All season long people have been wondering if Doc Rivers was going to give his veterans unscheduled days off, a la Gregg Popovich, the man who invented the DNP-Old designation for Tim Duncan. All season long, Rivers said thanks but no thanks.

Rivers has long believed that rhythm was as important as rest and to give his team breaks he turned practice days into off days and pregame shootarounds into film study and quasi-practice sessions. As long as they were healthy, his veterans would play.

His team also wasn’t up by 10 games like the Spurs. Rather, it was fighting an uphill battle brought on by a horrific start attributed mostly to players who weren’t in shape to begin the year. To put it another way, it’s hard to rest when the games are doubling as conditioning work.

The Celtics recovered -- somewhat -- by the All-Star break to the point where they were at least playoff hopefuls. Facing a backloaded schedule heavy with road games and quality opponents, Rivers doubled down and employed a tighter rotation. That’s also when another problem developed. Jermaine O’Neal’s wrist required surgery. Chris Wilcox unexpectedly needed heart surgery. Ray Allen hurt his ankle. Mickael Pietrus suffered a severe concussion. In the midst of a grueling stretch of games, the Celtics played with a short rotation that was often shorthanded.

They emerged through all that with a 22-10 record since the All-Star break, highlighted by a 9-2 stretch in which they beat four Eastern Conference playoffs teams in five days. The beat the Heat in Miami as Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo each played 40 minutes and then they turned around and did the same thing the next night against the Hawks. (Rondo actually played 47 against Atlanta without taking a break in the second half or overtime.)

That stretch may have won them the Atlantic Division, but it also may wind up costing them homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Two days after the Atlanta win, they stumbled through a dreadful loss in Toronto, Rivers decided he had seen enough. Already without Allen, he elected to leave Pierce and Garnett behind while they went to Charlotte. In hindsight, it might have been wise to leave Pietrus behind as well, since that was the last time he’s seen the floor due to swelling in his knee. 

“I think there’s a fine line,” Pierce said. “You want to stay in a certain rhythm. At the same time you want to be rested. Everyone knows how grueling and how physical and how tough mentally and physically the playoffs are. So, it’s good to be sharp but at the same time we want to be as healthy as can be going into the playoffs.”

After beating the Magic without Rondo – who fell hard on his back in New York and has been dealing with spasms – Rivers played the Hawks without five of his top seven players and left Stiemsma on the court for only 10 minutes. The Celtics lost and are now a game behind Atlanta for homecourt in the first round with two to play but the coach has no regrets.

“Once you make the call, you make the call,” Rivers said. “At the end of the day, [it’s] health, and if you’re not healthy it won’t matter. It wasn’t a hard call. We pretty much saw it. We made the call and we moved on.”

Now, suddenly the Celtics still have a chance thanks to the Hawks’ loss to the Knicks on Sunday. They have the tiebreaker so they only have that one game left to make up for homecourt. The C’s have home games against Miami and Milwaukee and Atlanta hosts the Clippers who still have a chance at their division and the Mavericks.

“It would be great to get,” Rivers said. “We have two games. We’re going to try to win them both and see what happens.”

Garnett and Pierce are scheduled to play against Miami and they could play on Thursday, as well. Pietrus may try to play and Rondo may as well depending on how his back feels, but he hasn’t done any basketball activity since the injury.

“I think I’ll be able to play and everything, I’ll be fine,” Rondo said. “I hit the floor a lot. I’m just trying to get as healthy as possible because the way I play I know I’ll hit the floor again.” 

Allen is definitely out for Tuesday. He said that an MRI revealed bone spurs, which have contributed to the swelling in his ankle that has kept him on the sidelines.

It’s possible that Allen -- who spends most of his time in a walking boot -- may not have any regular season games to get ready for the playoffs and it’s also possible that he could miss the start of the postseason. Allen wouldn’t commit to a timeline -- and really, how can he? He can’t move if there’s swelling and if he can’t move then he can’t play.

“Today is Monday,” Allen said. “Tuesday we’ll go at it and see where we sit Wednesday.”  Beyond that, he wouldn’t hazard a guess.

On the one hand, the Celtics are settled. They have the division in their back pocket and a first-round matchup set in stone. That allows them to begin prepping for the Hawks, which they did a bit on Monday. On the other, they’re as banged up as everyone else and it’s too early to know who will be ready to play when the postseason begins this weekend.

“Homecourt is great. You want to have home court. At the end of the day we want to be healthy first,” Pierce said. “We’re definitely a better home team than we are a road team. Going into the playoffs we feel like we have a chance in anybody’s building. We’ve shown we can beat anybody in the Eastern Conference in their building.”

They may have to, but if they’re going to go far they’ll have to win a lot of games in other people’s buildings and they won’t be able to do that without their key players.