League focusing on Celtics

Not only do the Celtics have the target on their backs from every team in the league, but also from the league itself. From the Herald: (http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/basketball/other_nba/view.bg?articleid=1137366&srvc=sports&position=3)They are also, however, furthering their image around the league as the chattiest team on the circuit. And word is the NBA office does, indeed, have the C's in their sightline. According to one source, the steady stream of trash talk is getting a bit unseemly to some."There have been teams that have talked a lot of (expletive), but usually those are the bad teams," he said. "And this is different from the stuff Larry (Bird) used to do. This is overt trash talking, and really I think they can take that stuff too far sometimes. Forget about the fact it doesn't look good from the defending champions, I think it takes away from them." Coach Doc Rivers said last week that he doesn't want to in any way douse his team's competitive fire, and he has a very good point there. But he also noted that he'd like his players to pick their spots a little better. In the latter case, he was referring mainly to chatter with referees, and this is the issue that most could impact the Celtics in a critical situation. The bottom line is that the officials are getting their fill of the Bostonian complaints. Said one ref last week, "Someone needs to explain to those guys that not every call we make is wrong." The contentiousness is written all over the stat sheet. Coming into the weekend, the Celtics had 25 technical fouls for conduct. Phoenix was second with 13. And be wary of the inflated technical stats you may have read that include defensive three-second calls.