Picture the marathon runner at the starting line in Hopkinton. Before them stretches 26.2 miles of hard, unforgiving asphalt. At that moment there is nothing else standing between them and their task. There is no more time to train, nothing more that can be done. Only they know if they are really prepared. There are no more excuses, no more rationalizations. There is only truth. 

Like the marathoner, the Celtics are about to find out something about themselves. The regular season is mercifully over, although they seemed to have given up on it long ago. The playoffs are about to begin and now we will find out exactly how much they have to give.  

There is no empirical evidence to suggest that they will be anything more than a conference semifinalist, and even that is not a sure thing. There are hints, perhaps, of improvement. They have admirably cut their turnovers in recent weeks and Paul Pierce put together consecutive strong outings to close the season.  

But beyond that, there is no reason to believe that the Celtics are closer to the team that began the year 23-5 than the one that won 27 games and lost 27 over the final two-thirds of the season.

Despite all that, they are still the uneasy favorites in their first round series with the Heat, although most expect it will go at least six games, if not the full seven. Around them in the Eastern Conference, the Cavaliers, Magic and Hawks are expected to cruise their first-round matchups in four, maybe five games each. 

If that holds, it would allow the other contenders the luxury of rest while they watch the Celtics play for their lives, and possibly their reputations.

If they can’t get out of the first round there will be nowhere left for them to hide. They have made excuses for losses that never should have happened, and rationalized their inability to put teams away in the fourth quarter. But that was the regular season. 

Always, the focus, if you can call it that, was on the playoffs. That would be the time when they could be judged and in way, that makes them just like the other 16 teams.  

“Why is that extra pressure on us?” Doc Rivers asked. “If you go into the playoffs and you’re a basketball player there is pressure. There’s no added pressure. Go ask Miami if they feel like there’s extra pressure going into the playoffs. Yes. They feel added pressure. It’s the playoffs. Let me say this again: No matter what happens in the regular season, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.” 

Paul Pierce agreed. 

“I don’t look at it like it’s added pressure,” he said. “We’re going to take it one game at a time, one round a time. We feel like we’ve got a team right here that can win a championship.” 

Pierce is the true believer on this team. He never feels that he is going to lose, even when all the available evidence points to the contrary. “I never really look at the negative perspective,” he said. “It’s not even my mindset.” 

But how can a team that played so lethargically over the majority of the season expect to turn it on now? Can they, as it has been suggested, simply flip a switch? 

“It’s not about a switch,” Kevin Garnett said. “It’s about how much you zone in, lock in and come to play.” 

Kendrick Perkins is an honest man, perhaps the most honest man in the NBA. Ask him a question and he will give you his thoughts. So, does he know how the Celtics will play?

“No, I don’t,” Perkins said. “But the focus has been great. I think the first playoff game will kind of tell you. We’ll have to wait and see.” 

Yet they have confidence. Perhaps it is a false bravado, but they have it. 

“I think each guy feels like we can win,” Perkins said. “Guys like being the sleeper. We just want to come and prove a point. That’s how I look at it.” 

In the middle of all this is Rasheed Wallace. He has found himself painted with a broad brush as the central reason for the Celtics inconsistent play and he is an interesting test case. Did he perform poorly because he didn’t care, or because he simply can no longer play at the level he once did? 

As always, he is defiant. 

“I’m going to be me,” Wallace said. “Half the people like me and half the people don’t. I’m not out here to please the fans or whatever, I’m here to win a title. Some of the fans are mad at me, some of the fans cheer for me, I can’t worry about that. I’m going to go out there and do what I’ve got to do. 

“I’ve been in this game too long to play my game depending on what the fans say,” he continued. “When I first got to Portland they didn’t like me. When I first got to Detroit, they didn’t like me. When I first got here they didn’t like me. It’s nothing new. I can’t focus my game on what the fans think.”

Wallace was asked what he liked best about the Celtics heading into the playoffs.  

“Our experience,” he said. “We know what it takes to win.”

We’ll soon find out once and for all if that’s true.