Beyond the devastation to the Boston Celtics, through the haze of an improbable, double-overtime victory over Miami without Rajon Rondo on Sunday, there looms a harsh reality: Rondo’s season-ending torn ACL could bring an end to the Celtics of this era for good.

“You can write the obituary,” Head Coach Doc Rivers said. “But I’m not.”

The spectre of injury in sports is harsh, and so, too, is the reality that follows. The Celtics, barely in the playoff picture with Rondo, already were at a crossroads: Do they keep what’s left of the Big Four together for one more run, or look to the future? That horizon just became a whole lot shorter.

What’s clear is that the Celtics didn’t just lose one of the league’s most dynamic, important players Sunday. They may have lost a piece of themselves, and of an era.

via Ken Berger of CBS Sports