One week into the 2009-10 season and doubt can be found anywhere you look in the NBA. It's fear that is the rare commodity.

Doubt exists even among the pleasant surprises, in addition to the teams that don't give you reason to believe. Maybe you doubt the Houston Rockets can maintain their good start once opponents realize they'll have to expend an additional amount of energy to beat them. Or you question whether the undefeated Phoenix Suns can avoid reversing into a sudden losing streak when they play their next two games in Orlando and Boston.

Fear is the province of a select few.

" Any team who looks at the schedule and is playing the Boston Celtics.

" Any player who looks at the matchups on the whiteboard in the locker room and sees he is guarding Carmelo Anthony that night.

" The Portland Trail Blazers.

Everything else in the NBA is just a matter of concerns that can be addressed, or low expectations coming to fruition.

The Celtics are serving a reminder that as long as Kevin Garnett is in the lineup, no one in the green jersey is allowed to take nights off on the defensive end. The way they're protecting the basket, you'd trust them to safeguard your family heirlooms and a list of all your PINs. Only one of their first five opponents has reached 90 points. Agents should start creating Excel files detailing their player's performances against non-Celtics opponents, just to remind potential free-agent suitors of what can be accomplished under normal circumstances.

And who would want to have to stop Anthony right now? Stand your ground and he'll put you on the wrong end of a SportsCenter highlight, just like poor Paul Millsap. Close in and he'll drive by you. Give him some room and he'll pull up for a jumper over you.

It's clear that Anthony is ready to inflict Category 5 hurricane-damage on the league this year. He's already so intense that there's no way you can call him Melo. Nothing mellow about him. That's Carmelo K. Anthony to you. He already set the standard so high that when he scored 25 points against the Pacers Tuesday it felt like a massive letdown. His average dropped four points, to 33.5 per game.

Anthony and the Celtics are harming other teams. The Blazers are self-mutilating. Dropping a home game to Anthony's Nuggets by missing two free throws at the end. Letting the Atlanta Hawks outrebound them 46-36. The Hawks are supposed to be younger and more energetic than most teams ... but not the Blazers.

Their No. 1 overall pick from the 2007 draft has 19 personal fouls and 16 field goal attempts. Their off-season free agent acquisition is shooting 34 percent. They are 2-3, with two home losses.

There are plenty of other teams with losing records. Most of them were supposed to be that way. Utah and New Orleans might be surprises, but most Conventional Wisdom watches had down arrows by those teams and an up arrow by Portland. The other teams with optimistic outlooks are at least at .500 now, unless you want to say the Clippers. And the Portland Trail Blazers didn't assemble this roster to be compared with the Clippers. That's the neighborhood they've stumbled into. That's the reason for fear.