why is it that the Celts needed a completely souped up bench to be able to compete for the title?

During the 90s, the Riley Knicks had one all star center, Ewing, and the rest of the team's co-stars: Oakley, Starks, & Mason were kinda just above average (except for Mason's defenses) but yet, they pushed the Bulls to full 6/7 game series continually, with Ewing failing to deliver in the final minutes.

If we made one key substitution, replacing Anthony Mason with let's say Paul Pierce, then the Knicks win championships and the Bulls will pretty much have a broken up decade.

[Chris]

Umm, I am a little lost on the point here.

I don't think the C's needed a souped up bench to win that championship.  They won because their best 3 players carried them to a championship.  They haven't been able to recapture that, since KG and Pierce have both lost a step (or more) since then. 

[Fafnir]

Umm, I am a little lost on the point here.

I don't think the C's needed a souped up bench to win that championship.  They won because their best 3 players carried them to a championship.  They haven't been able to recapture that, since KG and Pierce have both lost a step (or more) since then. 

Plus the following year when they were still close enough to their primes to do that KG hurt his knee and was out.

[kozlodoev]

The 2008 squad was feared. It always felt like no matter how many points they were down, they were never out of the game. This was mostly because this was the first time we'd seen a team with three superstars exhibit such a level of team play.

Simply put, they played the game the right way. It was amazing. It was the best single season of basketball I've ever seen by a team, period.  

[PosImpos]

Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about . . . the bench in '08 was pretty bad.

Eddie House, James Posey, Powe, and rookie BBD, with a sprinkling of Tony Allen and the occasional Scal sighting (and old, old PJ Brown and Cassell later on). 

The only year in the Big 3 era that we've had a worse bench than that is '08-'09, when we had essentially the same group only Mikki Moore replaced Powe and Marbury replaced Cassell, and NOBODY replaced Posey.


The Big 3 were just THAT good in '07-'08 . . . plus the league was a bit weaker at the top.  The Big 3 started an arms race among the contenders that resulted in what we have today -- a super unbalanced NBA.  Unfortunately, the Big 3 haven't been good enough to carry the team on their own since '09, and in '09 we couldn't defend our title because KG was gone after February.

[TitleMaster]

Up until the Piston's series, Ray Ray was pretty well contained.

What I say in '08, which seldom appeared later except for the *Shrek/Donkey* game, was the bench getting huge stops and being able to go off on scoring tirades.

Remember that Finals game 2 when Powe basically owned the Laker's frontline or when Posey/PJ clamped the Cav's comeback in game 7.

[BballTim]

In 2008, our bench was Posey, PJ Brown, Powe, House, Cassell, and BBD.

And then, the starting five: PP, RA, KG, Perks, & Rondo.

Here's my question, why is it that the Celts needed a completely souped up bench to be able to compete for the title?

During the 90s, the Riley Knicks had one all star center, Ewing, and the rest of the team's co-stars: Oakley, Starks, & Mason were kinda just above average (except for Mason's defenses) but yet, they pushed the Bulls to full 6/7 game series continually, with Ewing failing to deliver in the final minutes.

If we made one key substitution, replacing Anthony Mason with let's say Paul Pierce, then the Knicks win championships and the Bulls will pretty much have a broken up decade.

  The Knicks took the Bulls to 7 games once (they also had Mark Jackson and Xavier McDaniel on that team) and to 6 games once (they had one of the top defenses ever that year, more than 5 points better ppp than the second best team!!).

[TitleMaster]

 The Knicks took the Bulls to 7 games once (they also had Mark Jackson and Xavier McDaniel on that team) and to 6 games once (they had one of the top defenses ever that year, more than 5 points better ppp than the second best team!!).

Yes, the Knicks & the Bulls were the two best defensive teams of the 90s. Yet, they were missing a Pierce-like player to compliment Ewing's inside game. That's really why they never won a title, Starks wasn't that man & Ewing, not being Hakeem, couldn't simply draw all of the Bull's defenders on him at once.

[Marcus13]

The 2008 Celtics is one of the greatest basketball teams ever assembled.

[dang] shame that they couldn't become a dynasty

[Eja117]

I was thinking about this today and I think the answer is yes. They were two deep at every position and sometimes 3. 

Some of these guys proved their value in other places like Tony Allen. 

At the very least some of these role players are still playing their roles in other places and you're like "man I wish we had that"

[KGDunks]

They were deep but the big three won them that title. Rondo wasn't exactly the player he was now back then and Perkins wasn't great either.

[BballTim]

They were deep but the big three won them that title. Rondo wasn't exactly the player he was now back then and Perkins wasn't great either.

  In a way it was the combination of the two. The biggest question about the 08 team was whether Paul, Kevin and Ray would be able to outplay their opponents by a wide enough margin to make up for the weak play of Rondo (his first season as a starter) and Perk (coming off of a bad season due to plantar fascitis). Rondo and Perk basically played at the level of an average player at their positions so the play of the big three was enough to blow the doors off of the competition.

[OsirusCeltics]

The Big 3 were in their primes, or just coming out of it
That's the main reason why that team was so good