Ray Allen. (Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images for AWXII)
BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- Expectations are high for the Celtics. It's finals or bust high for a team that finished minutes from facing the champion Warriors last year, without All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward.
Ray Allen can relate. The 10-time All-Star and two-time champ will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame tonight and spent time yesterday reflecting on how difficult it was to win his first title with Boston in 2008.
"It was incredible," Allen said. "I didn't know what it took to win a title. Up until that point, I thought I knew what it took. We talked about wanting to win a championship, all of us, but until you win one, you look back and you say, wow, I actually never knew that it would've been that hard, I had no idea ... in '08, the pressure was immense, because people thought we were gonna win. People picked us, every loss we had seemed insurmountable. We felt like it was the low of all lows. The team was worst the year before, and then we went to first the next year, it was something that none of us could've ever imagined."
Allen's 13-member Hall of Fame class also features Grant Hill, Jason Kidd, and Steve Nash.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Adam Kaufman (@AdamMKaufman) reports