Now that we’ve dispensed with the NFL and the Winter Olympics, let’s turn our attention to the hometown arena jockeys. In my mind, it’s still too early to talk about the Red Sox in any meaningful fashion, so let’s stay with winter sports for now. I’m talking hoops, round ball, hard courts, sneaker squeaks, and headband hysteria, so let’s follow the bouncing ball to see what our own local yokels are up to.

For the most part, I’ve liked how the Celtics have played this year. If not for the recent gridiron business, Team Auerbach, along with its FleetCenter counterparts, the Bruins, would be the feel-good stories of the winter. Picked by most to finish under .500 and fight for a playoff berth, the Celtics are 31-26 and should benefit from a favorable rest-of-the-way schedule to reach the post-season party.

Forward Paul Pierce is money, but I’ll admit that Antoine Walker still gets me tensed up a bit at times with his shot selection and on-court behavior. That being said, ’Toine is still the best all-around player on the team, and his maturity has grown in leaps and bounds since his nemesis, former head coach Rick Pitino, skipped town a year ago. Defense is the biggest overall improvement on this squad, and though the players rarely beat the teams against which they don’t match up well (San Antonio, Philly, Milwaukee, Sacramento — the Celts are 0-9 against these elite teams), they more often than not defeat the teams that they should beat (New York, Denver, Cleveland, Chicago). If, at the beginning of the season, you had given the Celtics and their fans the option of being five games over .500 at this juncture, I think everyone would have taken it.

However, the team continues to tease, earning surprising victories at Portland and the Lakers during its recent road trip, then losing to a Dallas team that had just eight players available — and then, two nights later, blowing a 20-point lead at Houston, a 20-36 team that had been blown out by 40 at Milwaukee just three nights earlier. Of the Green’s 31 victories through Thursday, only eight were against teams that have winning records, and the Celts have lost very winnable games versus league doormats Atlanta (twice), Chicago, Houston (twice), and Golden State. As the NBA’s Eastern Conference stands — rife with parity — perhaps every team has its inconsistent moments. The recent pick-ups of Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk in a trade-deadline steal from Phoenix should add to the Green’s depth, but we’ll probably wonder the rest of the season who the true Boston Celtics are: the team that erased a 12-point deficit in the final three minutes to defeat the defending NBA champs in LA, or the squad that lost by 17 to a Warriors team that has just 16 wins this season and sits 25 games out of first place in its division.

But let’s face it: no team from the Eastern Conference — with the possible exception of the equally surprising Nets — can win an NBA championship this season. The league finals this year will be anticlimactic because the true champion be will be determined in the Western Conference finals, with the official coronation coming a week later at the expense of either New Jersey or the Bucks. Nonsense, you say? Well, here we are at the seven-tenths-pole of the season, and only two of the 15 Eastern Conference teams have a better-than-.500 winning percentage against Western Conference teams, with one of them (Toronto) hovering around the .500 level and going nowhere. On the flip side, nine of the 14 Western teams have winning records against their Eastern counterparts (and two others are at .500). On paper, Sacramento, the Lakers, San Antonio, and even Dallas are vastly superior teams to the Celtics and nearly every other Eastern team. It should be a real dogfight to see who emerges as the conference’s representative in the NBA Finals. Most fans would love to see the Kings and Lakers go at it, since those two teams play the most exciting brand of basketball seen since the Celtics and Lakers were at their mid-’80s peaks. The Eastern Conference playoffs, in comparison, will be ridiculously dull and ugly, with only the Nets and underachieving Sixers and Bucks providing any semblance of spark. Michael Jordan and the Wizards might have made things interesting, but after his recent knee surgery, MJ may not even be back this season, and without him, Washington is toast.

But the fact that the Celtics will even make the playoffs is a significant accomplishment — particularly for Pitino’s successor, Jim O’Brien. For the franchise, it will mark the first legitimate steps forward since Reggie Lewis hit the floor during the Green’s last playoff appearance eight years ago. This team is definitely on the rise, with its core players still in their mid 20s and its rookies teeming with untapped talent. Although it’s still a few years from Titletown, the team’s rise should be quick and ultimately fulfilling.

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Just 31 days till my favorite Beer Gal, Jeanine, pours me that first $5 Larry Lucchino Lager of the season from her perch below section 37 in the Fenway bleachers.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com.