After defeating the Miami team from the ACC, 88-62, Boston moves on and Miami goes home.
That was a NCAA tourney game, wasn’t it? Well, at least one team looked like a college team.
Oops. That was the Miami Heat, an NBA team, loosely speaking. They were on the receiving end of a record setting defensive game by the league leading Celtics. I might add that Boston played without malice. It actually could have been much, much worse.
The ‘Heat’ were cold (Yes, I liked writing that.) and utterly unprepared to face an NBA juggernaut. The Ron Rothstein coached team ended up setting an NBA record for field goal futility. They managed only 17 made shots for the game – an NBA record since the shot clock came about during the 1950s. I watched a painfully large part of the ‘event’.
The previous low of 18 was by the Chicago Bulls (sans Jordan/Pippin, etc.) on April 10, 1999, ironically, against the Miami Heat. If there is a bright side to the accomplishment, the Bulls were even worse with 18 more attempts (77). Tonight, the Heat managed only 59 attempts for a still dubious .288 FG%.
The NBA record for least attempts is 53, accomplished twice in 1997. No wonder the league made changes in foul calling to create a freer flowing offense. Thank you very much. But it was deja vu all over again for quite abnormal reasons.
It is as much an indictment of Miami’s throwing in the towel on the season and bringing in nameless players on 10 day contracts. Marion is out. Dwayne Wade is out. Chris Quinn is in. After the 2 most experienced players on the team (Davis, Blount) the rest of the team has less than 4 years of NBA experience combined according to the announcers. They can’t possibly expect them to compete like an NBA team. Pat Riley’s absence for college scouting adventures speaks volumes about the situation.
The Heat are now 4-20 since the trade that moved Shaq to the Suns and brought Shawn Marion to South Beach.
So we got what we expected as the Celtics jumped out to a 22-4 lead and took their foot off the pedal for the rest of the game. They were happy to maintain a 20 point lead for the long run, as they worked all 12 active players into the game. The Cs biggest lead was 31.
No starter played more than 25 minutes as Leon Powe led the team with 27 minutes, 17 points, and 13 rebounds (6 offensive). In a game like, I really wonder how helpful it is for anyone on the team to play.
Tony Allen got necessary PT, but the team as a whole played down to the competition. And I will give the Heat players some credit. They did try to play solid defense at times throughout the game. Those combined factors resulted in a poor offensive performance by the Celtics. But really, who cares?
The Celtics scored 88 points on .386% from the field and .259 from the arc. They out rebounded the ‘Blountiful’ Heat 54-31. They gave up just 10 points in the paint and mercifully scored only 38 in the middle themselves. The Heat had 12 assists. The Celtics had 23. Need I go on?
Of note, Doc played Sam Cassell and PJ Brown with 3 starters for a while, in order to get them comfortable playing together.
There were strange line-ups and substitutions in the course of play. At one point, Ray Allen played SF, with Eddie House and Sam Cassell in the back court. If you find out which one was the point guard, let me know. On one possession, it ended up being Ray Allen anyway. Cassell contributed 9 points on 8 attempts, and 2 assists in about 15 minutes
The Celtics toyed with them throughout. Perkins blocked the league’s newest version of Dan Dickau, Chris Quinn, twice. KP had three blocks and 8 rebounds in 24 minutes. Pierce had 10 points, 2 steals and 4 assists. Garnett led the team with 5 assists in just 21:30 minutes while adding 12 points and 8 rebounds. Rajon Rondo provided 8 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists in 22 minutes.
Glen Davis had a nice hustle put back on a miss by Powe on a fastbreak and folks……that’s a wrap.
What tonight didn’t solve or resolve is any suggestion of rotation for the play-offs. Doc plans to play Tony Allen, PJ Brown, and Sam Cassell more as they head toward the regular season’s finish line. Doc says it is important to get Tony Allen going. The other two are still getting up to speed with their team mates and plays. That means others will have to take a step back in minutes to get that accomplished.
Doc has plenty of options now. The question arises – does he have too many choices? And will he choose the right ones for the right situations? It’s not as easy as it looks. Chemistry can be a fragile thing. As it looks right now, Cassell and Brown may not play as much as I originally thought. The problem is that the other players roles have been pretty well defined at this point and the team is playing very well with the original cast. Inserting Sam and PJ is more of a delicate operation than it looks from a distance.
Still, I think Doc will get it done with this Veterans Administration, and have all hands on deck for an all out assault on capturing the NBA crown. While the rest of the games are largely presupposed wins, it will be the playing time and performances of the rotations that will be of great interest until we hit the play-offs.
With just 5 more wins out of the last 9 games, the Celtics will have accomplished the greatest single year turnaround in the history of the league. That looks like it will most likely happen. For long time Boston Celtic fans, it will be a highly appreciated event.
