Dear Celtics...

Dear Celtics,

You guys are really starting to piss me off. I don't care if you've got some kind of agenda like just getting healthy for the postseason, but guess what? First of all, you're killing your starters playing them a ton of minutes as you continuously blow big leads/try to claw your way back into games. Second, these games still somewhat matter. As we've seen from last year, home court is kind of a big deal. Either focus on the health issues or on getting the top seed. "Oh, let's sit out Rondo because of a damn pinky. Oh, now he can play again." "Oh, let's shut Shaq down until April." "Oh, let's play all the new guys we got!", "Oh, let's use a shortened bench of 2 guys while Arroyo, Pavlovic, and whoever else we have on this mish-mash of a team sit in their warmups the whole game." You can't do both.

Look. You're professional basketball players. You're getting paid millions of dollars to play a game you love. Show it. Show us you care about these dumb games against mediocre talent. Hibbert went off tonight like he was Wilt Fucking Chamberlain. You know what you used to do? Amped up the defense and shut that bastard down. You know what you've been doing recently? Playing like you're in the WNBA D-League. All these games are winnable. Where's the desire? There's that damn commercial with everyone saying, "It's about passion....It's about desire...It's about blah blah." Yeah. You guys look like you don't give a fuck. Not cool with me or the entire Celtics tradition. It's not okay that you bone every shot you take and get yourselves into a hole only to claw your way back to give yourselves a chance to win it (which, lately, you fail to do anyway). It's also not okay to make every shot you take to start a game and then start employing the Clogged Toilet offense. Play like the Celtics or get off the damn court.

I'm a Celtics fan through and through, but when you don't play like the "Celtics," I'm not a fan of you. I won't root for you blindly. And I won't shrug my shoulders and say, "Eh, that's okay! We'll get 'em next game! I love you unconditionally and you can't do anything wrong! Even if you play like inconsistent nancies, you still deserve my undivided praise!" No. Sometimes you NBA players need a kick in the ass and I'll be the first to give it to you. If you're a fan of a team, it doesn't mean you need to like what they're doing and support them without reason. To believe in them simply isn't enough sometimes.

If you deserve to be booed/called out, then we'll give it to you full force. Because we'll cheer just as loudly if you play like the Celtics should.

Sincerely,

Bono