by Neil Sharma

Staff Writer

After last year’s disappointing loss to the Los Angeles Lakers at the NBA finals, the
Celtics look to win the NBA Finals this season. They lost to the Lakers in a seven game series that was very tight but in the end the Lakers won. If the Lakers win this season, the franchise will have won eighteen NBA Championships, the most won by any franchise in NBA history.
This year the Celtics are off to a solid start beating big teams such as the highly touted Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs- who have the best record in the NBA so far this season. Right now the Celtics are number one in the Eastern Conference. They will soon be facing their biggest rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers on January 30th.
The biggest challenge for this team as a whole is to stay healthy. The team is known for their veteran players such as Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Shaquielle and Jermaine O’Neal, who were both acquired over this off season. Being veterans, the players are more injury prone and could miss games this season. Kendrick Perkins has been out for the whole season so far because of an injury he had during game seven of last season’s NBA finals. Also key players such as Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett have been out with injuries this season.
Another challenge for the Celtics is avoiding the post-Christmas day slump. For the past two seasons, after the Christmas Day Game, the Celtics start to have some what of a slump and lose there dominance that they had in the first half of the season. Again, the age factor plays a role in this slump, many of the veteran players start to get tired and are worn done easily. But this season they have been able to maintain their dominance in the league with only a few losses so far. Their record so far is that they have 31 wins and 9 losses, which is a very good record to have at this point in the mid season.
If the Celtics are able to stay healthy throughout the rest of the season and avoid a slump, the Celtics could become a legitimate championship contender.