Celtics Announce Charity, Then Hold Game 1 Give-Away To Knicks: 78-85

Okay, Folks...this one smelled like a 12-week-old boiled egg in an old sneaker lined with limburger cheese.

For those of you GreenHeadz looking for a recap, let me spare you the pain of a drawn out sobfest.

Eight turnovers (8!!) in the 4th Quarter...nearly all of them unforced and 4 of them by the otherwise transcendent Jeff Green (26 points on 8-15 shooting -- 3-5 from Threeland, 7 boards, 3 blocks and 2 assists), who had 6 total turnovers for the game. Green tied with Pierce, who frittered away 6 of his own possessions, 2 of which occurred in the 4th.

The Knicks over the same 4th Quarter stretch?

Zero. Zip. Notafinga.

That's the game in a nutshell. Not Anthony's 36 points. Not Kevin Garnett's abysmal shooting (4-12). Not the C's putrid bench scoring (4 points for the ENTIRE GAME!).

It wasn't even the fact that the C's could only muster a paltry 8 points in the 4th quarter. The bottom line was turnovers, turnovers, turnovers and more turnovers. The Celtics committed 20 turnovers [ UPDATE: I misspoke...TWENTY ONE TURNOVERS!!] compared to the Knicks rather conservative total of 13 -- great if the Celtics were running a popular bakery, but absolutely horrid if you're trying to win an NBA Playoff game.

Everything else that people may want to talk about in this game is irrelevant. The Celtics lost this one by 7 points. They had a lead in the 4th and turned the ball over 8 times in that quarter alone. Nuff said.

About the only great thing that happened in this game for the Celtics was the pre-game announcement that they would be committing to raise $200,000 for the victims of Monday's Boston Marathon bombing through their Shamrock Foundation for The One Fund. They'll be contributing $100,000 of their own dollars and raising an additional $100,000 with a series of future initiatives.

Hopefully, the Guys In Green will achieve their charitable goals off-court while delivering to their hometown the distraction of success on-court in Game 2 down in Madison Square Garden. They've already proven that they can handle the Knicks. Now, they need to prove that they can handle the ball.

And, you know what? I have every confidence that they WILL take better care of the rock and come out of MSG with a split as they head back to Boston for Game 3. I believe this because A) Doc will have them ready, B) They clearly have the talent to do it, C) the team has to realize that this was an eminently winnable game, one that they handed off on a blue and orange platter, and, finally...D) I know that they'll put on a better showing because there is no way on Red's Green Earth that they're gonna let THIS escape into the second round of the Playoffs:

Box Score

Tale Of The Tape

THE BUZZ:

NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs -- Round 1, Game 2:
Celtics vs. Knicks
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
@ 8:00 P.M.
Madison Square Garden
New York City, NY