Relatively safe to say we would have beaten Miami last year with Bradley?

[Celtics18]

its relatively safe to say.... we'll never know.

This. I love Bradley as much as anyone but this is irrelevant and can't be proved but I certainly felt that way last season when it was relevant


Safe to say we're swept if bosh was healthy?

Careful, someone might scold you with a passive aggressive and unamusing barb!

I agree with scaryjerry and Cman's sentiments.

[Celtics18]

Yes let's go back to the 2012 playoffs and make Avery Bradley healthy, but leave Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Al Horford, Josh Smith, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young all still injured! 

You forgot Dwight Howard and Joakim Noah.  It is Celtics tradition that all losses in Celtics history were due to an injury but the injuries of all other teams are irrelevant.

The injuries of other teams are most certainly not irrelevant.  As a matter of fact, many posters on here will claim that our reaching game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals didn't actually count because of injuries to other teams' players.

I'd say there are just as many, if not more, who claim that we would've won an infinite amount of titles if not because of one injury or another while ignoring any other injuries opposing teams went through. 

Many posters on the forum seem to think we would've won 5 straight titles if not for injuries.

I think you are just overreacting.

I'm just talking about this series. So you don't need to make up imaginary posters who talked about other series in history.

Its a little different than the bulls or magic not having their franchise players from the start and losing in round 1.

Just saying I think we would have won have we had bradley in that ecf match up, in which he played all the way up until. Also not saying we would have won the title anyway

If we lose in game 7 in a bunch of tight games this year yeah ill prob say rondo would have made a difference.

Im not asking for sympathy or not saying we are unlucky. Just at least in bradleys case i sometimes forget that he didnt play in that series. Seeing him be impactful this year makes me realize we were missing a bigger piece than i realized.

TP.

I would say I agree with you, but I just promised to not make any injury excuses . . . so I won't.

So excuses in a passive aggressive but transparent manner don't count. Got it.

Yes, you've got it.  In my game they don't count. 

[CelticsFan9]

I don't think we would've won even if we had AB, but here's an interesting thought:

A lot of times, Doc had Pierce guard Wade so that Wade had to deal with a bigger body.  Plus, we double-teamed him a lot, forcing LeBron to do much of the Heat's scoring as well as playmaking.  This proved to be successful for five games, until Bosh came back and we had to deal with three stars, not two.  It should also be noted that Pierce exhausted himself doing this, as he had to guard the greatest player on the planet, too.

If we had AB, that allows us to put SINGLE coverage on Wade (who was not himself due to injury).  That's massive, because it allows Pierce to expend all his defensive energy on LeBron, plus it gives us a great offensive weapon in Ray off the bench.

Again, I still don't think we would've won the series, but having Bradley would've helped a ton.

[Lightskinsmurf]

Yes let's go back to the 2012 playoffs and make Avery Bradley healthy, but leave Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Al Horford, Josh Smith, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young all still injured! 

You forgot Dwight Howard and Joakim Noah.  It is Celtics tradition that all losses in Celtics history were due to an injury but the injuries of all other teams are irrelevant.

The injuries of other teams are most certainly not irrelevant.  As a matter of fact, many posters on here will claim that our reaching game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals didn't actually count because of injuries to other teams' players.

I'm sort of in that line of thinking. I'm not gonna say it didn't count but it wasn't anywhere near as impressive to me as it was to others. The way everything fell into place we really had no business losing before we did. Maybe a game or so earlier but that's it.

[CelticG1]

No ones making excuses here just my opinion.

If you think we would have been the same or worse that's fine if you think we would have been a better with Bradley then I think of that we probably would have won.

hate to say it but sometimes in sports you like to think of hypotheticals comparing players in different decades comparing different championship teams comparing lots of things. it can be fun to think about our talk about sometimes that's pretty much what these forms are 4 otherwise what ar we talking about why don't we just watching games and scores and leave it at that?

if the Lakers took us to 7 gamesin a tightly contested Series in 2008 I'd have no problem admitting that Andrew Bynum may have tipped the scales  had he played

[WMark]

Watching Jeff Green cover Lebron (and others) it is clear that Green's loss hurt just as much as Bradley's.  But, alomost every team has injuries at the end of the year.

[KGs Knee]

Yes let's go back to the 2012 playoffs and make Avery Bradley healthy, but leave Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Al Horford, Josh Smith, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young all still injured! 

This is a valid point.  If we get to have Bradley back in this hypothetical scenario, so should other teams get their injured players back.

I think we still get to the ECF even if all of those other guys were healthy.  Beating Miami, I'm not sold on that.  I think the outcome would have been the same, but our chances might have increased.

Throw in Bradley AND Green, yeah I think we win.

[Lightskinsmurf]

Yes let's go back to the 2012 playoffs and make Avery Bradley healthy, but leave Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Al Horford, Josh Smith, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young all still injured! 

This is a valid point.  If we get to have Bradley back in this hypothetical scenario, so should other teams get their injured players back.

I think we still get to the ECF even if all of those other guys were healthy.  Beating Miami, I'm not sold on that.  I think the outcome would have been the same, but our chances might have increased.

Throw in Bradley AND Green, yeah I think we win.

If everybody is healthy then I don't think we make it out the second round vs the bulls.

[ItStaysYang]

No. It's not "relatively safe" to say anything. We could have had Bradley and have done worse for some reason.

If the queen had balls, she'd be king

[kgainez]

Not trying to get sympathy or take anything away from Miami (they were missing bosh for part of the series) but based on Bradlets impact last year and this year really makes you realize how big an injury that was last year. Maybe Doc wouldn't have trusted him as much as Ray down the stretch but still.

IMO not having Rondo is a huge loss if we face the Heat in the playoffs. The only thing I'm clinging to or a big thing I'm clinging to is that we have Bradley this year who can arguably impact the game just as much as Rondo can albeit in a different way.

We may not necessarily have a better chance but saying we don't have Rondo and failing to mention that we didn't have Bradley last year would seem to underestimate Bradleys impact IMO

Nope. I don't see it. I love Bradley, but you are way overrating the kid's impact on that series.

However, if the Cs have both a healthy Green AND Bradley then.... uhm... yeah, still no.

Mk

well i disagree with that. then you have someone on the bench who can score.
as far as AB? I'm not sure

I hate paying the what if game anyway

[gpap]

its relatively safe to say.... we'll never know.

This. I love Bradley as much as anyone but this is irrelevant and can't be proved but I certainly felt that way last season when it was relevant


Safe to say we're swept if bosh was healthy?

Yup. Which is why Miami is going to be near impossible to beat this year. If you look at their roster, they basically have all their spots covered.

You have a guy like Lebron who attacks the basket, Bosh down low for the rebound and 3 guys to kick the ball out to for the 3 in Wade, Ray and Battier.

Not going to be easy to beat.

[gpap]

No. It's not "relatively safe" to say anything. We could have had Bradley and have done worse for some reason.

If the queen had balls, she'd be king

LOL!!

[Onslaught]

It's relativity safe to say that if Bosh hadn't been down we wouldn't have made it to 7 games. Or if Rose hadn't got hurt it's possible we'd never made it past the Bulls to the Eastern Finals.
It's possible if KG and Perk hadn't got hurt we would have more rings. But you play with what you've got and so it's pointless to speculate.

[GreenEnvy]

If we had KG in 2009, Banner 18.
If we bad Perk in game 6/7 in 2010, we win Banner 19.
If we had healthy O'Neals and Rondo in 2011, raise Banner 20.
And yes, if we had a healthy Bradley and Green last year, the 5-peat brings us another parade and banner 21.


I'm only half joking.

*slides green glasses back up nose*

[KGs Knee]

Yes let's go back to the 2012 playoffs and make Avery Bradley healthy, but leave Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Al Horford, Josh Smith, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young all still injured! 

This is a valid point.  If we get to have Bradley back in this hypothetical scenario, so should other teams get their injured players back.

I think we still get to the ECF even if all of those other guys were healthy.  Beating Miami, I'm not sold on that.  I think the outcome would have been the same, but our chances might have increased.

Throw in Bradley AND Green, yeah I think we win.

If everybody is healthy then I don't think we make it out the second round vs the bulls.

Disagree