The banners tell the stories better than any of the players can. The banners hold the secrets to all the sadness that currently surrounds the Boston Celtics and, to a lesser degree, the whole of professional basketball.

The walls talk far more elegantly and eloquently than the Celtics do. On the floor of the team's practice facility, Paul Pierce was shrugging his shoulders and denying that he felt as if he were playing on his own island, abandoned by his teammates, all alone in trying to shield his team from embarrassment. Even if that's what everyone else sees.