Coming into this year we knew there would be a lot of injuries the Celtics would have to deal with. It really wasn't much of a surprise last Thursday when the C's had 9 guys dressed and ready to play in the 3rd quarter against the Lakers. That's just how it's going to be. The problem will be making sure there isn't 9 guys suited and ready to play in late April through June! If there is one thing that is a surprise, however, it is the age of the guys who are being injured.

Players who have missed games this year: Marquis Daniels (3), Semih Erden (+/-10), Kevin Garnett (9), Jermaine O'Neal (35), Shaquille O'Neal (17), Kendrick Perkins (43), Rajon Rondo (10), Delonte West (38 [due to injury not including suspension]). 5 of those 8 are under the age of 30. At the same token, 104 of the 165 games (63%) missed have been by players under the age of 30.

Granted we kind of knew Perkins would miss a ton of games coming into the season, but I bet even with that no one expected the young guys to miss more games than the old guys. You would expect Paul Pierce to miss some games and Ray Allen to miss some, but that's not the case. Those two have stayed very healthy (especially Ray), and KG has remained relatively healthy as well.

So it's kind of weird. You go into the season EXPECTING injuries to the Big 3 and instead you wind up with injuries to all the young guns. It's not really a bad thing, though, because Perk is back and should stay back, Delonte is coming back tomorrow and will hopefully remain back, if rested Shaq should be fine for the playoffs, and heck we may even get Marquis back for the playoffs. So long as what we thought would happen at the beginning of the season continues to not happen we should be all set!