The Celtic will travel a smooth road to the playoffs. Beginning with Sunday's game against Miami, just one of their last 10 outings is against a team with a winning record. Indeed, the Celtics face the East's bottom six teams during this stretch, with Milwaukee on tap twice.
"I think the goal is still to wrap up home-court advantage," said Paul Pierce. "Also, we're playing to get better. Coach said right before practice that we've been through a lot of challenges. Now the biggest challenge is ourselves. You know, do we have the mentality to go out there and execute and do the things that are going to help us in the long run? Even though we're playing against teams that are under .500, what are we going to do to get better? We feel it's all about us right now." Coach Doc Rivers has discussed the situation with his staff, knowing the end of the regular season holds little in the way of challenges.
"We were talking about that," Rivers reported, "and I said, 'Guys, in our mind we have never played anyone. That's the way we look at it. The opponent is us every night.' You know, we have 10 games to get ready for something, not 10 games to play. I think our guys are pretty good with it.
"The challenge for us is ourselves again. We have to challenge ourselves not to look at who we're playing but what we're playing for. If we do that, we'll be fine."
CELTICS 88, HEAT 62: The Celtics scored 27 of the game's first 31 points and rolled on in for their 58th victory over Miami Sunday night in Boston. Playing against the team with the worst record in the NBA, the Celtics did what was required.
"Man, I'll tell you the truth," said Paul Pierce, interrupting Kevin Garnett.
"Go ahead," said Garnett.
"You got (Kasib) Powell, (Earl) Barron, (Stephane) Lasme, (Blake) Ahearn... we supposed to do that," Pierce said. "They got D-Leaguers out there, so I think we just handled our business. I mean, they put about four or five guys from the D-League in, and we did our business. We're supposed to do that.
"We knew this was a game we're supposed to win, and we just focused from the jump and went out and did it."
Leon Powe led the Celts with 17 points and 13 rebounds, while Pierce, Garnett and Ray Allen were out resting in the final quarter.
