The Maine Red Claws played their first game tonight, a preseason game against the Springfield Armor in the Augusta Civic Center. For those From Away, Augusta is the state capital, about an hour north of Portland (the normal home of the Red Claws) up I-95. In front of a large, boisterous crowd that included Maine Governor John Baldacci and Celtics GM Danny Ainge, NBDL basketball was played in New England for the first time. Although the Red Claws fell to the Springfield Armor, it was an excellent chance for the state to begin to fall in love with the team. Maine’s basketball fanaticism was very much on display.

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On the day of March 17, 2009, I was as confident as can be.

The C’s were set to battle the Magic for the right to head to the Eastern Conference Finals, but I wasn’t worried at all. Even without Kevin Garnett, I figured Boston had enough in the tank to overwhelm the inexperienced Magic. After all, their historical record in game 7′s was obscene: 20-5 in game 7′s overall, 17-3 in game 7′s in Boston. And the current team? Why, they were just 3-0. I saw Hedo Turkoglu eating a slice of pizza before the game, and every doubt I still had about the game evaporated. Who eats a f—ing slice of pizza before the biggest game of the season?

Well, now I know the answer: A player who was calm, unworried, and ready to lead his Orlando Magic into the Eastern Conference Finals. A player who is 6’10″, but possesses the playmaking skills of a guard. A player who spreads the floor with his jumpshot, but uses the screen-and-roll, or the pick-and-pop, as well as just about anyone in the NBA.

A player who no longer plays in Orlando.

Losing Turkoglu hurts Orlando, badly. The Magic added Vince Carter, and threw in Brandon Bass, Matt Barnes, Jason Williams, and Ryan Anderson to boot, but the jury is still out on whether they’re as good as they were last season. The thing that made them so good last season was their versatility; Vince is mega-talented, but he doesn’t pose the matchup threats Hedo did. He just doesn’t.

When the Magic played Hedo, Rashard Lewis, and Dwight Howard in the frontcourt, man-oh-man were they tough to match up with. Not only are all three of those guys 6’10″ or taller, but they’re all athletic, and Lewis and Hedo both play on the perimeter, where opposing players find it very difficult to guard them. And when they threw Mickael Pietrus out there at the two (don’t forget, he had an absolutely killer postseason), the Magic were long, strong, and skilled. (They could also play the athletic Courtney Lee out at the two. Another player they miss.)

The Magic put Howard down low and four other guys outside, and Hedo and Rashard invariably caused matchup problems for just about any team in the league. The only team that could match up with that frontcourt was the team that ended up smoking the Magic in the Finals; the Lakers were the one team with the length and athleticism to match up, and when they did the Magic weren’t so tough to beat anymore.

Now, a lot of teams can match up with the Magic. As talented as Carter is, he just doesn’t bring everything that Hedo brought to the table. The Magic are much more conventional this season, and I don’t think that’s a good thing for them. Their versatility, their ability to create mismatches, was the reason Orlando was so good and, with Hedo leaving, a lot of that is now gone.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you the Magic aren’t still a very good team. They are. They are absurdly deep, have shooters everywhere you look, and if I’m not mistaken Dwight Howard is still pretty strong and athletic. Lewis proved himself last season, Jason Williams looks four years younger than the last time we saw him, and Dwight Howard now has more than one move in the post. (Okay, I lied about that last part.)

I just think they took a step back from last season. I’m not positive they have, and I guess only time will tell. But if you had me at gunpoint and demanded that I tell you whether the Magic were better or worse this year than last, I would say they’re worse.

They’ll miss the pizza man.

Here are some points to look for in tonight’s game.

Kendrick Perkins vs. Dwight Howard

After Perk did such a great job on Howard in the playoffs, (corny joke alert!!) we might have to start calling Perk Kryptonite. All jokes aside, Perk is one of the few human beings strong enough and mobile enough to take away Howard’s two biggest advantages: his strength and freakish athleticism. Howard will get his blocks, and he’ll get his rebounds, but if Perk can harass him into taking a bunch of his weak, sweeping hook shots, Howard could have a subpar shooting percentage in this one.

Kevin Garnett’s mobility

I know, I know, I’m the same guy who once said “Garnett is back! He’s 100%!” But, he’s not. He still hasn’t regained all his lateral movement, and he still can’t jump without fully gathering himself first. Garnett still makes an enormous difference on the Celtics, but he’s not back to what he used to be. He’s just not.

So far on the young season, Garnett hasn’t really had to defend a perimeter threat. The only opposing power forward who played mostly on the perimeter was Oleksiy Pecherov, and while I wouldn’t exactly call him “a threat”, Pecherov lit up Garnett and the Celts. It will be interesting to see Garnett guard Lewis; I’m hoping he’ll show enough mobility to be able to stick in front of him. At any rate, he’ll do a better job on Lewis than Big Baby and Scal did in the playoffs.

Ray Allen’s play

I don’t want to call Ray out but, well, I’m going to call Ray out. Ray was flat-out awful through most of the Orlando series. He was hounded into a horrendous shooting performance, into completely disappearing, by J.J. Redick. J.J. F—ing Redick. Now, I know Redick’s improved his defense quite a bit, but there is no way he should be able to defend Ray-Ray.

Today, he’ll probably be guarded by Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus, and Redick. Let’s hope Ray plays a little better than he did last time he faced the Magic.

Boston’s energy

Over the last five or so games, Boston has played with, oh, just about zero energy. They haven’t shown their trademark intensity in quite some time, at least for a full game. Their defense, to be frank, has been terrible, and their offense has lacked crisp ball movement and movement with a sense of purpose.

It’s one thing not to get excited about a game with the Warriors, or the Pacers. But if the Celtics don’t open up a bottle of passion for tonight’s game, something’s wrong. This is a playoff rematch, a chance to get revenge against the Magic with the whole country watching to see who will emerge victorious. This is a big game, and big games –even though they’re only one game — explain a lot about a team.

This one should be fun, and it should let us know a lot more about where the Celtics are as a team.

Let’s just hope the Magic miss their pizza man more than they think.

This game reminded me of everything I already knew.

The C’s are not the team they need to be, and the Magic are not as good as they were last season.

We’ll start off with the Celtics. I was actually pretty happy with their effort level. While the C’s have looked unengaged (to say the least) at times this season, they played a large portion of this game with playoff-like intensity. They were fighting for loose balls, scratching and clawing for rebounds, and acting like they really wanted to win this thing.

Unfortunately, their offense was very close to atrocious. Far too often, the Celtics resorted to one-on-one play. When Boston is at its best (really, when any team is at its best), the ball is moving from side to side, players are moving without the ball, and everyone is unselfish. Tonight, it was throw it to Paul Pierce and get out of his way, or get it to Ray and let him create something, or wait until the shot clock is down and fire up an ill-advised stepback jumper. The C’s showed no cohesiveness, and no willingness to let the offense find them open shots. They were forcing tough drives to the hoop and playing far too much isolation basketball.

Still, they played far less isolation basketball than Orlando. Remember Orlando last season? They played beautiful basketball, spacing the floor and using Hedo Turkoglu as the facilitator getting the ball to all their perimeter options. Now, Vince Carter is the new facilitator, and we’ll just say he didn’t do a lot of “facilitating.” Throughout the whole game, Carter was content to fire bad shots, fadeaways with a man in his face, and ended up taking 29 shots to score 26 points. The Magic’s spacing is still there, but the ball movement is no longer anywhere near the level it was last year.

In the fourth quarter, the offense was “Get the ball to Vince and get the hell out of his way.” They still call him “Vinsanity”, but now it’s for his insane shot selection, rather than his athleticism. He hit some tough shots, but missed a whole lot more. If the Celtics weren’t ice-cold, they would have come away with the win, and most of the blame would have fallen squarely on the shoulders of Vince Carter. Shoulders that are likely sore from chucking so many shots.

Vince had a great stat line, at first glance at least, with 26 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists, but it’s clear his affect on the rest of the team is negative. You could almost see Rashard Lewis frowning as he watched Vince fling up 27-foot jumpers while Lewis stood on the other side of the court with no hopes of ever touching the basketball. The Magic came away with the win, but they have a long ways to go to becoming a title contender.

And so do the Celtics. Their offensive execution needs to get a lot better, and selfless team basketball needs to make a quick return to Beantown. I liked the fight and tenacity Boston showed, but I didn’t like their execution.

Not one bit.

Here’s a running diary of my thoughts during the game, while it was happening.

First Quarter

The top tier of NBA teams was supposed to be vastly superior to all other teams this season.
Right?

I would run down the offseason moves made to improve the NBA’s elite, but you know them all. Shaq to the Cavs, Vince Carter to the Magic, Ron Artest to the Lakers, yada yada yada. You know what happened. You know the rich got richer and the poor, well, they stayed just as poor.

But did they really stay so poor? Suddenly, it seems as if the NBA has parity. Out of nowhere, the poor somehow got themselves a little money. It’s very early still, but what in the hell is going on in the National Basketball Association?

With most teams only about ten games into the season, all the teams thought to be championship contenders have at least three losses. The Lakers, Cavs, Magic, Celtics, Nuggets and Spurs all have at least three L’s. Not only are they losing, but each team has looked surprisingly vulnerable at times. The Celtics look old, the Lakers look soft, the Cavs look unable to adjust to Shaq’s presence, the Magic miss their PED-abuser and Hedo Turkoglu, the Spurs defense is swiss cheese; the list goes on and on. The cream of the crop has not been rising as quickly or as often as most NBA observers thought it would.

At this point in the season, the only teams with two losses are Phoenix, Atlanta, Miami and Milwaukee. Huh??? If you told me today that you would have predicted those four teams as the teams that would have the least losses at this point, you’d be either a) a liar, b) a genius, or c) a dumbass. And there is no other option.

The Hawks and Heat were expected to be in the playoffs, but just as mediocre four or five seeds and maybe even worse. The Suns and Bucks, meanwhile, weren’t supposed to earn a sniff of postseason play. To be honest, maybe neither team will. Maybe their hot starts are just that, hot starts, and not in any way indicative of how the teams will perform the rest of the season.

But does it really seem like that? The Hawks have had the best start of any team, and I’m not just talking about their record. They smacked Denver, took it to Boston (in Boston), and have the third-best point differential in the entire NBA (behind Boston and Portland). They not only look young, athletic and skilled, but they look like a hungry team ready to take the next step into the NBA’s upper-echelon. Before the season, I would have disagreed vehemently (aka tell you that you were on crack) if you told me the Hawks would be the best team at this point in the season, but they have been. It’s true.

And if Atlanta hasn’t been the best team, it’s been the Suns. They also beat Boston in Boston, have scored at least 100 points in every game so far this season, and their two losses are to Orlando and L.A. (The Lakers, not the Clippers.) The Suns seemed poised to enter another year of lottery ping-pong balls, but instead have regained the look of an offensive juggernaut that can compete with any team in the league.

The Heat and Bucks have surprised, too, but it doesn’t just end there. Houston’s a bunch of ragtag role players and bargain-basement bums, but they look like a playoff team. Dallas is looking better than expected, is suddenly a defensive-minded ballclub, and has done most of it with Josh Howard down to injury. Indiana looks at least formidable, the Kings have somehow, someway won four straight games, Oklahoma City looks like it might be a year ahead of schedule, and New Jersey looks like a viable playoff contender. (Just kidding about the last one. New Jersey is bad. Historically bad, perhaps.)

Anyways, what I’m trying to say is this: The top teams aren’t as good as everyone thought they were. We thought there would be five or six teams battling to win 60-70 games, we thought those five or six teams would be far better than any other team, and we thought parity in the NBA was dead. From what’s happened so far in this NBA season, we were all wrong. Almost dead wrong. Parity is back, and it’s coming from unexpected places.

Of course, tomorrow the Lakers could go on a string of 30 straight wins, or Rashard Lewis’ comeback could spur the Magic to greatness, or the Celtics could drink from the Phoenix Suns’ fountain of youth and become the team they looked like during the season’s first five games. Hell, maybe they’ll all start to look like the teams we expected before the season.

But for now, at least, parity is back. And it’s actually been pretty fun.

Damn, it feels like forever since I’ve seen the Celtics play. After having played eight games in twelve days, it seems like the Celtics have had a second offseason with their three full days off. In fact, I keep waiting for talks of valuable free agents to pop up. (“Who should the Celtics sign – Grant Hill? Carlos Arroyo? Bobby Jackson? Fine, I guess they’ll settle for Marquis Daniels.”) Since the Celtics last played (about four months ago), I’ve been watching the poo-poo platter of games on NBA League Pass and wondering why in the hell they can’t have a premier matchup while the Celtics are off. Instead, Cleveland has to play Orlando at the same time as Boston takes on the Utah Jazz. Oy Vay.

Anyways, the Celtics looked unbelievable through their first five games. They were steam-rolling opponents, bashing them and battering them, and stating their case as the NBA’s top team.

Then, the Minnesota Timberwolves happened and, all of a sudden, things went a little downhill. During that T-Wolves game, it wasn’t a Celtic who was the best player on the court. Hell, it wasn’t even Al Jefferson. It was Oleksiy Pecherov. The Celtics escaped with a win, but started a trend of playing down to their opponent’s level. The next two games, against Phoenix and New Jersey, ended with a loss to the Suns and another slim escape from the grip of a big upset against New Jersey.

A lot of people will blame the recent poor play on the brutal schedule featuring eight games in twelve days. To be fair, the schedule was daunting. Not only did the Celtics play all those games in twelve days, but they had to travel for at least one absurd set of back-to-back games: The Celtics played in Philly one night, then in Minnesota the next. Doesn’t the NBA realize how long that is to travel, then play the next day?

But not all the Celtics’ problems can be blamed on the poor schedule. Only eight games and twelve days into their schedule, shouldn’t the Celtics still be fresh? No matter how many games they played in the season’s first two weeks, shouldn’t the Celtics have rejuvenated legs after a longer-than-expected offseason?

Before the season, the biggest question mark surrounding the C’s was their age. Now that Boston is showing its age and playing with old, tired legs, people are blaming it on the schedule. The truth is, the Celtics will struggle with older legs at times this year. There will be times when they won’t play their best, and there will be times when their energy is lacking. Hell, there already have been. As a Celtics fan, you just have to hope they’ll have enough in the tank to bring it every night come playoff time. I won’t get too down when they don’t play well during the regular season, especially when it’s obvious the only thing lacking is their energy. I trust them enough to know the Celtics will leave their hearts on the floor when it matters. I think.

People have said the C’s won’t face such a rigorous stretch of eight games in twelve days in the playoffs. They’d be right about that, but they’d also be forgetting that the Celts have yet to play a grueling game with playoff intensity. Those eight games were hardly played with that type of passion and grit characteristic of playoff games. The Celtics won’t play as many games in as short a time span during the palyoffs, but they will likely exert at least as much energy. In a long, seven game series, with each team battling for 48 minutes every game, will the Celtics have enough legs to battle through the nicks, aches and pains that accumulate over an NBA season? I don’t know, and we won’t find out until they try. For now, they failed the first test of the “old legs” exam, but are still 7-1 after the grueling eight-game stretch. It could be a lot worse.

Putting that eight-game stretch behind them, the Celtics face Utah tonight at the TD Garden, looking to turn things around at home after a rare home loss to the Suns. Here are some things to look for during tonight’s game:

1. Eric Maynor starting at point guard for the Jazz?

Backup Ronnie Price is already out, and Deron Williams is probably out too. That would leave rookie Eric Maynor, who’s played only 16 minutes on the entire season, as the only point guard. On behalf of the entire state of Utah, Yikes.

I actually liked Maynor coming out of college. He’s an intelligent player who changes speeds well and is always under control. He can shoot, score, and make plays — or at least he could in college. Now, who knows? No matter how talented, a rookie point guard with only 16 minutes under his belt should truly struggle against the likes of Rajon Rondo. Especially when Rondo starts telling Maynor he’ll never win a ring.

2. Utah’s lack of wing scoring

With Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, and Wes Matthews (Wes Matthews??) playing the brunt of the wing minutes, the Jazz can really struggle to put the ball in the hole from the perimeter. If Deron Williams is out, too, the Jazz could be in for a tough time against Boston’s defense.

3. Boston’s frontcourt defense vs. Utah’s frontcourt scoring

With Carlos Boozer, Paul Millsap, and Mehmet Okur, the Jazz big men can score both inside and out. The Celtics have great interior defense, but will be tested by the scoring, toughness, and versatility of Utah’s big men. Look for this matchup to go a long way in determining who wins the game, although, if Deron Williams sits, the Jazz could be in for a looonnnggggggg night.

When Allen Iverson took a personal leave from the Memphis Grizzlies, the Grizz wondered if the angered Iverson would ever return.

When Marquis Daniels left the Boston Celtics for personal matters, they just hoped he’d come back soon.

While Iverson has become the poster boy for what not to do as a teammate, Daniels has proven to be the epitome of a selfless player. He made $6.86 million last year and set career highs in points and rebounds; nobody could have blamed Daniels if he took the biggest deal he could get and played for whatever team offered him the most money and a starting job. After all, Daniels is entering the prime of his career. He’s already made big money, but Daniels’ age is when a lot of guys aim for that one last big contract.

Instead, Daniels signed with the Celtics — to come off the bench behind two All-Stars — for less money than he would have gotten elsewhere. He signed a one-year deal, so Daniels has every incentive to play for next year’s contract. Despite being in a contract year, he’s content doing whatever the Celtics need him to, anything to help the C’s win games.

His stats (5.7 points, 2.9 assists, 2.1 rebounds) certainly don’t jump off the page. In fact, they scream out “Worthless bum!” But the way he affects the entire Boston second unit is easily noticeable for anybody who watches the Celtics play. For a Celtics fandom that spent so much time last season harping on Tony Allen’s shortcomings, Daniels is, well, the anti-Tony Allen. Allen is known for his boneheaded mistakes, stupid drives to the basket, and ill-advised shots. He fouls the opposing team at the worst possible times, often on jumpshots.

Daniels, on the other hand, does whatever it takes for the Celtics to win. His stats aren’t going to put him on the All-Star team (hell, they aren’t even better than Allen’s stats from last year), but Daniels does all the “little things” that make a big difference. He moves the ball, takes good shots, and penetrates into the teeth of the opposing team’s defense. He handles the ball, leaving Eddie House to roam the three-point arc rather than being harassed by the opposing PG. Daniels plays good defense on his man and great position defense when his man doesn’t have the ball. Doc Rivers raves about Daniels’ basketball IQ, and talks about how much better the second unit operates with Daniels on the floor.

After a year of Tony Allen, Daniels is a human sigh of relief. He won’t light up the scoreboard, he’s not going to drain threes, and he probably won’t play many crunch-time minutes at all. But when he’s in there, you can feel confident that 1) he won’t do anything destructive to the team, 2) he will do positive things, even when he isn’t scoring, and 3) he’s not Tony Allen.

Especially with Iverson’s tired act of refusing to come off the bench, everything Daniels has done for the Celtics, everything he’s sacrificed to help the team, makes him look like a great teammate. Iverson put up nice stats in his first three games with Memphis (maybe his ONLY three games in Memphis), but watching the way he put up those stats you realize he’s a selfish gunner who, at this stage of his career, doesn’t make his teammates better.

Iverson controlled the ball, isolating early and often, completely foregoing his teammates and never involving them in plays. He took contested pullup jumpers off one pass. He dribbled the ball excessively. He turned the ball over by trying to do too much. For those three games, Iverson averaged 12.3 points, 3.7 assists and 1.3 rebounds while shooting 57.7% from the floor. On the surface, those numbers look great, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find out that Iverson had a negative +/- in every game he played for the Grizzlies. By monopolizing the ball and turning it over frequently, Iverson completely limited any contributions his teammates would have made. He scored a lot, but Iverson did none of the little things to help the Grizzlies emerge victorious.

Contrasting Daniels and Iverson, you find one player who makes sacrifices to help his team win, who is fine with coming off the bench as long as he can contribute to “W’s”. The other player? Well, let’s just say he’s a malcontent who has never gotten the concept of team basketball.

Just in case it wasn’t painfully obvious, Marquis Daniels (not Iverson??) is the unselfish player who has foregone more money and a starting role for the chance to win a ring, then adapted his game to fit the Celtics’ needs.

Iverson is now said to be contemplating retirement, frustrated by his role as a sixth man.

And Daniels? He’ll be back for the Celtics on Wednesday, willing to fulfill whatever role Doc requests.