On January 8, 2001 Rick Pitino stepped down as head coach of the Boston Celtics. Jim O’Brien was named interim head coach and a new era had begun. There were no championships during this era and it doesn’t even rank in the top 10 eras of Celtics’ history. But it will forever be near and dear to my heart because it was the era that made Celtics basketball fun again.
I was weaned on the 80’s Celtics, so I knew what good basketball was. However, the slow decline of that dynasty, the tragic deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, and eventually the tanking ML Carr years stole the joy of Celtics basketball from me.