Watch out, Cleveland.  Don’t look now, Orlando.  Wait on ordering those trophies, Los Angeles.  The defending World Champions — you know, those top-heavy pretenders that everyone thought were dead in the water — are back and better than ever.

Five straight wins.  Five straight trips to the woodshed for folks looking to take the C’s down another peg.  High-flying Canadians?  Grounded.  Scrappy Brooklynites-to-be?  Scrapped.  One of the West’s perennial powerhouses?  Shut down.

And look who’s at the center of it all — fan favorite Brian Scalabrine.  The former king of garbage time is now riding high with the Big Four, doing all he can (and then some!) to right the Celtics’ ship after the team’s near-disastrous run-in with a 2-7 iceberg.

Some folks would have you believe that Boston needs Kendrick Perkins, that they’ll miss his tenacity on the boards for the month-plus he’ll need to heal that balky shoulder of his.  Some folks say that the Celtics would be just fine spotting the other team a player — heck, they almost stopped a six-man Fail Blazer squad from scoring.  But numbers don’t lie, and the numbers for this year’s Celtics are decidedly in the Red these days.

And, by the way, isn’t it fitting that it’s a Red leading the Celtics to victory?  If the Italian Scallion starts lighting up post-victory stogies the way he’s been lighting up the win column, I might have to convert to Buddhism or Kabbalah.

This year, the Celtics are 28-8 when Perk is in the lineup — not bad, not bad at all.  That’ll get you home court for one series in the East, or a low-end lottery pick in the West.  But with Scal in his place, they’re a perfect 6-0.  And it’s not like Scal’s been facing European powder puffs in those six games.  OK, you had Raptors first-pick bust Andrea Bargnani in two of those games.  But hold on a second — the slight and skinny pushover’s turned into a veritable Charles Atlas on the offensive end, averaging over 20 points a game on both sides of the 3-point line in place of hoser savior Jermaine O’Neal.

There was also a home-and-home with young stud Brook Lopez, seven feet of good old fashioned smashmouth center doing damage on both sides of the court.  In another year without guys by the name or Rose or Mayo in the league, it’d be Lopez running away with the ROY trophy.  And, of course, there was the rejuvenated Shaquille O’Neal in town on Martin Luther King Day, showing flashes of the ungodly speed and power that he exhibited on a nightly basis during his days with the Magic and Lakers, back when Big Baby was, well, a big baby.

And amidst all these towering behemoths, these multifaceted man-mountain range, there was everyone’s favorite redhead, tearing them down like a pasty-faced King Kong.  These guys might still get their season averages, but it’s what they don’t get — the all-important W — that makes Scal so special.  (And for all you MIT dropouts waiting to e-mail yours truly with whatever kooky fake stats you have, save it for when your parents stop claiming you as a dependent on their 1040s.)

Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m a Perk person.  There’s no one better at taking an unnecessary power dribble and turning an easy dunk into foul shots or, better yet, a turnover.  He sets one of the best moving picks that you’ll ever see in today’s NBA — the way he uses his knees, you’d think he was auditioning for an UFC undercard bout.  And there’s no one else on Boston’s roster that I’d rather see pointlessly jibber-jabber with the refs than a guy that averages just under ten points a game and thinks he should get calls that Ewing and Hakeem never got.  What’s not to like?  He’s like Kwame Brown without the Kwame or Brown, and if Danny Ainge can turn him into some much-needed bench depth at the point, I’ll be the first one there with a pat on the back and a ride to Logan.

But then I watch the Celtics run (and I mean run) their game with Scalabrine in Perkins’ place, and I can’t help but see the difference.  The floor spacing’s better, the ball movement’s crisper, and the defense is quicker to rotate and close out.  And the crowd loves it.  Every time he touches the ball, all the Scal-a-wags come to their feet and cheer louder, hoping their hero gets the chance to take it hard to the rim or stick a corner dagger in the backs of some unsuspecting suckers.

And every time Brian Scalabrine has heard his name in the starting line-up during the 2008-2009 NBA season, the Boston Celtics have been winners.  It’s like beleaguered Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis has said plenty of times.  “Just win, baby.”  And with Scal center stage, the Celtics have been doing just that.

Bob Ryan is a columnist and blogger for the Boston Globe, and was the former host of  NESN’s sports talk show, “Globe 10.0.”