Mike Celizic

I don’t know what’s worse, an 18-0 football team that loses the Super Bowl or a 66-win basketball team that can’t even get to the NBA Finals. I’ll leave that debate to Boston fans — if that’s how things work out.

It’s early in the Eastern Conference finals, but after two games, the Celtics are looking like the worst 66-win team ever. Things can change quickly in the playoffs, but Boston, which lost just 16 of 82 regular-season games has already lost seven of 16 in the playoffs.

And now this team that couldn’t even beat Atlanta on the road, has lost its first home game of the playoffs to the Detroit Pistons, a team that knows how to win playoff games. Boston gave up their home-court advantage Thursday, and it remains to be seen if they can get it back in Detroit, which is a tough place to win their first road game of the postseason.

You don’t need to call in the guys from CSI to identify the culprit. Paul Pierce is doing what he’s supposed to do, creating his own shots and piling up the points. Ray Allen finally did in Game 2 what Boston expects from him. He carried them in the second half, when he scored almost all of his 25 points.

That leaves Kevin Garnett, whose stat line looked awfully good — 11-for-19, 24 points and 13 boards. But for all those numbers, he’s not a guy the Celtics have been able to count on in crunch time. Despite his size — 6-foot-11 and better than 250 pounds — Boston is finding he’s no Tim Duncan, a guy who can set up in the post and make good things happen, a guy who can create a shot when the team needs it most.

I keep waiting to see Garnett take over a game that really matters, and I’ve yet to see it. In Game 7 against Cleveland, Pierce was the guy who won the game. In Game 2 against Detroit, Allen was the guy who almost saved the Celtics from themselves.

It’s not just Garnett, of course. If you want to make excuses for him, it’s easy to point out that the Celtics play offense with three players — Garnett, Allen and Pierce. In the Game 2 loss, the Big Three scored 75 of the team’s 97 points. That means the other eight players who saw action got only 22 combined. Of those eight players, only point guard Rajon Rondo got into double figures, scoring 10 points on 2-for-9 shooting.

Then you look at the Pistons. Rip Hamilton led them with 25 points, but five other players joined him in double-digits, with each of them adding at least 13 points to the cause. There’s a word for that — balance. It’s why Detroit won Game 2, and it’s also why the Celtics are in trouble. The Pistons can all shoot the ball; the Celtics can’t.

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