Posts tagged ‘defense’

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!