Archive for the ‘Blog Entries’ Category

The C’s had a bone to pick yesterday with the Rockets - maybe not a personal one, but a national one. The idea that the Rockets were the best team in the NBA because of their status on top of the Western Conference and historic 22-game win streak wasn’t good enough. The Celtics needed to prove it wrong. In my eyes here were the keys:

1. The last 2 minutes of the first half: the Celtics turned Houston over several times and flew into the locker room tied instead of down 5 like they were just 100 seconds prior.

2. Kevin Garnett getting the ball on the post: KG’s been playing well from the outside recently with a 20-foot J that just won’t miss. The Spurs went after him and proved it’s tough for anybody to make a jump shot from anywhere with a hand in your face. So Doc and the Gang put Garnett on the block (mostly on the left side) against Luis Scola and he dominated in the third quarter to break the game open.

3. Leon Powe: The Celtics Agent Zero played mostly when Dikembe Mutombo was out which surely helped his numbers (21 pts. in 20 minutes) compared to Perk’s (6 pts. in 20 minutes) but because of Houston’s thin bench in the middle, Leon took over and led the Celtics out of a grinding first half of play with momentum.

4. The defense: It was tremendous, giving up very few open jump shots which plagued the C’s in the first quarter at San Antonio. It also held McGrady to just 8 points (!).

Chris and I will be back Thursday to break it down and look forward to Dallas and New Orleans. Until then, Go C’s!

I’ll take the heat for one of these…I was wrong about Bruce Bowen’s suspension.  Clearly, as you all saw, he was not suspended for last night’s game, instead it was the Detroit game on Friday.  That game snapped his 500 game streak for consecutive games played.  At least he ended on a nice round number.  Tayshaun Prince is the new active “iron-man” at 339 straight games played…in case you were curious.

As for the other misstep, it was downplaying Ray Allen’s injury.  Andrew and I both agree this may be a case of Doc being extra cautious, but he was “50/50″ for last night, didn’t play, and now it seems will not play tonight either.  Sans Allen, the C’s take on the Rockets…should be a good one.  Stay tuned for daily updates to Celticscast.com and a new episode on Thursday.

Go C’s!

93-91 Celtics at San Antonio: Make it two straight: two straight on the roadtrip, two straight against the Spurs this year, two straight W’s without Ray Allen and two straight wins on St. Patrick’s Day at San Antonio. Some quick thoughts:

KG threw the ball away up two with 4.5 seconds left and ‘Big Shot Bob’ missed an impossible fall away three with two guys in his face from 27 feet out on the right wing. Two things Kevin: A: call a timeout, please! or B: run the baseline! After Parker’s made hoop run the baseline and at the veerrry least throw it 60 feet so that the Spurs can’t get a good look.

Very interesting to see Doc’s substitution patterns at point guard down the stretch. Cassell played it out all the way and was joined by House for most of the way until Rondo checked in with about 1:15 left. Incidentally, Cassell hit a 22 footer and a huge 3 to give the C’s the lead with 48 seconds left, House hit a clutch 3 while in (his only FG) and Rondo came up with a big offensive rebound with the Celts up two with 15 seconds left.

The Spurs did a great job at stepping out and preventing Garnett from having open 20 foot jump shots. the numbers: 7-15 FG, 21 pts, 8 reb. but only 2 assists because there was a guy in his face. Conversely, the C’s defense was much much more solid after the first quarter. I think SA had as many open jumpers in the first that they did the rest of the game.

James Posey became what Tony Allen was supposed to be when TA started: a good defender and a guy to move the offense. Allen did neither and the Celts were down 20 in the first half. And yet Celtics win. Other online commentary from this game: celticsblog.com, greenbandwagon.com and Pounding the Rock (spurs blog).

Cheers!

Apparently episode #41 has been held up somewhere on the internet and despite being uploaded to our website - it’s still not there. We apologize for the delay, it’s frustrating because there was a lot of punch to that show headed into the weekend - but hopefully things are up and working again for our next show to recap the pair of games.

Speaking of game 2 of the weekend pair (since we won’t focus on that worst deficit of the season right now), this was what the Celtics needed headed into a murderous week of opponents - an easy victory. Ray Allen didn’t play, but if it was a playoff game, methinks he would have. Yet, the Bucks showed very little fight after the first quarter and the C’s did what they do best - put them away. A maximum of 27 minutes for any of the starters (Posey’s 29 mins were the most of any player). Also, Sam Cassell was the first off the bench today replacing Rondo and immediately had an impact - a good sign against a bad team, now let’s see if he can do it later this trip. San Antonio up next Monday, then the Rockets, then Mavs, then Hornets - should be exciting. Many are making a big deal about Rondo’s matchups (Tony Parker, Rafer Alston, JKidd and then CP3 Chris Paul), but this shows just how important Cassell will be this week to give Rondo a break and keep the intensity up.

Also, anybody hoping that if somehow Illinois and Georgia both make the tourney that they both get thrown into the playoff game? It would only be fair I think…

Cheers!

A great night for a ballgame with the rain/snow cleared away. It’s March 12th and the sonics are in town. Remember it’s the day of the game we gave away a pair of tickets to and what did you know there’s even a KG bobblehead giveaway. I hope that our boy Alex T. got there early enough to snag one (or two). The Celtics streak of not trailing for four full game ended early in the first quarter. We’ll tackle this game and see what piques our interest in our next Celticscast to be done Friday.

Also, make sure to check out Young Guns on 1510 AM at 9 in the morning for your favorite podcasters.

It’s getting to the point where some teams just don’t try and I’m getting sick of it. After watching the Celtics grit it out on defense pretty much every night as well as playing team basketball on offense with passing and little 1-on-1 isolation, I’m greedy for good games. The Pistons do it, the Magic do it, the 76ers do it, a few others in the East and most in the West play real games, but Chicago and Memphis certainly didn’t this past weekend. All it took was one quarter (and really about 8 minutes, getting to 25 points before the clock hit 3:00 left in the first qtr.) to show Memphis wasn’t playing defense and the game would not be close. A few notes that struck me when I actually watched the game (Northeastern’s do-or-die game against George Mason in the CAA semis distracted me, they died by the way, Huskies season over in a game that NU trailed by 7 for about 10 of the last 15 minutes, got within 5 once, never closer)

* Ray Allen can still make a wide open 3 and when teams like the Grizz or Bulls don’t play 5-man defense, he gets plenty of open looks which leads to a 9-13 (5-8 3’s) shooting performance Saturday.

* Rondo got 9 assists in 19 minutes, at that rate he could easily get to the insane 20 and 19 assist numbers that Deron Williams is putting up in Utah.

* All the starters averaged right around 25 minutes per game this weekend and averaged +25 on the +/-. That’s gaining a point a minute! That’s a 48 point win on average. Wow - this was practically a weekend off which is good with a Monday tilt with Philly on tap.

* One more note: Chris and I will have our next show Monday afternoon wrapping these up and previewing the 76ers and Seattle “celticscast special” game Wednesday night. We’ve been busy this weekend preparing for our brand new show on 1510 the Zone from 9-10 AM this upcoming week. Tune in and listen if you can.

This was a throwback - all the way to 2007 - to November and December when the C’s were routinely blowing out the lower-echelon teams from the East (and a bunch of teams from the west too like the Nuggets and Lakers). The passing was crisp, the Bulls defense was pourous. I caught the first half with Mike and Tommy and 2nd half with ESPN. My favorite moment of the game TV-wise: on yet another transition opportunity, Dave Shulman exclaimed “nobody is covered! everyone is open!” and James Posey hit an open layup on a 4 on 4 unsettled situation. Drew Gooden was awful, got himself ejected and the Bulls played consistently awful defense on everyone. All five C’s starters had more than 10 points halfway thru the 3rd quarter and the post game of Perk, Powe and Davis dominated when it mattered…C’s had 30 free throws attempted in the first half (Bulls had 9)…only Rondo played more than 30 minutes for the starters… I could go on but don’t need to, it was a thrashing, even more than the final score indicated.

Celtics are now 12-0 at home on Fridays…Other Friday night home blowouts this year: Opening night 103-83 v. Washington, November 9th 106-83 v. Atlanta, November 23rd 106-93 v. Lakers (near blowout), December 7th 112-84 v. Toronto, December 14th 104-82 v. Milwaukee, December 21st 107-82 v. Chicago, January 18th 116-89 v. Phila (OK blowout was only in 4th quarter). Just 3 more Friday home games left in the regular season…they’re tough vs. Utah, New Orleans and then Milwaukee in April.

PJ Brown checked in with 1:24 left in the 3rd quarter and received a standing ovation with his first minute of playing time this season. He got his first bucket with 9:24 left in the fourth getting super position on Aaron Gray (remember when he was the Big East preseason player of the year last season?), throwing a pump fake and getting the bucket and foul for 3-point play. His final line: 6 minutes, 1-2FG, 3 pts, 6 rebounds (!), 2 offensive reb. 2 fouls, 1 steal.

This was the second game in a row for Boston where the opponent came into town late after playing the night before and both times the C’s ran them out of the building in the first few minutes. The Pistons are good and came back, the Bulls just slowly slipped further and further behind as their jump shots missed and missed.

No Sam Cassell tonight…maybe in Memphis…maybe not. Elsewhere in Boston basketball, solid 18-point win in the first round of the CAA conference tourney for Northeastern topping James Madison in the 6/11 game. The Huskies take on 3-seed George Mason tomorrow at 8:30 on CN8 (channel 3 go figure if you get it). Harvard not as lucky, lost to 2nd place Brown by 16.

Cheers!