Was Boston's strategy 'tanking'?

The Boston Celtics are back in the NBA Finals after being derailed by an injury to Kevin Garnett last season. This time, they made sure to make like the little engine that could, going slow and steady, steady and slow. But the manner in which they did it has raised some old questions dating back to the old “one step backward, two steps forward” days of Tommy Manotoc when he was coaching U-Tex.

At first, Celtics head coach Doc Rivers was loath to bring up the limited starter minutes card. As late as October, before the start of the season, he appeared very much against it.

“You have to play your starters for a certain amount of minutes,” Rivers was quoted as saying. “People think that if you can play them 28 minutes a night that’s good, but that’s awful. If you look historically, Michael Jordan never played under 37 minutes a night.

There is a reason for that - rhythm. You have to keep your rhythm during the season. [Playing fewer minutes] sounds like a great idea, but if you play them 28 minutes to conserve them, then you throw them out of their rhythm.”

The Celts were humming along, as they did in their championship run two years ago, at least until December. But then, recurring nightmares in the form of injuries to Garnett and Paul Pierce forced them to examine their overall plan. More than a month ago, Rivers met with his “Big Three”: Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, and informed them that he had come up with a plan to make it back to the finals, but that they wouldn’t like it. He was going to limit their minutes, regardless of protestations and regardless of the outcome.

Doc had already tried this in 2008, late in the season, even when Garnett was healthy. The Celtics subs responded. In fact even winning some games outright, like an overtime squeaker against Milwaukee in April of that season. And as far back as the start of the 2005 playoffs, when Rivers was still learning his own style of coaching, then-Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown lamented his strategy of resting starters at the start of the playoffs, saying it was damaging to the integrity of the game. Other coaches, however, disagreed with the crusty old Brown. They felt that, you earn the right to gamble with what you think will work for you in the long run.

“That stretch the last month, we formed a game plan, and I thought it was a good plan,” Rivers reiterated.

He did, however, have to stick to his guns when everyone turned against him. The former champions bumbled to a mediocre 27-27 finish to the season, finishing fourth in the East with a decent if unimpressive 50 wins, and dropping many notches in the minds of pundits who were looking drop-jawed at Cleveland in the East and Los Angeles in the West. Internally, there was a lot of friction brewing.

The three All-Stars groused and glared at their coach whenever they wanted back in to salvage wins. Assistant coaches yelled out their minutes, as if to belabor the point.

“Obviously, it didn’t look right because we were losing games, but guys were resting and conditioning, and I thought that was the only chance we had,” Rivers said outwardly. Privately, he remained firm, constantly putting his foot down when they lost, both in practice and in the locker room.

But all this was buried with the wins that came in the post-season, as Boston took a final step by taking an insurmountable 3-0 series lead against the Orlando Magic, a lead no team in history had ever blown.

The Celtics and Lakers, champions of the past two seasons, square off again.

The question, however, is this: could Rivers’ strategy be considered losing on purpose? Was it, in a word, tanking?

Historically, this has been a coon accusation of teams at the opposite end of the standings, NBA losers positioning for the lottery. From San Antonio (David Robinson) to Houston (Yao Ming) and so on, franchises have purposely blown today for a shot at a better tomorrow. Of course, it has been hard to prove, and rarely carries punishment.

In Asian basketball, it has been a more common practice for teams to lose to avoid strong semifinal opponents. Many countries have tanked their final assignments to avoid, let’s say, a crossover semifinal match-up with China at the Asian level. At least, they feel, they will have a sure silver. At the SEA Games level, that kind of accusation was leveled against the Philippine coaching staff in Indonesia in 1997. Though that accusation against head coach Dong Vergeire was debated, there was no question that he helped bring home the gold medal.

If the Celtics hadn’t held back their top guns, how many more games would it have won them, and would it have made any difference in their bottom line? Was it unfair to the fans who paid hard-earned dollars to watch those individual regular season games, unaware that the team was sacrificing for the bigger goal of winning a title? Will a championship wash away all those questions and give them a license to do it again?

At the end of the day, if the Celtics get past the Lakers, all will be forgiven. Garnett, Pierce and Allen will embrace Rivers in a champagne celebration (so they’re hoping) and celebrate. Boston is looking for an 18th championship banner, and that’s all that matters.

Except to those of us who still have that unanswered question in our minds.