I’ll be honest here… I’m happy to be wrong about this: I expected Ray Allen to go off against his old team and put up 40 points or so… and I expected the rest of the team to be in on it.
But Ray didn’t go off. In fact… he shot 4-13 and he finished with 10 points. The big gun in this game was Paul Pierce… who shot 5-7 from long distance and finished with 37.
Why am I happy about this? Because it shows that the Celtics, even on a night where they might want to placate one of their stars, are approaching every game the same way… and no one is putting their selfish desires before the team’s success. I’m sure Paul and KG would have been OK with giving Ray more than 13 shots… but that’s not how it worked out… and they didn’t force it.
I think the extra minutes from the Sacramento game really showed in this game. The C’s settled for a lot of jumpers early in the game… and despite the 104-96 final… this was really a 2 to 4 point game the whole way. The C’s, behind a scorching second half from Pierce, pulled away in the 4th… but this was closer than it should have been.
By the way… the Celtics are still undefeated on the back end of back-to-back nights. That’s EXTREMELY hard to do…. but it helps that those second night opponents have been New Jersey (twice), Charlotte, Miami, Chicago and Seattle… who now have a combined record of 47-91.
This was the first time in 16 years a Celtics team has won back-to-back on the West Coast. It may not have been pretty, but it was a W. Now who do we want to beat more, the Lakers or Jazz?
i just can’t believe that we let goddamn wally szczerbiak score 14 points… that might match his point total from last season. i was glad delonte had a good game though, especially since they still lost.
Chuck, do you really need to ask that question?
I love Delonte. He’s the focus of my barstool.com post… I’ll link to that once its up.
I think Utah is a better team than LA. I’d prefer a win over the Jazz….
jazz are a better team than the lakers, but i’d rather see a win against the lakers because it will be on back end of a tough game against the jazz, and the fourth game in five days. beating a rival like the lakers would be a nice statement.
plus, it’s the lakers…it’s kobe.
i’m sure the patriots-giants game this week is a better match up (at least on paper) than the patriots-jets game a couple weeks ago, but i’d choose to watch the patriots beat the jets any day.
best case: we win both, because if we lose either it will be more of the ‘celtics havent travelled, cant play on the road, cant go to the west, cant beat teams from the west’ talk. they’ll point out how we played the sonics close the whole game, and how we “blew” a lead against the kings.
What did Big Baby do wrong? Hasnt sniffed the court on this road trip, I wonder why. Is it because Pollard is healthier now? Or is it sometihng Big Baby did?
Its plain and simple I’de rather loose to the Jazz because I don’t want to hear those imature Laker fans flooding this site with stupied shit like “you lick balls” or “Celtics are gay”!
Delonte was the toughest to see go for me. He’s an extremely tough guy and comes out balls to the wall every night. And that interview about him on a date on his boat was hilarious. I would have traded Big Al before Delonte if I were Ainge.
This might be an unpopular stance since the Celts are shooting so well, but I think they’re settling for too many threes. Barkley made a good point at halftime last night saying that KG isn’t as dominant down low as he should be. He has such a sweet stroke, he could get at least 30 every night if they let him. I don’t think this team is getting enough layups. We got four guys who shoot from the perimeter, two of whom only shoot from the perimeter–Posey and House–and if we’re having a bad shooting night against a really strong team, we’re done.
Not unpopular at all Bill…. I think you’re onto something.
Granted.. they’re hitting a lot of them right now… but I’d like to see more drives and more easy buckets.
Well Bill, Kevin Garnett attempted 22 shots in 33 minutes tonight so I’m not sure what you are complaining about there. The C’s did take it to the bucket this game, as evidenced by having 13 more free throw attempts by the home team.