but tell me how many teams over the last 5 years can claim something more impressive than 1 championship, 1 Finals Game 7 and 1 ECF Game 7. The Loaded Lakers from 07-10, that's about it.
And 1 of those 5 years Doc lost KG for the season.
Doc isn't overrated.
Ok, 2009 was the main outlying data point, as both KG and Powe were out for the postseason. That pretty much eliminated our interior game and the final demise was expected.
However, the 2008 Laker's team was composed of Kobe, Gasol, Fisher, Radmanovic, Turiaf. Both Bynum and Ariza were injured and the bench had just slightly above average players like Farmar, Walton, Vujacic, etc. Aside from Kobe ball, that team does not compare to a bench of Posey, PJ Brown, Powe, House, Cassell, TA, Big Baby, and for kicks, Scalabrine, supporting a superior starting five of PP, RA, KP, KG, and Rondo. All and all, with Riley or Jackson coaching the C's, that series would have been over 4-1. KobeBall, at most, beats the Celts for one game, game 3. Afterwards, they wouldn't have made a huge run in game 4, thus, the greatest comeback would have been perhaps, a down by 10-12 contest, followed by an easy Celtics rout in Q3 and Q4.
The only backup for the Celts that played really well in the playoffs was Posey. Brown wasn't that good and the other guys pretty much took turns playing their way out of the rotation.
House???
Yes, House too.
I don't understand why folks need to denigrate the 2008 bench. For all intensive purposes, they'd provided rest for all of the starters. Along with Posey & House, don't forget PJ's defense in the Cav's series game 7, as well as Powe's dominance in game 2 of the finals. Likewise, BBD, Cassell, TA, & Scals also provided meaningful minutes.
Contrast that with Kite, Carlisle, & Thirdkill and you can see that the 2008 squad had much better support than Bird & Co, minus the Bill Walton year title.