First of i do not hate the Celtics, but i beleive that they wont win a championship this year.  First of all they play in the east which is much weaker than the west, but that proves very little except they are not used to dealing with high levels of competition unlike in the west were we may have a 50 win team not making the post season.  Secondly They need a more experinced Point Guard, even tough Rajon Rando is talented he has not yet reached his potential and may have trouble with more experienced guardslike Chauncey Billups, Mike Bibby, and Daniel Gibson(he did torch defenses last year in the play offs and has more play off experience tha Rando).  Thirdly can they handle another teams big three has yet to be proven, I am not so sure they can defend the Lakers (Kobe, Gasol, Odom), The Spurs(Ginobli, Parker, Duncan), or Detroits fearsom 4(Billups, Hamilton, wallace, Prince).  Reason 4 at times they are inconsistent and it slides in the weak east but they will get burned playing play off teams even in the east, also I would like to see how they hold up against a team like the Pistons or Magic in a 7 game series.  And finnally I do not believe you can just mesh 3 star players all together in 1 season, that does go for the lakrers as well, too add on to my point I realize they made alot of upgrades on their bench but they still have not proven a thing unlike other major contendors such as the Lakers and Pistons so when it comes down to the wire I would rather have a fresh big three like Kobe, Odom, Gasol over a tired Garnett, peirce, Allen any day of the week.  However despite these reasons they still have an excellent shot at winning the tittle if they can get past the Lakers.......