In my lifetime, the 1987 Celtics have always been the measuring stick when it comes to Sports Courage.

Sports Courage, of course, isn’t the same thing as actual courage. We’ll get to what Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett accomplished on Saturday night and it sure was impressive, but I think sometimes there is a desire to overstate things. If you watched ESPN or any of the other postgame shows, it would have been understandable had you come to the conclusion that Rondo was not a basketball player making $11 million dollars a year but in fact one of the Navy Seals (who make an average of $48,000 – and I’m thinking there is not a whole lot of holding out and demanding trades) who got it done in Abbottabad. 

As someone with an almost incomprehensibly low threshold for pain -- I've wept for hours after popping acne -- watching Rondo come back from the elbow injury was right up there with anything I've ever seen in any sport. But isn't that enough? Reign it in, TV folks. There you go, a blast of perspective from a guy two weeks removed from spending 1,300 words trying to take down a hockey announcer. 


But Sports Courage has always equaled the 1987 Celtics -- my all-time favorite team -- for me. Kevin McHale playing on a broken foot, Larry Bird in Act I of the back drama, Robert Parish with a severely sprained ankle, Danny Ainge with a hamstring injury, all not only playing through it but getting to the NBA Finals after seven-game Sports Wars over the Bucks and Pistons. It took a top 10 all-time team in the 1987 Lakers (totally healthy) to knock them off in the Finals, but they were truly The Team That Would Not Die. 

On Monday night, you will watch a team that can stand right next to that 1987 team on the Sports Courage scale. The 2011 Celtics aren't as good as the 1987 Celtics -- that team had three first-ballot Hall of Famers still in their prime, including one of the five best players ever -- but if you have even casually observed this group over the last 12 months there is no way to seriously make a case that they aren't as mentally tough as any NBA team in the last quarter-decade.

"This is a championship team," said Dwyane Wade after Boston's 97-81 Game 3 win over the Heat. "They play with that championship DNA that they have. We can learn a lot from that effort that they put forward tonight."

Championship DNA. Nice phrase, that (and it was clearly one that made its way around the locker room, Chris Bosh and Erik Spoelstra both used it in their postgame press conferences). But it's more than just that. 

There is a pleasure -- as a sports fan -- in knowing that your team is never going to quit (it's a pleasure that does not exist today for grown men wearing No. 24 Lakers' jerseys, it should be noted. But hey, at least 'Khloe & Lamar' was picked up for a second season!) A rare thing. 

Rondo was THE story of Game 3, but the story was Kevin Garnett, who abused Chris Bosh so badly that I'm half-expecting Bosh to release a remake of "What's Love Got to Do With It?" in 2012. Garnett is going to be 35 years old in less than two weeks (he's five years older than Bird was in 1987, four years older than McHale and 14 months older than Parish). He's played 43,915 regular-season minutes (13th all-time) and another 4,003 playoff minutes. He's won an MVP, played in a million All-Star Games and has his championship.

In short, it makes no sense that Garnett seems 50 times more motivated to play a postseason basketball game than Chris Bosh. 

But we saw it. Garnett pulled the basketball equivalent of walking up and punching Bosh in the mouth at the start of Game 3, and Bosh never fought back. He wanted no part of Garnett, who finished with 28 points and 18 rebounds in an epic effort that many if not most observers felt Garnett wasn't capable of at this point of the season (and of his career).

Score one for the powers of self-motivation. As for Bosh -- who told reporters after the game that he had a pinched nerve in his neck -- the search for his grapefruits continue. So far it strikes me that the things Chris Bosh really, really does well is put up 18-7 when it doesn't matter and scream and dance like he actually won a championship at hideous smoke and laser show events in July.

We know what Garnett is made of -- and he's still he guy who sets the tone for this team -- but at some point in this series you have to figure there might be a spot where Bosh will try to justify his contract. It hasn't happened yet.

The 1987 Celtics had guys with nothing left to prove -- the Big Three had already won three titles, four Eastern Conference titles and a combined 18 All-Star Game appearances by the '87 postseason -- who were governed by that same overwhelming power of self-motivation. And we saw the other defining quality of the '87 Celtics -- playing through pain -- from the 2011 Celtics on Saturday night.

And while Paul Pierce scoring 27 points and dramatically outplaying the best player in the world on a bum Achilles might not quite be at the level of McHale putting up a 26-16 on that broken foot of Game 7 of the Milwaukee series, Rondo coming back from after suffering that gruesome elbow injury (and I'm with Doc on this one -- have watched it 20 or so times and I still don't think it was a dirty play by Wade) and playing the fourth quarter with one arm is more than a worthy successor. 

Is there any doubt Rondo gives it a go in Game 4? Of course not. Bang on his jump shot all day, moan at his more than occasional lapses into passivity on the offensive end, but Rajon Rondo's toughness is never again a topic for discussion (and can we never again accuse Rondo not playing with the same "fire" without Kendrick Perkins?)

"We’re a no excuse team," said Rondo. "If I’m on the court, you may see me hold my arm but I’m not going to use it as an excuse.   That’s how we play. That’s our mentality. We show up Monday night and we’re on the court and we’re playing.  Don’t ask me how I feel. I’m going to play regardless. I’m not going to use it as an excuse. We’re a no excuse team."

It ended badly for the 1987 Celtics, of course. They had nothing left in the tank for that superb Lakers team, bowing out in six games. That's how it goes sometimes, all the Sports Courage in the world can only go so far when age and injury combine to conspire. Could be this will be the ultimate destiny for this 2011 group.

But what we knew about that Lakers' team -- we are talking about a crew with three titles at the time -- is not known about the Heat. They have been in the bully position the entire postseason. Monday night is going to be the first real test this team faces. This is the reason LeBron James came to Miami. To win this kind of game against this team. He couldn't do it alone.

And we know the Celtics aren't going to back down, their toughness already cemented. If they lose this series it'll be because they simply lost to a younger, healthier team with the two best players in this series.

But to get past the Team That Would Not Die II on Monday night and in this series, the Heat are going to have to show something we have not seen from them yet.

A little bit of Sports Courage.