A Time To Worry?

Shank's first column on the Boston Celtics this season comes after a brutal road trip:

The Celtics live a charmed life around here. Seldom is heard a discouraging word. It is as if the Auerbach-Russell-Havlicek-Bird decades pooled a reservoir of goodwill that quenches the thirst of fans and media tough guys deep into a new century.

The Celtics operate with relative immunity from the everyday noise and negativity that touches our other three successful franchises. Think about it: Nobody ever makes fun of the Celtics owners.

That's off limits to Shank, but Robert Kraft is fair game.

Nobody calls them cheap or complains about ticket prices. Basketball boss Danny Ainge is praised nonstop for his vision and brilliance, and coach Brad Stevens is universally hailed as a homespun Hoosier successor to John Wooden or even Red himself.

Meanwhile, the Patriots are held to an impossibly high standard,

Really hard to understand how that came to be the case, isn't it?

the Red Sox are questioned by a region of baseball know-it-alls, and proud hockey krishnas are ever-ready to carry pitchforks to Causeway Street if things are not swell with the Bruins.

But it’s always boola boola for the Green Team.

Which brings us to a surprisingly rough patch for the prematurely anointed 2019 NBA Eastern Conference champs.

I'm not sure too many people were saying that last month, but they're not saying it much right now, at a current record of 7 - 6. The rest of the column is readable, but just note the contrast of this column versus some of the Red Sox columns during their playoff run this year as well as every other column about the Patriots during the last fifteen years.