Boston Celtics 2012: A Team for the Ages That Should Never Be Forgotten

In a short time, either the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Miami Heat will be crowned as champions and their names will be etched in the history books forever. Then, when everyone looks back and thinks about the 2011-2012 NBA season, they will remember either the Heat or the Thunder. However, just as much as the future NBA champion, the 2011-2012 Boston Celtics should be remembered too.

I know that I will never forget this Celtics team. In fact, it has probably been my favorite Celtics team to never win it all, for this team has taught more about basketball and even life than any other team I have ever seen. Throughout their quest for Banner 18, they reminded basketball fans everywhere that things like experience, great coaching, heart, teamwork, chemistry, defense and will to win still mean something in the NBA.

In a league that seems to be only focused on star power, the Celtics star power seemed to take a backseat to everything I just mentioned. There were nights where the Celtics were overmatched, including most of the Eastern Conference Final games against the Heat. However, they still found a way to win because they simply would not lose. Every night, this team went out and laid their hearts out.

There was no quit in these Celtics, which may be the most admirable quality in a team. To know that your team is going give everything they have every night is beyond comforting.

Maybe it was because Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett knew it was their last run together or maybe it was just because it was a group of incredibly driven players that bought into the team and cared about winning more than anything else, but in all likelihood, it was both. They wanted to go down swinging and on their own terms.

And in every game, especially in the playoffs, win or lose, they fought until the final buzzer sounded. Of the 86 games they played this season, I probably watched at least 80 of them, and I don’t regret watching a single second.

It’s important to remember that sports mirror life, and that is really why we care. This Celtics team reminded us of that yet again. In life, you will always face adversity. Tough times will be thrown at you. Maybe you’ll lose your job or become ill.

Just like in life, the Celtics faced a lot of adversity. Before the season even began, their sixth man and best young bench player had season-ending heart surgery. It didn’t end there. Next, it was starting center Jermaine O’Neal who faced season-ending surgery. Then, right as he started to make an impact, reserve big man Chris Wilcox also needed season-ending heart surgery.

Perhaps it was foreshadowing that two Celtics players had their seasons ended because their hearts were too big because, really, every player’s heart was too big. The adversity didn’t end there. Come playoff time, the Celtics faced the final and perhaps toughest blow of all.  The newest hero in Boston, Avery Bradley, had his playoffs ended early by necessary shoulder surgery.

Before he was shut down, he had played with a shoulder that could pop out with the slightest contact. In one playoff game, his shoulder popped out, he went into the locker room, the trainers popped it back in and he came back into the game and made a huge impact with great defense and a timely three.

He wasn’t the only warrior playing through pain, though. Rajon Rondo had a hurt elbow, Paul Pierce had a sprained MCL and Ray Allen had painful bone spurs in his ankle. They all played through the pain and the adversity, because that is the thing about adversity, the only way to beat it is to face it head-on.

One of my old football coaches used to say, “When we face adversity, we punch it in the face”. I’m not sure we really embodied that message as we went 1-9-1 that season if I recall correctly, but this Celtics team certainly did. No amount of adversity could bring them down. The number of misfortunes that fell upon them was unfair, but they never complained, they just weathered the storm and punched the adversity right in the face.

Ray Allen, for example, didn’t just play through the pain, he fought the pain. He would go out ten hours before tip-off to warm up, bone spurs and all. Bone spurs weren’t going to stop him, they were only going to push him to work harder. A lesser man would have sat out the postseason, but not Ray.

Each and every player wanted to win so badly that they wouldn’t let pain get in the way. They also wouldn’t let age or naysayers bring them down, which is another way they emulate life. Every person ages and every person reaches a point in their life where they find that there is less they can do. And like every person eventually does, the Celtics reached this point.

They couldn’t run as fast or jump as high as most young players in the league, and people began to write them off. It didn’t help when they were under .500 at the All-Star break. But the Celtics didn’t let their age, the naysayers or even their poor start derail their confidence.

In fact, they took all of that and used it as fuel, Kevin Garnett especially. At some point, they got tired of hearing people call them old. It united the team to some degree, and when you couple that with a still intact squad after the trade deadline, you have an all hands-on-deck mentality. It became somewhat of an us against every naysayer attitude.

Rondo showed this mentality in his postgame interview after Game 1 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Like Rondo, Kevin Garnett also went on the offensive with his postgame interviews, specifically targeting the Hawks owner, Michael Gearin Jr, even after the Celtics were long done with the Hawks  (note to anyone reading this, don’t anger Kevin Garnett because he can hold a grudge longer than any normal human).

The Celtics turned every negative word said or written about them into motivation. For them, age was just a number and they went out to prove that. Really, we would all like to believe that age truly is only a number, that you can still do what you were able to do at 24 at 36. However, this is just not an accepted truth, at least not before the Celtics turned their season around. Suddenly, they became experienced and not old. Suddenly, age became just a number. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that their opponents were younger than them.

For the majority of the second half of the season, the Celtics beat Father Time. And if they could do it, why couldn’t the rest of us? If the Celtics didn’t let age hold them back, then why should anyone else?

What’s more is that the Celtics proved the naysayers wrong in the process of beating their age. In life, there will always be people telling you that you can’t do something, whether it's related to your age or not. The Celtics looked these people in the face and told them they were wrong. Then they went out and proved it.

In order to be successful, you need to follow the Celtics' example and face people who doubt you and erase that doubt. The Celtics made doubters believers and naysayers fools. It takes a special team to do that. And that is exactly what this group of people was—a special team.

They taught more about how to live life than any other team I’ve ever been around, and they weren’t even trying to do that. I guarantee that everyone will face adversity, age and doubters. My advice when that happens is to be like the Celtics.

Face these things head on. Punch adversity in the face. Don’t let Father Time get you down. And prove every naysayer wrong. If you do that, I guarantee that you will be successful because let’s face it, this Celtics team was successful.

Their success will only be part of the reason we remember them, though. We will remember the 2012 Celtics for what they taught us about basketball such as the value of experience, coaching, defense, toughness and will to win. More so though, we will remember them for what they taught us about life.