Rajon Rondo is either appropriately confident or the guy standing outside his burning house telling anyone who will listen that the house isn’t actually on fire. Because he had this exchange with HoopsTV (hat tip: Kevin Arnovitz at TrueHoop):

HTV: The East is very tough this year with talented teams like the Cavs and Magic front runners for a trip to the Finals. The Celtics have kind of been left out of conversation regarding who may make the NBA Finals this year. What are your thoughts on that subject?

RONDO: Nothing. (It means) we beat ourselves if we don’t win it. I don’t think anybody can beat us. Atlanta swept us already, Cleveland is up two to one (now 3 to 1), Orlando is up two to one, but at the end of the day I think that we can beat any of those teams (in a playoff series).

The best part about this is how Rondo lists—accurately!—Boston’s horrid record against the East’s other three elite teams and then says, basically, Who cares?

What would Rajon say if he were on the Nets?

And no Wilson Chandler, either, according to Newsday’s Alan Hahn (via NBC Sports). Eddie is dealing with an Achilles problem I hadn’t heard about, and I wonder how close we are to having the Achilles tendon renamed the Beckham tendon.

In any case, that’s a downer. I’d have liked to have seen Eddie play. Chandler is obviously a bigger cog in New York’s offense and has served as Mike D’Antoni’s preferred power forward for long stretches. The C’s enjoyed posting up KG in that match-up. What do the Knicks do now? The obvious move would be to slide Al Harrington into Chandler’s spot in the starting line-up. Harrington has hurt the C’s this season.

Still: This marks a second straight came against a bad team even further depleted by injuries. Good thing—the schedule is about to get brutal.