Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “They each have their quirks. Paul Pierce might be the cockiest player to ever wear a headband. He’d trash talk a nun. He’s never seen a last-second shot he didn’t want to take. Ray Allen has know-it-all tendencies. ‘Wikipedia,’ as Kevin Garnett calls him. Garnett, of course, is intense beyond measure. Fluent in all languages profane. On the court, there are different levels of maintenance for the Celtics’ Big Three. Coach Doc Rivers will tell you that Pierce and Allen are ‘thirsty scorers,’ their appetites for the ball constantly needing to be fed. Garnett, on the other hand, can be painfully unselfish, to the extent that young point guard Rajon Rondo will yell at him to ‘shoot the damn ball!’ But they knew each other’s peculiarities when they signed up three years ago. Since that June 2007 news conference when the three stars first aligned, they’ve made it work.”

Paul Flannery, WEEI – “Here’s what the Celtics don’t care about in regards to the Miami Heat: The Decision, the fallout from The Decision, the media attention, the fallout from the media attention, the hype, the predictions and any of the fallout from the hype and the predictions. They’re not angry about it, nor do they do they feel disrespected. If anything, the Celtics seem amused by the whole spectacle, like the old man sipping his pint in the corner of the bar watching the 20-somethings ordering shots.”

Steve Bulpett, Boston Herald – “The fates being what they are, no one can sit here on opening day and tell you definitively whether this team will or will not be hugging the trophy and a champagne bottle in June.cw0But we will go this far: Given reasonable health, if the Celtics don’t win the championship, they’ve got some splainin’ to do. If they can avoid a Dustin Pedroia/Kevin Youkilis out-for-the-playoffs injury doubleheader, the Celts will have the loudest voice in deciding the season’s outcome. ‘Health or not,’ said Rajon Rondo, who has established a legal residence in Bold. ‘I think we’ve got enough depth this year. Hopefully not too many people get hurt, but we’ve still got a deep roster this year.’ Really, it’s the most a team can ask for. The Heat and the Lakers can make similar arguments, and it’s fair to say hoop purists would love to see Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and San Antonio squeeze another serious run out of their collection. But when the Celtics squandered Game 7 in Los Angeles last June and added O’Neals Shaquille and Jermaine, then pulled in Delonte West – all in supporting roles, mind you – they put their Shamrocks on the line. They will find it hard to blame anyone else if this doesn’t work out.”

Paul Flannery, WEEI – “He was on his way home from the airport after a road trip when suddenly another car slammed into him. The Lexus O’Neal was driving flipped over and landed in a ditch, which was at that moment the least of his concerns. A far bigger problem was that his car was now on fire. Greater still, he was trapped. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, O’Neal fought to escape the burning wreck, but the more he struggled, the more stuck he became. ‘It was the strangest thing,’ O’Neal said. ‘The way the dash broke, there was no way I could get out of there, at 6-foot-11, in a sports car.’ That was when something strange happened. To this day, O’Neal is at a loss to explain it fully, because he honestly has no idea. Someone, he does not know whom, came along and managed to pull him from the car to safety. O’Neal is a religious man. He’s hesitant to talk about this aspect of his life because he’s sensitive to how others view articles of faith. But whatever happened that night is simply too powerful for him to ignore, so this is how he has ultimately come to explain it. ‘I felt like God was with me,’ he said.”

A Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “But for Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck, Boston’s ability to continue being an active player in the championship conversation, began well before those three decided to return. To Grousbeck, it began a year ago when the Celtics re-signed Rajon Rondo to a five-year, $55 million contract. ‘People know we have a future, and we know he’s arguably the best point guard in the game,’ Grousbeck told CSNNE.com. ‘We know that we can win with Rondo, and the fact that he re-signed in the fall, you could say led to everything else.’ … ‘[New York Yankees great] Reggie Jackson said he’s the straw that stirs the drink,’ Grousbeck said. ‘Rondo’s our Reggie Jackson; he stirs the drink. I’d hate to see this team without him.’”

Gerry Callahan, Boston Herald – “So if you want to be fair, you can’t hate LeBron. You have to say he had every right to thumb his nose at Cleveland and take his talents to South Beach, and you have to applaud him. If you want to be fair. And if you don’t? Well, then, go ahead and boo the man for all the arrogance he has displayed since last we saw him, for the way he left the Cavaliers and the way he used a half-dozen other NBA clubs, not to mention the kids at the Greenwich (Conn.) Boys and Girls Club. Why not? As they say, it is your right. It is kind of funny to hear people plead for a little fairness and understanding for LeBron now when he showed so little for everyone else four months ago. You don’t have to like what Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert did – essentially dumping his coach, his general manager and getting down on his knees before King James – to realize he did it all for LeBron. And all the while LeBron was signed and sealed to South Beach. He watched Gilbert throw people overboard to make him more comfortable, and he said nothing. Nice guy. We know LeBron’s plan to join forces with Wade and Bosh in Miami was in the works for months, if not years. And still LeBron invited teams to Ohio, where they bowed before him and begged, as if they had a chance. They shoved their chips to the middle of the table, not knowing it was a rigged game.”

Tony Massarotti, Boston Globe – “Can these Celtics win it all? Of course. But everything needs to go right. Ainge raised some eyebrows when he kept this nucleus intact for at least another two seasons, and the clock has been ticking for three years to begin with. The roster undoubtedly will change some between now and year’s end. None of us are likely to get any real answers about this club until springtime, but there are some obvious truths as the Celtics prepare to take the floor tomorrow night against a Miami team that has invested in becoming a superpower. More than ever, these Celtics need to start fast. With this group, after all, they may never again be as healthy as they are right now.”

Rich Levine, CSNNE – “This is going to sound weird, but wasn’t it refreshing to hear the details of how much pain Pierce was in during the playoffs last season? (Yup, looks about as weird as I thought.) But, seriously, as I read the details of all Pierce had to endure to make it through last season — the pain, the frustration, the random knee leakage — I actually felt relieved. Not for his hardships, but for the fact that there were actually hardships at all. That we finally had an explanation for the oddest, most disappointing Paul Pierce postseason since his 2005 freak out. Paul’s looked like a new man this season. Not an old man, but just an older version of his younger self. (Those two sentences are dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future). After watching him labor through most of the playoffs (and most of last season in general) you forgot how much fun it is to watch him at his best. This season hopefully serves as a year-long refresher course.”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “‘They bleed green,’ James said about his favorite hostile crowd. ‘That’s all they care about. We have to be mentally focused and mentally prepared. Some arenas believe and love basketball more than others. Sometimes, more history adds more intimidation. Not saying it’s an intimidation factor for me. It’s never been an intimidation factor for me. But as far as the crowd and as far as the team, Boston is one of those hostile environments to play.’ Chris Bosh went a little further with that concept. ‘They’re supposed to hate you,’the Miami forward said. ‘You’re the opposing team. And, it’s Boston. They hate people a little bit more than usual cities.’”

Dan Duggan, Boston Herald – All of the attention focused on the respective Big Threes in tonight’s matchup between the Celtics and the Heat is leaving possibly the most important player of the game overlooked. And that’s just fine with Rajon Rondo. The fifth-year point guard was his typically understated self when asked about tonight’s much-hyped matchup. ‘It’s irrelevant to me,’ Rondo said. ‘We’re just going to go out there and do what we do best – play the game and try to win.’ While everyone is wondering if Ray Allen and Paul Pierce will be able to slow the Dwyane Wade-LeBron James duo, or if a healthy Kevin Garnett can overcome Chris Bosh, the Celtics’ biggest advantage tonight will be at point guard.”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “The phrase ‘playoff atmosphere’ will be thrown around in the hours leading up to tonight’s Celtics’ season-opening epic against the Heat. That could be a slight understatement. With credentials confirmed for 250 media members (500 if one counts all the television crews), a Celtics spokesman said it will be ‘the equivalent of a Finals game, minus the international media.’ The game has been sold out for two weeks, making it one of the toughest season-opening tickets in recent memory.Tonight’s game will be an epic, Rivers said, but only for 24 hours. ‘One of the two teams will win, and whoever wins will be anointed the Eastern Conference champs for a day,’ he said. ‘Then the next day we’ll play Cleveland, and it’ll go away.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “‘The first year I got here I was coming off ankle surgery and I wasn’t really supposed to start training camp, but the excitement in the air and the energy was too intense for me to even think about sitting down during practice,’ Allen said after yesterday’s practice. ‘I just remember that first preseason game we played in Europe, the atmosphere was so crazy, and we were all anticipating it. And now we have that same excitement, and we’re rejuvenated and ready to go. People in the last couple of weeks have been more overly excited than I’ve seen ever. Last year people just said, ‘Good luck on the season.’ But this year it seems everyone knows what seat in the house they’re going to be sitting in when they watch (this game).’ The only difference, according to coach Doc Rivers, is that outside of the local area the Celtics will be the second listing on the marquee. ‘All eyes will be on the game in Boston, but all eyes will be on Miami,’ Rivers said. ‘We’re the other team that’s playing. We just have to show up. But I’m sure everyone is there to see Miami. It’s there for everyone to talk about, but once the game starts it doesn’t matter. Whoever wins will be anointed Eastern Conference champ for a day, and then the next day we play Cleveland. I get the build-up, it’s a neat game that will be fun for everybody.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “‘What most people don’t understand is that, yeah, the talent came together, but for the most part it was the bench and our team that came together,’ Garnett said, very insistently. ‘You have guys and you have talent and that’s one thing, but how the talent interacts off the floor, and how the team interacts off the floor, the guys that come off the bench and the respect for them, and them making the starters better — our second team (was) just as good as any first team back in ’08. We weren’t a real talented group, but we were a group that was willing to come in and work hard,” he said. “We came with that intensity to win on the mind. We didn’t have any of those egos to distract us, and when it did, Doc did a good job of squashing it and destroying it right there. It helped to have ubuntu, it helped to have something we could say was ours. Very close to what Celtic Pride is about — knowing the tradition here is about the banners and not about the division titles and all that other nonsense.’”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “We have seen flashes of that dominate style of play at times in the preseason. But there have been too many games in which the Celtics simply got hot during one quarter, and that dominance propelled them to a victory that was a much tougher fight than the final score might indicate. Too few stretches of excellent play has been indeed troubling for Rivers. ‘That’s my concern with this team so far,’ Rivers said. ‘We’ve done that four times out of our eight preseason games, where we picked a spot [and said], ‘Let’s just go get a lead.’ That’s nice, but I would like to stay in that mode.’ So would players like Paul Pierce, who agrees the C’s will need to be more consistent in the season opener against the Heat as well as throughout the season. ‘That’s what we’re trying to work to get to,’ Pierce said. ‘We’re not a perfect team. We’re going to stride toward perfection every game. Doc always preaches, try to seek the perfect game. You’re never probably going to have the perfect game and things like that, but I think we can come pretty close to it. That’s going to be what we do in practice every day and being consistent, and that’s going to translate on to the court, being consistent [on a] night-in and night-out basis.’”

Gary Washburn, Boston Globe – So here we are, the bare basics of basketball. A hot gym in a remote area filled with the 15-plus guys who are expected to take over the Eastern Conference like a small defenseless country. The fans only want to see the finished product, not the painful transformation of three All-Stars into a cohesive and winning unit. ‘When we made the decision to come here, I had a vision of how it would work,’ James said. ‘It’s definitely everything I expected and more. We still have a lot of work to do. This is not a team that has a bunch of rookies and has a bunch of guys who don’t know how to play the game of basketball. It’s a veteran ballclub. Coach Spoelstra tells us what we need to do and we get right into it. Guys know for the most part, it’s not that many sets offensively and defensively in the NBA. It’s all pretty much the same. And we have a veteran ballclub that knows what to do.’”

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports – “It continues, in earnest, Tuesday when his Miami Heat take on the Boston Celtics in what may well be the most anticipated NBA season opener of all time. With that, destiny returns to LeBron’s court. This is no longer about bumbling public relations but about James making an impact in the place he’s most comfortable – in the open floor of an NBA game. It’s the chance, followed by 81 more regular season chances, to remind the American public why they rooted for him in the first place. He’s a two-time MVP with an unheard of combination of size, speed and skill. At age 25, he should be just entering his prime. He is a nightly human highlight reel who is now part of the wildest three-ring hoops circus since Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. Presuming LeBron is still LeBron in Miami, the hard feelings of the summer of 2010 and the way he left the Cleveland Cavaliers will be mostly forgotten and forgiven. Not in Cleveland (they’re allowed to hurt forever) and not by everyone. But by many. This is the overriding power of talent. It wins out in the end.”

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