After getting out of work at 12 AM tonight, well today if you want to be politically correct, I checked up on the site and noticed this article from Travis. While I agree with some of the points he made about why Thursday's game isn't as important, I disagree with the main point of the article.
Thursday's night game in Miami is MORE important than the game on opening night, not the other way around.
Why?
Well it's pretty simple. This scenario is a better indicator of what we will be up against in the playoffs.
When the Celtics matched up against the Miami Heat on opening night, both teams had multiple weeks to prepare for each other. Going into the game the Miami Heat were still struggling (some may argue they still are) bringing the team together. On October 26th the Miami Heat were a completely different team than they were last year, while the Celtics still had the same core group of players.
Now that a few weeks have passed and the Miami Heat have played some meaningful games together, you can expect their going to play much better than they did on opening night. This is what we want, right? We want to be able to prepare for what they are going to bring in the postseason.
Tonight's game will be a much better indicator of that.
At the same time, tonight's game is also more like the scenario the Celtics would face in the playoffs, as far as days off and preparing for their opponents goes. A two day rest between Monday night's game against Dallas and tonight's game against the Heat is much more realistic than two weeks of preseason games and practice.
While I as a Celtics fan would like to say this game is not as meaningful and be happy that we already took one from the Heat, I can't force myself to do that. This game is a much better indication of the real Miami Heat and the real scenario we will be up against when the playoffs come around.
That is what we're really worried about, right? That opening night win didn't put up banner eighteen, did it?
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