I can picture Doc Rivers inside the visiting locker room at the Amway Center, looking around at his subjects and urging them not to fold. I envision Kevin Garnett, sitting in a corner of the room, sweat pouring down his face, eyes staring at the carpet like a 12-foot caterpillar was crawling across it, head bobbing in agreement. In my mind’s eye, Paul Pierce stood in front of his locker, hands at his hips, flames bouncing in his eyes, waiting for Rivers to finish his speech so Pierce could do his best Knute Rockne impression before the Celtics raised their hands as one in the middle of the locker room.

My vision involves E’Twaun Moore sitting on a chair in front of his locker, gazing directly at Rivers, not really listening to the coach’s words but imagining the snap of the net that he hadn’t witnessed — at least after his own shots — for so long. And Brandon Bass sat there, a minuscule part of him wondering “what if I hadn’t been traded from Orlando?”, and the rest of his body, heart and mind telling him he was lucky to be with the Boston Celtics, where a 27-point deficit in the second quarter only meant his teammates were ready to apply their brass knuckles. (Boston Herald)

“It’s just our spirit, where we remain positive,” said Pierce. “On losing teams, when you lose games and things don’t go your way, then there’s finger-pointing. But you don’t have that in this locker room. The veteran leadership in this locker room won’t allow that.

“It should give us tremendous confidence, especially with guys hurt — key guys hurt,” said Pierce. “We didn’t have Jermaine to guard Dwight (Howard), we’re without our All-Star point guard, our All-Star 2-guard. Everything was in the making for us to lay down and get ready for tomorrow, but there’s something about this locker room where the light has switched on.”

The light has switched on, and last night it was a sun that burned brightly, painting shadows that swallowed the Orlando Magic and left them incapable of running offensive sets. The heat from the Celtics’ burning ball of gas enveloped the Amway Center and tore it down to ashes, leaving Jason Richardson to worry about whether the past two games against Boston have single handedly given Orlando a soft reputation.

“That was a character builder for our team,” said Rivers. “It really was. It’s all we talked about at halftime — not a big game plan thing. We didn’t make any changes. We just kept talking about it being a character builder for the basketball team. Let’s get back in it. Let’s hang in there long enough to give yourself a chance to win.”

Three starters down, two of them All-Stars, on the road, facing a 27-point deficit. Boston entered halftime with a chip and a chair, a hope and a prayer, and a group of players that still — after all the painful losses this season, all the half-assed nights when winning teams rolled them over — believed. (Orlando Sentinel)

“What the Celtics did was they stuck with the game plan,” Howard said. “Not once did they fight or get mad at each other. They just kept playing. They stayed together, and that’s how they won the game.”

That formula sounds eerily familiar, no?

For two and a half quarters, the Celtics were trying to win the MLB home run derby using a wiffle ball bat. The Magic led by as many as 27. Boston’s deficit normally fluttered between 18 points and 21 points, or some other number that seemed impossible to recover from, on the road, without three starters, against one of the Eastern Conference’s top teams. The Celtics were dead. They were all but guaranteed to move to 7-10, after what would have been yet another loss to yet another winning team.

And then it happened. E’Twuan Moore hit a few threes. Paul Pierce’s All-Star form came rising from the Amway Center floor with steam coming off its head. Glen Davis fired jumpers that didn’t go anywhere near the center of the rim. Boston’s defense paced around the backyard, barking and snarling and turning every visitor away. The Magic suddenly seemed flustered. They stopped running their sets. Boston continued to attack the rim and find the open teammate. Orlando continued to settle for garbage.

The 27-point lead disappeared, or rather, the Celtics seized it and threw it in the dumpster. Moore hit his fourth three of the contest to actually give Boston the lead, and for the first time in many comeback threats this season, Boston completed the quest.

The C’s didn’t whittle away the lead. They chopped it all off with one swing of the ax.  The Magic led by 20 one second. The next it was nine. Then a tie score. Then the Celtics were pulling away and Orlando was falling apart in a sea of technical fouls, Brandon Bass was shaking Pierce as if to say “look what we done did,” a still-amped Kevin Garnett was telling Craig Sager about the bar fight Boston had just won, Stan Van Gundy was likely wishing he still had a voice so he could scream at his team in the locker room, and Doc Rivers was pumping his fist, slapping people’s asses and telling anyone who would listen, “Yes sir, that’s how you win” on his way off the court.

One night — one half, really — does not necessarily mean the Celtics are back to being the Celtics, but for 18 or 19 glorious minutes, as Orlando’s ball of yarn began to unravel, as Garnett bounced around, Pierce marked the Amway Center his own, Moore became the latest Celtic to climb from the basement and make major contributions, and Boston deleted a 27-point lead despite missing three starters, two of them All-Stars, it felt like they were. They are not yet .500, they still have not beaten a single winning team not named “the Orlando Magic” — but if you close your eyes and listen to the sound of basketballs bouncing off the hardwood, it’s easy to believe the Celtics are regaining an identity, the scrappy old men who won’t lay down and close their eyes, no matter how many excuses whisper in their ear that it’s time to fall asleep.

In the words of Rich Levine, “In other words, Celtics by 30.”

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It’s been a rocky start for the Celtics this season, but with three wins in their last four games it looks like they may have weathered that storm. Friday night will be a big test as the Pacers come to town to face KG and company at TD Garden. Indy has already beaten the Celtics twice this season–both by double figures–so if they’re are going to put that bad start behind them a win on Friday would be big for the Celtics and their fans. Through our ticket partner TIqIQ, you can essentially pick your price via the TiqIQ “make an offer” feature from Score Big. For Friday night’s game, a “4 star” seat that usually goes for $140+ (after all the shipping and handling fees) can be scored for an offer of $60. But you need to make a fast break for this ticket deal, as it expires at 7pm on Thursday! Make your offer today right here: http://tiqiq.us/75b

Just yesterday, I had an argument with a friend about whether Dwight Howard would want to come to Boston.

“No way he wants to trudge through snow to practice, enter a situation where the roster moving forward is entirely unpredictable and come to Boston, where not a single top-tier free agent (with the exception of Rasheed Wallace, hah) has ever decided to sign,” I said.

“But Rondo! Doc Rivers! The Celtics could re-sign KG and Ray Allen to small deals, make another run at it next season and build around Rondo and Howard — think about the alley oops! — for the future,” he replied.

I shook my head.

“There are no indications he would even CONSIDER Boston,” I mentioned.

Until now.

And the indication comes straight from Howard himself, via the Boston Herald’s Steve Bulpett.

“Always. Always,” Howard told the Herald. “I’d always listen to a team like that.

“My thing is I want to win. It’s not something like I’m doing this for money. I win. I want to do it my way.”

“The first thing is basketball,” he said. “I want to win a championship, and it takes a certain type of team to win a championship. You know, there’s a lot of teams who are great during the regular season. They play well, but it’s different once you play in those playoffs, you know? It’s gut-check time.

“Like I told the Magic, I just want to win. I don’t want a team that doesn’t know how you have to win in the playoffs. I want a team that’s going to go out every night and forget about stats, forget about who scores the most points or who is the fan favorite. Just go out and play, play for each other and play to win. That’s the only thing.”

“You know,” said Howard, “you look at a team like Boston and look at a team like LA who’s won . . . especially Boston. Man, those guys came together and they didn’t care who scored all the points. They had done all the individual stuff.

“You know, for me, I’ve done a lot of things individually, but I want a championship. All those accolades that I’ve got over the years, they mean a lot, but it’s just different watching teams hold up that trophy and knowing how hard you have to work to get it.

“They have the championship mentality,” he said of the Celts. “It means a lot. Like I said, I like the team. They play hard and they go after it, and that’s what I like.”

I can only imagine Danny Ainge reading this report, eyes bulging, drool pouring out of his mouth, cell phone as always glued to his hand, mind racing thinking about what it’s going to take to acquire Howard.

And then I allowed myself to dream. What if Howard came? What if he and Rondo allowed Boston to completely skip a rebuilding process? What if — gasp — he helped extend the Big Three era?

We talk a lot about Kevin Garnett’s slide this season, and it’s clear he no longer plays with the lift and the explosion he once used to become the world’s best defender. But couldn’t Howard extend KG’s career a few years? Wouldn’t Howard’s presence be a blanket that would cover up KG’s slowing steps? Hell, Howard has led some of the NBA’s most successful defenses the past few seasons with Rashard Lewis and Ryan Anderson as his running mates. Isn’t KG, even at age 36, a considerable improvement on those guys, at least defensively? Wouldn’t KG’s jumpers be a little (/a lot) more open if Howard were down low waiting for an alley oop from Rajon Rondo?

And what could Howard do for Ray Allen? It’s a shooter’s dream, playing the perimeter while Howard commands constant double teams. Allen can’t move like he used to, but he’s a cardiovascular robot sent from Mars who can tickle nylon nets with a basketball on command. Wouldn’t Howard allow Allen to continue aging gracefully, and wouldn’t he make it easier for Allen to find daylight, and wouldn’t you love to see a starting five consisting of Rondo-Allen-Pierce-KG-Howard, if only for one season? Or hell, maybe Allen and Garnett would sign for really cheap (after all, they have more money than the vault Scrooge McDuck dives into like a swimming pool), Ainge could sign a couple other cats in 2012 free agency (if Ainge sends a maximum contract Eric Gordon’s way, do the Hornets match, or does a Rondo-Gordon-Howard trio rule the world for years to come? Would the Celtics even have cap space for that? No? CAN’T YOU JUST LET MY DREAM LIVE!?!?).

/pinches self

Okay, it’s time to start living in the real world again. Dwight Howard might listen to Ainge’s call, but Ainge still needs to convince him that Rondo, Rivers, maybe Pierce, and a mountain of uncertainty are enough for Howard to bet the absolute prime of his career. Be persuasive, Danny. It’s still a long shot, but he’ll listen. It’s a start.

I hear Jermaine hurt himself trying to walk across a shag rug to pinch his great-granddaughter’s cheeks in between rounds of shuffleboard.

And just for fun: