Not with a bang, but with a whisper ...

"Defending NBA champions" had a nice ring to it while it lasted :(Now, it would be easy to blame injuries for the team's second round exit last night (nba.com); I mean, we've all been prepared as Celtics fans to use that excuse in the event that our team would eventually come up short in their bid to repeat as champs (come on, admit it!). However, that line of reasoning can only take one so far ... Truth be told (and I refuse to sugar-coat things), this team has played like crap on the defensive end pretty much since the beginning of the playoffs (come on, admit that too!).I mean, I know Garnett is the alpha and omega in terms of our defensive intensity (and losing complementary defensive oriented players like Powe - and even Posey from last season - certainly doesn't help matters either), but we should NOT have seen the precipitous dropoff that we did against the likes of Chicago and Orlando. At times, these teams were getting to the basket at will, and that s...