“He’s having surgery today, so he’s out for the playoffs,” Rivers acknowledged.  ”It’s disappointing. Obviously, when a player goes down it’s disappointing, especially on what Avery has given us this year. His growth this year has been terrific. It’s been great. He’s become a very valuable piece to our basketball team.”

With Bradley out in the interim, Rivers talked about the chain effect missing his guard will have on his team’s lineup, especially against Philadelphia in particular.

“His ability to guard the best guard at the 1 or 2 has really taken so much pressure off [Rajon] Rondo in particular,” Rivers explained. “Without him, Rondo has to go back to that role and run the team, and that’s hard. That’s hard to do, especially against the team we are playing, who has two guards that attack. Rondo doesn’t have a lot of breaks [now]. That’s the way it is.”

Despite it all, Rivers is offering no excuses for this team heading into Game 7 tomorrow, who are dealing with their fourth season-ending injury of the season.

“We’ve been a team all year, stuff happens, you deal with it and you just move forward,” Rivers said. “That’s who we’ve been, and that’s who we need to be tomorrow.”

CH’s Take: The only new news out of the story is the fact Bradley is undergoing surgery so soon, which again signals just how severe the shoulder injury had become for Avery. For now though, the onus stay on Rondo, Ray Allen, Mickael Pietrus and Keyon Dooling (who is missing practice today home sick) to contain Philadelphia’s explosive backcourt. Doc made adjustments in pick and roll coverage in Game 3 which helped a lot, but the Sixers have countered, bringing themselves back to tie the series at three games a piece.

I guess my biggest question here is whether Doc will go deeper into his bench for Game 7 to look for a defensive spark, if his regular rotation aren’t able to contain Holiday, Williams, and Turner themselves. We saw a couple minutes of Marquis Daniels in Game 6, and both he and Sasha Pavlovic are big and able defenders on the bench who should be able to guard the likes of Evan Turner while out there. On his home floor, especially if Keyon is not at full strength, I’m curious to see whether Daniels (the most likely candidate) gets another shot. Either way though, Allen, Rondo and company are going to have to do a better job  than they did in Game 6 of keeping Holiday and Williams out of the paint.

This might be the last time we use this photo.

A year ago, before the C’s last game of the season, I wrote this sentimental little passage :

None of this is meant to kill the vibe in the room (Monday night’s game took care of that quite nicely). But it is a reminder to enjoy watching these guys tonight, no matter the result. There may yet be one final Rondo-to-Garnett alley oop left in them, one last ill-advised Davis jumpshot to draw your ire, one final demand from Doc that the team pick up the pace. And for all the scattered half-efforts and no-shows over the last four years, no final estimation of this era would be fair without recognizing how superb this group has played and the renaissance their assembly sparked for this franchise. And there remains the little matter of that seventeenth banner they hung up in the rafters.

In sports as with anything else, it seems like there’s never enough time with the things you love. And however wildly our opinions may vary about the importance of a group of multi-millionaires playing a game, it seems reasonable to assume that love is the word many of you would use to describe your feelings towards them. Because ‘millionaires playing a game’ doesn’t do it justice. It’s not even close.

Last night’s twin disasters (game six, the news on Avery Bradley) seem to have repositioned the Celtics’ playoff prospects in everyone’s minds. A series win over the Sixers is far from assured and even if they do advance, with Bradley out, Ray Allen a shell of himself and even Paul Pierce’s health in question, the C’s appear underequipped to stop Miami’s perimeter stars from getting to the rim. The C’s look like serious underdogs even if Chris Bosh isn’t able to play.

But I’m still feeling a sense of zen with this team because they’re playing with house money. With everything that’s gone wrong this (condensed) season, it’s impressive the Celtics are a win away from the Eastern Conference Finals. You could reasonably argue they’re already a success.

Whenever the season ends, we need to talk about Danny Ainge’s recent proclivity for assembling, or failing to disassemble, teams that fall apart healthwise, but we should spend as much time talking about Doc’s incredible facility taking patchwork teams beyond their capabilities. I don’t have to reiterate this point to regular readers of the site but the Celtics are a terrible offensive team. They have no business challenging for a spot in the finals. So, that feels good.

It’s not even clear this is the final year of this era. Sure, Allen seems like he may be destined for Miami or Chicago or the Clippers but as his game and health have faded this year, we’ve been going through a slow breakup with him. We’re ready for Bradley to take over next season and happy to let go of any errant OJ Mayo talk. There are no concerns about Doc Rivers this season. Speculation aside, we know Doc will be back next year. And for years after that. Paul Pierce is signed for two more seasons and his market may not be vibrant enough for Ainge to move him. Kevin Garnett seems destined to wear green next season or spend his days on Malibu Beach, swearing at homeless drug addicts and other celebrities.

So, bring game seven and bring the Heat. Or don’t. Either way, the C’s have overachieved this season versus expectations and the obstacles in front of them. If we’re talking about the offseason on Monday morning, there’s plenty of healthy debate to keep us all interested until October.

Yet, despite the 17 turnovers and the 33.3 percent shooting the Celtics were still right there last night. After falling behind by 11 with 3:15 remaining, the Celtics strung together a quick 7-2 over the next 90 seconds, pulling them within six points with 1:40 remaining. After squandering an offensive rebound, Boston eventually got the stop they needed and had the ball down 6 with 52 seconds remaining. They would need to play perfect basketball the rest of the way to have a chance to tie, but they still had a chance.

From there, they went to a pretty familiar play, that you likely recognized. In fact, it’s a play they’ve had tremendous success in using at the Wells Fargo Center over the past few years, as seen here. The play starts as the video begins at 29 seconds, but feel free to watch the whole thing……it’ll make you feel better.

Over the years, the Celtics have gone to this Pierce/Allen pick and roll a lot, with Ray Allen slipping to the wing after a pick from a C’s big man. However, they started doing it so much and so well that teams started accounting for it. Check it out as seen in this game from 2010 against the Lakers, where Lamar Odom slipped off Kevin Garnett to challenge the Allen shot after the pick from KG:

So what did the Celtics do last night, when trailing by six points? They went back to old reliable, this time with a simple adjustment. Instead of running the pick and roll to the right, they sneakily ran it to the left side at the top of the key, and this time had Allen roll to the right wing. The result? A wide-open look, that would have made it a one possession game with 40 seconds remaining.

Now, even if Allen makes this shot, the Celtics’ still likely fall in this game. Boston would have needed another stop, and another 3 just to tie the final 40 seconds. Possible, but certainly not probable the way Boston was shooting all night.

If anything, this just goes to show you the value of a minor adjustment or twist to a play that will throw your opponent off guard. Boston has run this pick-and-roll set hundreds of times over the last five years probably, but that’s one of the first time I can remember them having Pierce take the pick to the left side of the floor (not his comfort zone) to get Ray open on the right wing. Nonetheless, despite the Sixers almost surely seeing this play on video, the subtle change to the setup alignment was enough to get Ray the wide open look.

Like 66.7 percent of the shots Boston had in Game 6, it didn’t fall. The good looks were there though for a lot of the game for this jump-shooting team. They just have to hope they will be there again for Game 7, and this time not rely on them so much.

A source close to Bradley told the Globe that it’s in the “high 90s” percentile that Bradley will be shut down and will perhaps need surgery. Bradley has missed the past two games with soreness in both shoulders and the team’s brass along with Bradley’s representatives have decided it’s too risky to play him for the remainder of the playoffs.

The Celtics are probably smart to shut him down. This year’s playoffs aren’t worth the accumulated effects of multiple shoulder dislocations, particularly for a player who figures prominently in Boston’s future plans. It’s a major problem for the C’s weak perimeter defense and should they escape game 7 with a win on Saturday, eliminates one of their key weapons to neutralize Dwayne Wade.

On the upside, at least Ray Allen is looking healthy and spry.