I guess that makes the Boston Celtics a walking museum of hoops history.

The Boston Celtics will enter the upcoming 2010 NBA basketball season with nearly as much sizzle as their counterparts in Miami, as NBA icon, all-time great center, and Hall of Fame personality Shaquille O’Neal signed a two-year, $2.8 million contract with Boston, his fifth team in an illustrious but rocky career.

In case you didn’t know, Shaquille O’Neal has four NBA championship rings — three with the Lakers and one with the Heat — but he has left most of his previous teams with hard feelings, as he has been prone to clash with teammates and eventually wear out his welcome.

So with the Boston Celtics having so many strong personalities and being an organization that makes team chemistry a priority, the signing of the 38-year-old center could be a risky move.

Yet if O’Neal blends into the system, they could have a defen sive and physical answer for most of their top rivals. When healthy and focused, O’Neal remains a skilled center who can draw double-teams — something Kendrick Perkins has yet to accomplish — and open up the floor for Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

“It is not every day that you can add a player of Shaquille’s caliber to your team,’’ said Celtics president Danny Ainge in a statement. “His past experience speaks for itself and we believe that he is…”

Yep, this is the perfect time to jump on the bandwagon.

After last week’s hour-long reality program in which LeBron James announced he would be joining fellow Class of ’03 draftees Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, many fans and analysts were quick to crown the Miami Heat as the favorites to not only come out of the Eastern Conference, but to also win an NBA Championship in the 2010 NBA basketball season.

The Miami Heat has undoubtedly one of the best core groups in the NBA, anything less than the championship in the coming season would be considered a failure. Winning a championship takes a lot of things, including luck with injuries and a few bounces to go your way. It’ll be awfully hard, even with a team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

They are a long way from a title this year. Even with three of the best players walking the planet on one team. The Heat, having sent Beasley to Minnesota for draft picks, have four players under contract and two second-round draft picks on their roster. After spending the vast majority of their salary cap to sign two superstars to join Dwyane Wade, it will be very difficult to sign quality role players to fill out the remainder of the roster.

Taking a look around the rest of the league, the other top teams with multiple All-Star quality players still have other role players on their team who can make strong contributions to their respective teams.

Looking at just the East, one would easily pick Miami to…

The Boston Celtics are going to look drastically different next season and Boston fans are anxious about it.

People begin to wonder if the Boston Celtics are going to have enough to make a deep playoff run next season. The team’s chemistry issues affected the way they played when the game was on the line. Instead of putting the ball in Rondo’s hands, Paul Pierce would call his own sets or go for the home-run with a Ray Allen three.

One good note for the Boston Celtics is that their head coach Doc Rivers agreed to return to the sideline and honor the final year of his contract, the sheriff is back in town and the posse could be close behind. But plenty of questions remain.

Can the team re-sign key unrestricted free agents Paul Pierce, who Tuesday night declared his intention to opt out of his contract, and Ray Allen? When will Kendrick Perkins be healthy enough to return from surgery to repair a torn ACL?

Rivers and his players prided themselves on the fact that when Boston’s starting five of the past three seasons — Pierce, Allen, Perkins, Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett — were all healthy, they had not lost a playoff series. That led the team to one world title and put it on the cusp of another.

But the Celtics now face the very real possibility of starting the 2010-11 season with only Rondo and Garnett in the opening-night lineup. What’s more, Boston currently has only five players under contract for next season, and one of them — Rasheed Wallace — is, by all indications, set to hang up his headband after a 15-year career.

Danny Ainge has a decision to make and he cannot let…

The Celtics only need one more win. The Lakers can’t afford another loss.

The Boston Celtics took Game 5 with a 92 – 86 win in the 2010 NBA Finals and in doing so they have given themselves two chances to win the NBA championship. It still will not be easy as both games 6 and 7 will be played at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. And for sure, the defending champs would give the Celtics hell before they relinquish the crown.

That is the situation as we head to Game 6 in LA. The Boston Celtics lead the best-of-seven series 3-2. Game 6 is Tuesday night, and a victory then would give Boston an unprecedented 18th NBA title.

Kevin Garnett scored 18 points with 10 rebounds and Rajon Rondo had 18 points, eight assists and five rebounds to help Boston become the first team in the series to win two games in a row.

If the Los Angeles Lakers can’t do the same at home, the Celtics will improve to 10-2 against them in the finals, from a 4-0 sweep over the Minneapolis Lakers in 1959 through the Bird-and-Magic era of the ’80s and Boston’s win in ’08.

The story surrounding Game 5 was whether or not Andrew Bynum would log big minutes with his knee problem. He did play a ton, 32 minutes in fact, but unfortunately for the Lakers Bynum was very ineffective.

He scored just 6 points, had no blocked shots, and grabbed just…

Can the Celtics tie the series again?

The Boston Celtics look to rebound in Game 4 of the 2010 NBA Finals as they play once again the Los Angeles Lakers Thursday night at TD Garden.

The Los Angeles Lakers won with a 91 – 84 Game 3 seizing home court advantage. Lakers guard Derek Fisher was instrumental with the win as he scored 11 points in the fourth quarter to propel the victory. Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 29 points, who had 25 points after three quarters, but he did not score for the first 10 minutes of the fourth.

A Lakers victory on Thursday night would put them within one win of avenging the loss to their longtime rivals in the 2008 finals — not to mention the eight other times the Boston Celtics have won an NBA title at the Lakers’ expense.

“Our thoughts are really just still on how disappointed we are, or were, losing that second game on our home court. I think that had more of our attention and focus than what happened in ’08,” Fisher said. “We didn’t doubt our ability to win here. We understand when you want to be the best, you have to win wherever, whenever.”

Kevin Garnett, who had just six points in Boston’s victory Sunday, had 25 in Game 3. But Allen, who had 32 points in Game 2, missed all 13 field goal attempts—one shy of the NBA finals futility record—many of them while Fisher was guarding him.

“It’s a hell of a swing, I’ll tell you that,” Rivers said. “It’s basketball. That’s why you can’t worry about it. He’ll be back in the gym tomorrow and getting ready for the next game. It happens to the best of us.”

The Celtics had high hopes after splitting the opening…

Lakers were the more physical team in their Game 1 victory.

Yep, that was as clear as crystal after the Lakers dismantled the Celtics to start the 2010 NBA Finals, but Coach Doc Rivers’ Boston team vows to play with renewed urgency Sunday, and Lakers are trying to prepare for it. Adding fuel to the fire: Lakers’ Pau Gasol suggests Celtics’ Kevin Garnett has lost a step.

The aggressive tone in Game 1 surprised no one within the confines of the Los Angeles Lakers‘ locker room. They’d been taking a bellicose stance for several days. Their video coordinators inserted an inspirational speech from the war movie “Patton” into a team video session before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, joining the continual clips of “Inglourious Basterds” Lakers Coach Phil Jackson has insisted on including to foment an us-against-the-bad-guys mantra, a trend started by the team earlier in the playoffs with the Quentin Tarantino anti-Nazi movie.

Something’s obviously working. The Lakers stood strong against the ominous front line of the Boston Celtics, an event that was still the talk of the NBA Finals a day after the Lakers’ 102-89 victory.

“I thought one team was physical,” Celtics Coach Doc Rivers said, and he wasn’t talking about his own. The Lakers dominated all the power categories, winning points in the paint, rebounds and second-chance opportunities with ease, though they didn’t think it would be as simple in Game 2 of the best-of-seven series Sunday at Staples Center.

Their thinking: There’s no chance Kevin Garnett…

If you want to bet on the NBA, you’re down to two choices: the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers. You can’t ask for two better choices.

We know both teams are capable of winning the championship. The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers in 2008, and then the Lakers beat the Orlando Magic in 2009 – the same Magic team (more or less) that Boston took out in this year’s Eastern Conference Finals.

Convincing arguments are being made for both the Lakers and Celtics in the 2010 NBA Finals; however, it’s Los Angeles getting the nod as a –180 favorite to win the title.

The Boston Celtics have a lot to offer at NBA odds of +160. They were pretty quiet during the regular season, coasting through at 50-32 (33-47-2 ATS) to win an incredibly weak Atlantic Division. Injuries and old age appeared to have taken their toll. But the C’s were at full strength by the time the playoffs started, and they found that championship gear again, tearing through the first three rounds at 12-5 ATS.

Boston Celtics fans can thank Rajon Rondo for making all this possible. He’s no longer the fourth wheel next to the Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen; instead, the Big Three are now complementary players taking their cues from one of the best point guards in the league.

Even the mainstream sports media recognizes this as a fact. Rondo has scored 16.7 points per game in these playoffs with 10.0 assists, 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 steals, and he’s done it against the very best the Eastern Conference has to offer.

As for the Big Three, it’s not as if they’ve stayed at…

Here we go again.

Yep, in case you haven’t heard, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics will be playing once again for all the marbles as the 2010 NBA Finals will feature a rematch of 2008’s classic Lakers – Celtics series that saw Boston capture its 17^th championship by beating Los Angeles in six games.

This time though, it’ll be a little different as the Los Angeles Lakers will come in as the defending NBA champions after winning the championship last year by beating the Orlando Magic, the same team the Boston Celtics sent home in six games to return to the NBA Finals this year.

Can the Los Angeles Lakers beat their storied rivals this time around to win the Larry O’Brien trophy? They should. Because unlike two years ago, the Lakers now have the frontcourt to go toe to toe with Boston’s Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins and since the Celtics are starting to feel their age a little bit, there’s no reason why Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum can’t take advantage of Boston’s somewhat aging fort.

Of course, the Lakers still remember how they lost the championship to the Celtics two years ago. Boston put on quite a show in the clincher in Game 6 when they handed the Lakers a humiliating 131-92 loss, the biggest margin of victory in a Finals clincher, EVER. Not that it was a blowout already. THAT game was a close one until subs James Posey and Eddie House blew it open with three-point bombs from…

Sorry, I couldn’t resist playing with some diehard Cavs fan’s emotions.

And in case you didn’t get that, NO, he ain’t with the Knicks. Well, not yet anyway. But since he got yet another early vacation after the Celtics eliminated his Cavs from the 2010 NBA playoffs, you can’t help but wonder where will LeBron end up this summer when he becomes a free agent.

Yep, the interesting 2010 summer of LeBron James has officially begun and with the way the Cleveland Cavaliers lost their final three games with LeBron this year, it’s really looking like the king of Akron, Ohio is leaning towards moving on.

Oh and in case you missed LeBron’s final three games with the Cleveland Cavaliers this year, it wasn’t pretty. Up 2-1 in their series with the Boston Celtics, the Cavaliers lost three straight, including that humiliating 32-point loss to the Celtics in Game 5 to set up what turned out to be their final game in this year’s postseason wars.

The Boston Celtics made sure that Game 6 would be LeBron’s final game with the Cavaliers this year alright. Led by Kevin Garnett who got 22 points and 12 rebounds and Rajon Rondo who had 21 points and 12 assists, the Celtics came up with a 16-4 run in the second half to put the Cavs away.

Now, everybody from Cleveland will begin scanning…

Yep, they will play, no matter how sore both teams are at this point of the year.

And in case you haven’t heard, both the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics are feeling the wear and tear of the 82-game regular season they just went through and the intensity of the 2010 NBA playoffs they are currently going through.

But perhaps the most significant of them all is the injury to the 2010 NBA Most Valuable Player of the Year LeBron James, who was significantly struggling in their 104-86 loss to the Celtics in Game 2.

Sure, LeBron still got a game-high 24 points for the Cleveland Cavaliers but with the way he struggled on the field all game long, shooting 7 for 15 and going for a dismal 0-4 from three-point range, you can tell that James is really bothered by that sore right elbow. At least the three-day rest between Game 2 and Game 3 should’ve been able to give James that much needed time to recuperate.

The Boston Celtics, on the other hand, have their own issues as well and the three-day interval should’ve been able to give them ample time to get ready for Game 3 back in Boston. It turns out that both Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins are nursing injuries of their own as both were held out of practice. If both guys are not at a hundred percent, that could spell trouble to Boston fans.

Kevin hurt his ankle pretty good,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said…