Stan Van Gundy talks Celtics

“You’ve got Hall of Famers you’re playing against. Sure-fire, first ballot Hall of Famers you’re playing against, so anytime people talk about the Celtics struggling I just sort of laugh to myself,” Van Gundy said Monday night before the Celtics thoroughly manhandled his team. “This is an outstanding team with a lot of weapons and there are going to be one of the best defensive teams in the league year-in and year-out. They’ve got three Hall of Famers and a perennial All-Star.”

“If you have a slow stretch in the middle of the season your record still looks pretty good and people don’t panic. When it’s early in the year, they look and see a record they don’t like and people panic,” he said.

“If you’re going to have all these sports talk shows, you’ve got to talk about something and for whatever reason it’s a lot more fun to talk about negative stuff, so people really get into that and now ‘the Celtics are too old and these guys can’t play at all.’ I’m not buying it, but that’s the story and then you’re going to have to revise it when they win nine out of ten or something and then I guess they got younger as it went on. It’s all a crock.”