Watching last night's game against the New York Knicks, there were just two things missing that prevented me from total enjoyment: Gino being called out of mothballs to dance on the Jumbotron and the childlike jubilation with which one former Celtic used to watch him do it.
Actually, there was one other thing missing...any remotely linked semblance to relevancy that this win has on the upcoming season.
Now, don't get me wrong...I am the greenest of GreenHeadz that you'll ever find and I've been told that, as far as my belief in and support for the Celtics goes, my balloon never lands. But, when the Knicks go-to high scorer is Ike Diogu -- a man not yet guaranteed to be on the roster come November -- and the only efforts in this game given by the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Ray Felton, Tyson Chandler, Ron Artest and Kenyon Martin were as high-priced cheerleaders, you know that your 30-point win is going to have to come with a major asterisk.
Still, there were encouraging things to be seen, like watching The KO Kid, Kelly Olynyk, hang a well-rounded game on the New Yorkers and seeing MarShon Brooks come alive. Jordan Crawford continues to play under control, Avery Bradley is making his shots consistently and Jared Sullinger's back looks to be in great shape.
On the downside, Courtney Lee is still turning over milk cartons trying to find his jumper and Jeff Green has yet to find the magic can of spinach that he was eating from towards the end of last season and into the Playoffs, but, hey...it's the preseason and most realists out there know that the real reason to watch the games this year is to see the newbies develop and admire the team's scrappy play, even in under the threat of a looming Lottery.
Of course, this team -- especially when Rajon Rondo returns (December? February?) -- is going to be competitive on most nights and may even surprise a few top-tier teams from game to game. But, I can't help but think that the game that was played the night before against the Philadelphia 76ers is more in line with what we're going to see as the season begins in earnest -- a close game in the middle stages between the 2nd and 3rd quarters with the requisite furious comeback, only to fall in the 4th as the better team locks in and drives it home.
Still...looking at some of the young talent that's been scratching and clawing for the Green and White, it won't be too long before Gino regains full employment and anything becomes possible again.
Preseason Game 4
Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks Box Score Tale of the Tape
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who Got Next?
Boston Celtics vs. Brooklyn Nets
(Yeah, THAT team)
Tuesday, October 15th, 2013
7:30 PM
It's no mistake that the two most recent additions to the picture posts in the lobby of North Station at the Garden are also two of the longer tenured players on the roster. It's also no accident that they happen to play the same positions as the two Hall-of-Famers whose shoes they’re about to step into now that they’ve gone cookin’ for Brooklyn.
But, as exciting as it might be for friends, fans and family members of Jeff Green and Brandon Bass to see these guys sharing facetime with the team's one true All-Star, point guard Rajon Rondo along with Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger (another more recent "pole player" and another key ingredient in the C's kitchen this year), their actual significance to the team and any hopes it may have of an even moderately successful year can't be overstated.
For many, the natural inclination is to say that Green is the new Pierce, and as far as filling the open small forward position, this would be accurate. And he will, indeed, be asked to shoulder some of the load that Pierce once carried. But, fans shouldn't be expecting “The Truth 2.0” or even “Truth-Lite,” or anything resembling the Swiss Army Knife that was Pierce for so many years "giving the game what it needs" whether it was scoring 41 against LeBron in a mano-a-mano Playoff duel or posting multiple triple-doubles in point-forward mode in Rondo's absence.
Well, okay...he's got the "scoring 41 against LeBron" thing handled just fine and then some, but he’s never carried a team for an extended period in any season of his short career and expectations that he fill the sizable chasm of leadership that now exists behind Rondo are not only wrongheaded but just plain unfair. There is only one Paul Pierce (as it will undoubtedly take until his induction into the Hall of Fame for casual fans to fully appreciate) and Green is clearly not cut from the same cloth – but, then, few people are.
What he IS is a hyper-athletic 6" 9' forward that is as comfortable in the low post as he is slashing in from the wing and banging one off some hapless defender's dome or popping threes from the corner. He is an underrated defender and has increasingly shown a willingness to pick up his aggression on offense and, as Garnett once implored him, "be an @$hole." With an even larger role to play and a quicker team to play it with, Green can now thrive in the open court and take more shots in an offense in which he is no longer third and sometimes even fourth fiddle while not having to carry the total scoring burden in the way that Pierce was often forced to with Garnett resting on the bench – especially after Ray Allen took his talents to South Beach.
Brandon Bass is the other key that will determine whether the Celtics sink to the level that experts have been projecting or whether they rise above expectations, particularly with Rondo on the sidelines for a portion of the season and Garnett and his Big D down the road and out of town.
While no one will ever be confusing Bass with The Big Ticket, he has an uncannily similar midrange game (though not quite as consistent), is also unafraid to put his head down and plow to the hoop for a power-flush, and is an above-average defender. In fact, his “D” is vastly underappreciated by most average NBA fans and announcers alike. Just look at the variety of stories written by a heap of knowledgeable voices about both his prowess according to Synergistics (not that I buy into that sort of thing) and about how he is now using his massive 6-foot-9, 250-pound body to try and plug the defensive leadership breach for the team.
One need look no further than his defense against Carmelo Anthony – one of the League’s premier scorers, in case your head has been cryogenically frozen for the past ten years – during the Celtics v. Knicks series in last year’s Playoffs to see what he is capable of.
I know that Bass fell out of favor with a lot of fairweather fans last year as he struggled to regain his footing after Doc Rivers employed a revolving door for his power forwards, alternately starting Bass, then Sullinger, then Bass again when Sullinger went down for the season. While the argument has been made that NBA players are professionals and should be able to handle being shuffled in and out of the lineup with their ego and confidence intact, I challenge readers to honestly consider how well they’d adjust to being “benched” by their boss in favor of that young go-getter from [insert department here] and then being asked to take over for him only after he goes out on sick leave for the year.
Yes, Bass should technically have been able to adjust to the adversity and come to play when his name was called (jeez…I just completed the trifecta of modern sports clichés!), but it seemed clear that his brain was a little scrambled by the process and it took him a while to straighten himself out – not coincidentally around the same time that his main competition for the position was cleared out of the way for the season.
Ultimately, it’s about the team and the sum of its parts, whether Coach Brad Stevens can adjust quickly to the pro game and whether Rondo comes back before the All-Star break – both physically AND mentally. But, for the team to defy the haters and prognosticators, it will be the actions of Uncle Jeff and B Bass that determine whether the Celtics will be stuck under water or if they’re able to stick their heads up and catch a breath or two.
Folks, that's really what it comes down to. The bench finally gave us some production and -- for the game -- four Celtics scored in double figures, though no one scored more than 18. The Knicks had only three players score more than 6 points, but when one of your three double-figure scorers -- of course I mean Carmelo -- rings up 34 all on his own and you're walking the ball up to get into a half-court offense that you don't actually have...well, ballgame: Knicks.
I will solemnly admit: I was fond of telling anyone who would listen that the Celtics booted away Game 1 by posting more turnovers than points in the 4th quarter and that really, it was our game to give away, but this one...this one, we just appeared to be out of our depth.
Was it the early (and some would call them awful) foul calls by the refs against Garnett, Pierce and Green that slowed everything down to a crawl? It didn't help, that's for sure. Was it an active but seemingly stuck-in-3rd gear Paul Pierce, who dropped 18 as the team high-scorer but never really got into the kind of groove you can depend on for the entire game? That wasn't great, but still, not the answer. Was it Jeff Green going from stud to dud from Game 1 to Game 2, contrasting his 26 points on 8-15 shooting against tonight's 10 points on an embarrassingly meek 3-11 shooting performance? That REALLY didn't help, but again...there was something else at work, something more disturbing.
It was the Knicks defense that did us in this night. And this was with a formerly dependable defensive weapon like Tyson Chandler being rendered ineffectual by a bulging disk in his neck.
I could go into detail about the game and about how Ray Felton carved up the Celtics defense like it was a Thanksgiving Day turkey and he was...well, probably how he usually is (what I'm saying is, the kid doesn't look like he misses a lot of Thanksgivings. Or meals, in general. Or snacks. Or...). I could talk about how KG couldn't get into a rhythm because of the ludicrous fouls that were being called (which also affected Pierce and Green as they attempted to guard the apparently un-guardable mythological holy basketball god known as (Don't-Put-Your-Hand-On-This-Fellow) Melo. And, I could talk about how much I am growing to loathe the "wind up Jordan Crawford and watch him go" offense as it stagnates the rest of the team flow. But, none of these is more relevant than the brand of fiery, hostile tenacious defense that was played by the Knicks when the clock struck "winning time."
Can the Celtics get it back? Yes. Do I think they'll come back home and reel off two convincing wins at the Garden? Actually, I really, really do. Am I smoking a very large combination of Crack and PCP? No, I am not, and I am offended that you even asked.
As absolutely crazy banana go nuts as you think this may sound, I think we've seen the best that the Knicks have to offer and we have seen about 65% of what the Celtics have to offer in any one game. The Celtics can be markedly better on offense and they can be exponentially better on their defense. All they need is to A) stop trying to play Playoff walk-it-up basketball and try to get out on the run on almost every possession. They have the horses for it, so why not make it a race? and B) Turn up the defense back to where it was only a few short weeks ago and guard the paint a little bit better from the Felton's of the world. Also, the refs will HAVE to be better than they were in New York with respect to benefit-of-the-doubt calls like those Carmelo was given in MSG.
One last thing...can I tell you how much I wished I could jump through my television screen so that I could grab Tommy (who I normally love, respect and agree with) Heinsohn by his jacket collars and scream into his bewildered face, "RAJON RONDO IS NOT COMING THROUGH THAT DOOR, SO WOULD YOU PLEASE...FOR PISTOL PETE'S SAKE...STOP TALKING ABOUT HIM!!!"
No, I will not accept Rondo as the excuse for not taking better care of the basketball in Game 1 and I flatly and absolutely refuse to mention his name when it's clear that the team has stepped away from their brand of fast-break passing-game basketball that they were winning with AFTER Rondo went down.
I will agree with one thing about Rondo, though. If the Celtics can't find their fast-break offense in the next two games, hell, for the series...they'll all be joining him in wearing civilian clothes by the start of next week.
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:
Between the abject horror of Monday and the chaos and
confusion of Friday, it was determined that as far as the Boston Celtics and
NBA Playoffs are concerned, the show will go on. And well it should. As many have already explained, if at
all possible, we should return to as normal an existence as we are capable of
as both a sign of resilience and defiance to any- and everyone who would seek
to threaten our way of life and the freedoms that so many have given their
lives to sustain.
With that said, I wish the victims and their families healing and want to give unlimited praise and thanks to the first responders
and investigators for their very hard earned success.
Moving on…
____________________
Celtics vs. Knicks. MAN, this is gonna be good.
Boston vs. New York…KG vs. Carmelo…Paul Pierce vs. Every
Damn Thing In A Knicks Jersey. THIS is
what Playoff basketball is all about. The drama…the competitiveness…the
legitimate and palpable dislike that these two teams feel for each other = epic
watchableness (Yeah. It IS a word. I wrote it, didn’t I?!)
Get ready to hear The Truth, put The Jet on the runway and get
your pollen-based product-sweetened oat-grain cereal ready!
So…how can we expect our green giants to do this year as the
underdogs? Well, if you listen to the so-called experts over at SportsIllustrated, ESPN and CBS Sports, Boston is going to get beat like punching bags
as nothing more than sparring partners to the allegedly Eastern Conference-bound Carmelodrones New York
Knicks.
See?
Now, I know I am probably not the most objective writer out
there when it comes to assessing the Celtics (I’m known in some circles as the
Tommy of the Typewriter, which I think is really a bad analogy because I neither
announce for the Celtics as a former player named Heinsohn nor do I even have anything more than a vague
recollection of what a typewriter is in this era of unswallowable tablets and
smartiepants phones), but I do make an honest effort to separate my love of the
Green from the realities of their sometimes-greater-than-a-care-to-admit limitations.
But, we as Celtics fans also know how many “shock the world” moments it's taken for some of the non-believers to realize – you can never
sleep on a playoff team led by Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Doc Rivers. NEVER.
And with that, let me launch into my prediction about the
Celtics beating the Knicks in six games.
Sure, the Celtics have lost Rondo for the year and lost the season series, but two of those losses have had asterisks in the box score – a really tall, intense #5 jersey-wearing asterisk named Kevin Garnett, who happened to be sitting for the final two matchups. As everyone knows, you can take the season series stuff and throw it out the window for the Playoffs. Or, to put it more succinctly – “What happens in the regular season, STAYS in the regular season. History, though? History’s a whole different story.
What do we already know about the Celtics, Knicks and the Playoffs? Well, we know that anytime they’ve met up in the KG-Paul Pierce era, the Celtics proved to be the young father playing ball in the backyard with the Knicks as their 6-year-old son. In fact, the last time the Celtics played the Knicks in the Playoffs, the C’s looked like giant green atomic dinosaurs smashing their way through a well-known but helpless cosmopolitan city.
Look, we KNOW The Captain LOVES playing in MSG.
Actually, he LOVES playing against the Knicks ANYWHERE...
And we know that KG owns a luxury condo unit inside Carmelo's head.
But, this game is going to come down to the Celtics defense on the three-point line and each team’s wild cards stepping up to become heroes.
The C’s wild cards? The
defensive dominance of Avery Bradley; A decidedly more aggressive (both on
offense AND defense – Melo HATES playing on this guy!) Jeff Green; a new and improved
(in just about every facet of the game) Brandon Bass, a sweeter-shooting C-Lee;
a Jet that’s made-for-the-playoffs; and that wildest of wildcards, Jordan
Crawford. He may never find himself on
the same planet of the country with the city where the building has the office in
which people are talking about the Defensive Player of the Year, but he can
definitely provide a major scoring lift during those confounding draughts the C’s are famous for, and that’s why the Celtics brought him in.
I still believe we’re going to
see the best from Jason Terry in these Playoffs. As many a savvy veteran has
done before him, he saves an extra gear for the “season that counts,” and I
think back a few years when Doc invented his quote: “This guy’s gonna win a Playoff game for us.
I guarantee you that,” he was looking into his crystal ball and thinking about Terry.
There’s also the great possibility that unsung heroes suddenly start hearing the sweet music of success like Shavlik Randolph, Terrence Williams, Chris Wilcox and others. Any one of or all of these guys can come in and turn a game with their hustle and scrappiness alone. The Playoffs are where legends are made (yeah, I LOVE that cliché!) and the Celtics are a bubbling cauldron of flying fish just waiting to leap out of the pot and make their mark. And, no, I have absolutely no idea what the hell that sentence actually means, but I am certain that is has something to do with the fact that someone, somewhere on the bench is going to help us out before it’s all over.
Ultimately, what it all comes down to is (All hands on deck! Prepare to fire Cliché # 3) which team wants it more. Effort will trump talent in this series and veteran savvy will win out over flamboyant scoring.
Celtics in six. And Melo has another meltdown in a New York minute.
On the bright side, Paul Pierce's case of the fumbly-mumblies won't be following him to Houston for All-Star Weekend. At least not on the court, anyway.
On a night in which he learned that he would not make the All-Star Game for the first time in five consecutive years and only the second time in the past twelve, Paul Pierce started the game with that familiar chunk of rock on his shoulder, carrying the Celtics against the Knicks with 19 first quarter points. Unfortunately, he would only score three more points, ending the game with 22 and two critical kick-aways in the final minutes during which the Celtics were desperately trying to score a basket to tie what had once been a 10-point Knick lead.
Of course, it's a team game and Pierce -- who almost ALWAYS shows up large for anything related to the Knicks -- did more help than harm for his band-members but it just wasn't enough against a controversy-free Carmelo Anthony, who scored 28 points on 11-28 shooting to go along with 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Even another triple-double (his 4th of the season) from a never-say-die Rajon Rondo (23 points on 10-19 shooting, 11 assists, 10 boards and 3 steals) couldn't seal the deal in a nail-biter, mainly because no other Celtic could crack double figures. Kevin Garnett, struggled on offense with only 8 points but managed to pull down a gritty 12 rebounds with 2 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. Other than that? Get the team a Waaaah!-mbulance (thanks Modern Family!).
Amar'e Stoudemire (who missed the Cheerio-Mysterio game) dropped 15 easy points along with 9 boards and 2 blocks on the Celtics, and teammates Jason (Ben Gay, son?) Kidd scored 12 and the fresh-from-his-knee-surgery-debut Iman Shumpert gave the Knicks 10 to end any Green hopes of a second straight win over NYC and first win in four games.
The C's now slump to the end of January toting a 6-6 record for the month with Atlanta, Miami and Sacramento on the horizon to either throw us over the edge, or signal another resurgence.
Am I counting the Celtics out? Hardly. The effort they gave tonight was hampered primarily by their inability to find any open banks willing to let the Celtics use their credit to purchase even a small handful of baskets (though they shot better than the Knicks for the whole of the game, finishing at 40.8% to New York's 38.6%).
If the Celtics continue to fight and play just a little bit more team-oriented basketball (some of the best sequences for the Celtics came with the hard swing of the ball from corner-to-corner), the shots should start dropping and Geno will come off of life-support and find himself dancing at the Garden once again.
It's coming, C's fans. As Boston's own Mark Wahlberg once told us as he lounged with his own team, The Funky Bunch -- back before he was an A-List HollyCeleb -- and rocked the moniker "Marky-Mark"...
Though I have NO idea why a kid from Boston's sporting a Spurs jersey.
Well, it doesn't exactly qualify as the proverbial "worst kept secret," but it IS just a teensy bit anticlimactic.
Still, the fact that Kevin Garnett at age 36 (37 in May!) was voted in as a starter for the 15th time is pretty incredible. With all of the young frontcourt players out there, this is a pretty special selection. And, it shows just what a dominant player he continues to be -- at least in the voting public's eyes.
Rajon Rondo getting the starters' vote is something of a different kind of special. He's been in The Big Showcase three times already, but never as a starter. With the glut of starring guards in the NBA and the East in particular, this selection will most assuredly announce to the basketball world outside of Boston that Rajon Rondo has truly arrived.
In the new format for the All-Star starter selection process, voters were allowed to choose three Frontcourt players and two Backcourt players to start. Garnett came in as the third-highest vote-getting Eastern
Frontcourt player: LeBron James (Mia) 1,583,646 Carmelo Anthony (NYK) 1,460,950 Kevin Garnett (Bos) 553,222
Rondo was voted in behind only Heat Guard Dwyane Wade in the East:
If you tuned in to see tonight's big Atlantic matchup between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks, here is one thing you definitely did NOT see...
You didn't see it, of course, because the NBA suspended Rajon Rondo one game for brushing up against NBA Referee Rodney Mott during Saturday's game against the Atlanta Hawks. I won't waste too much space on this topic but to say that, while making any contact whatsoever with a league official is a definite no-no for any player, I believe that if said player were not Rondo and were, say, LeBron James or Derrick Rose we might not be talking about a suspension as much as a fine. Suffice it to say that Rondo had better be on his best behavior -- at least from a physical standpoint -- from here on in because he is now officially (pun somewhat intended) a marked man.
But, what's that you say? "No Rondo against the team with the best record in the Atlantic Division and second best in the Eastern Conference, fourth best in the entire League?" You say "no Rondo" and I say, "No matter." He may have been missing in action tonight, but the Knicks and Carmelo Anthony still wound up looking about as disturbed as he did in the opening picture.
Keeping it short and sweet (honestly...I have a long day tomorrow!), the Celtics continued to show that they are turning, if not screeching past, the corner at the end of the ugly block of basketball that they've played more often than not this season.
Avery Bradley, AKA "The Honey Badger," upon his return to this team four games ago has brought with him the defensive mojo that the Celtics had heretofore seemed to have left in last season's sock drawer.
How else to explain the mass hysteria that has overtaken the entire team, which now believes that their very lives depend on bending their knees and shuffling their feet side to side in an attempt to immobilize each and every opponent that dares to take the floor with them?
Okay...perhaps that was just a tad thickly laid, or maybe The Honey Badger is now even affecting my writing. But, the fact remains: These Celtics are playing some seriously inspired basketball. Whether it was Jeff Green's shadow job on Carmelo or Jared Sullinger's rugged interactions with center Tyson Chandler and Amare Stoudemire, which frustrated the New York players into physical overreactions, this is a completely different team than the one we saw on the West Coast just after Christmas.
Despite the fact that the Knicks were an amazing 43.8% on an astounding 32 attempts from Threeland, the Celtics hung in by rallying around their defense and also shooting 52.7% from 22-feet and in against New York's 40.8%, not to mention the thrashing that Boston gave the Knicks with respect to points in the paint, 40-28.
As I mentioned earlier, Jeff Green was phenomenal off the bench with 16 points on 5-10 shooting to go along with 6 rebounds and 3 assists; Sully was large on the defensive end and also put up 10 points, 5 boards and a block; Kevin Garnett was damn near dominant with great defense on almost the entire New York team and great scoring (19 points) and great rebounding (10 boards); and Courtney Lee and Leandro Barbosa were productive on both ends of the floor in Rondo's absence.
But, as it has almost since the day he first came into League, the night belonged to Paul "The Truth" Pierce. Pierce scored 23 points on 10-18 shooting -- and it felt like just about all of them were taken at critical junctures. He also played tight "D" against Carmelo for most of the night and picked up the distribution execution in Rondo's absence, racking up 6 assists for the team high (next to Jason Terry and Avery Bradley's 5 dimes apiece).
And, speaking of Bradley, he began finding his stroke against the Bigtown Apples, scoring 13 points on 6-11 shooting.
Now, do I think this team has reached its potential and that we're the new Beasts of the East? Certainly not. But, I DO think that it's making strides every day and will soon have teams saying (to paraphrase Coach Mark Jackson in his broadcaster days) "Mama, There Goes That Team Again!"
Now, don't get me wrong...I am the greenest of GreenHeadz that you'll ever find and I've been told that, as far as my belief in and support for the Celtics goes, my balloon never lands. But, when the Knicks go-to high scorer is Ike Diogu -- a man not yet guaranteed to be on the roster come November -- and the only efforts in this game given by the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Ray Felton, Tyson Chandler, Ron Artest and Kenyon Martin were as high-priced cheerleaders, you know that your 30-point win is going to have to come with a major asterisk.
