Celtics @ Bulls: Looking Ahead

Here's the biggest difference about this Celtics team after the Perkins trade: their opponents are no longer afraid of them. It's not that Perkins is as scary as his mean mug aims at portraying him to be. It's what that group had accomplished in 2008 and 2010. Reference them as the starting 5 who never lost a playoff series, or include Baby Davis and call them the 6 with a ring. Regardless, that team had a mental edge over every other team in the league besides the Lakers. That's no longer the case and that was evident tonight in Chicago.

After the trade there is a seed of doubt planted in every opponents head. Bring Shaq back, and get good minutes out of Jeff Green and Nenad and those teams still have that little morsel of belief that they can topple this aging giant.

I want to be clear. This does not mean the Celtics have no shot at getting to the Finals. What it does mean is that this team is in for one hell of a battle to get there. If the Celtics thought that the playoffs were grueling last year... Regardless of what you think about the Heat, playing two talents like Lebron and Wade in a single playoff series will be daunting. Chicago? Well as we saw tonight, they believe in themselves, they will not back down, and they will defend. Coach of the Year Tom Thibodeau knows the Celtics in and out and the Celtics do not want to play a game 7 in Chicago where the Bulls are tied with the Spurs for a league-best 35-5.

The dirty little secret that Chicago has covered up by the exceptional play of Luol Deng is that the Bulls are not all that big of a team. Without, and probably even with, Shaq the Celtics have a big hole up front. The Bulls are not likely to exploit that weakness outside of Derrick Rose's antics. The Celtics will have to treat Chicago much like it often did with Orlando in the past and commit to forcing Rose to take as many jumpshots as possible and limit the rest of the team's scoring. Boozer struggles with length (which KG has in spades) and Noah struggles to score, as relentless as he is. Simply put, against the Bulls the Celtics are not at the disadvantage that has led to Roy Hibbert scoring explosions and will be utterly impossible to cover up against the Lakers should they meet.

Tonight's game may not have taught us much we didn't already know but it did reaffirm much of what we did. The Bulls are a very good team (especially defensively), they are not afraid of the Celtics, and they are great at home.

The Celtics take on the Wizards tomorrow night in the second of a back to back. They are 7-10 in games on the second night of a back to back this season. Keep an eye on Jordan Crawford who has scored double digits in 16 straight games and is averaging 21.5ppg over that span.

Stats that May or May not Matter:

• Only 14 assists for the Celtics tonight, 6 by Rondo (Rose had 8)
  

• Celtics were outshot 47%-38%

• The Celtics were outscored by 22 points in the paint and were 2-10 from 3
  

• 18 of the Celtics 81 points were off turnovers, the Celtics half court sets were atrocious tonight and a lot of that was because of Chicago's defense; deflections, deflections, deflections...sound familiar?