Paul Pierce News

Brooklyn Nets forward Mason Plumlee scores during the first half of an NBA basketball game on March 15 against the Washington Wizards.

Celtics 101 provides 24/7 obsessive sports coverage of the Boston Celtics as a part of Sports Media 101 .

Walt Frazier was back in Boston last week for the Celtics-Knicks games, and he knew it just wasn't the same.

DISCLAIMER: A lot will need to go right, but I believe every step in this rebuild is realistic and achievable.

The Boston Celtics owe it to their fans to assemble a winning team next season. The goal for the Celtics is to be playoff contenders and ultimately, NBA Finals Contenders.

Brooklyn Nets forward Paul Pierce passed Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing for 18th on the NBA 's all-time scoring list during Saturday night's game against the Washington Wizards , per the website The Brooklyn Game: With 24,817 points, Paul Pierce has passed Patrick Ewing on the all-time NBA scoring list, the 18th-most of all time.

It's rarely a bad time to acquire a superstar. Other variables might loosen a team's need, but timing should never be one of them.

Even during a 2013-14 season marred with turmoil and countless negatives, the New York Knicks have remained prevalent due to recent news that legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson could agree to become the team's president of basketball operations - just don't ask Brooklyn Nets forward Paul Pierce about it.

The biggest cop-out when discussing this era of the Boston Celtics is saying you can't win a title with Rajon Rondo as your best player.

Before the season, the 36-year-old said he joined the Nets to be a "glorified role player," a major break from the alpha dog persona he developed in his first 15 seasons in Boston.

Here is our regular look around the NBA - links to stories worth reading and notes to check out - done in bullet point form.

Jared Sullinger was at a loss to explain how his Boston Celtics could win while committing a season-high 28 turnovers.

Paul Pierce netted 17 of his 29 points in the third quarter and the Nets topped the Heat, 96-95, on Wednesday night.

That's what the league's new boss said Wednesday when asked whether the NBA needed to do more to discourage teams from pinning their hopes on the draft lottery.

Surprise, surprise the Brooklyn Nets are the best team in the Eastern Conference in 2014 going 22-9 since the turn of the year.

Larry Bird is still watching. Not as much as he used to, now that he's back in charge of the Pacers, but he's still aware of what the Celtics are up to.

On a February evening in which the Brooklyn Nets lost by 44 points to the Portland Trail Blazers , the fourth-worst defeat in franchise history, there were two distinctly different reactions in the Nets locker room after the game.

He staggered the final few steps to the free-throw line, looking like Jimmy Brown from back in the day after four or five Giants piled on him.

When the Nets shipped Reggie Evans to the Sacramento Kings in a deal for Marcus Thornton last month before the trade deadline, they were really dealing the final remnant of their failed 2012-13 strategy.

There's some bad news for tankers: the Celtics are getting better and it's starting with the play between Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green.