Celtics Central

If this was baseball, Sam Cassell would have gotten a save.

After the Hawks had tied the game in the third quarter, they came out and took the lead back in the 4th with 2 three pointers by Mike Bibby to go up 84-78.

At that point, the Celtics point guard ‘reliever’ Sam Cassell took over and pitched his way to another Celtic win. He scored 15 fourth quarter points, on 6 of 9 shooting, including two three pointers, as the Cs went out to outscore the Hawks 21-5 to win 99-89.

Sam did it while running Boston’s 2nd unit. He provided the knockout punch while the rest of the unit provided the defense. It was a nice combo to KO the Hawks. Oops. Now I’m doing a boxing metaphor. Whatever.

The Celtics starters did well, but the bench provided the spark to put the game away. Cassell, Davis, Brown, Posey, and Tony Allen comprised the 4th quarter line-up and brought the team’s 64th victory home against their most likely 1st round opponent. But the Celtics biggest lead of the game was only 11 points. It doesn’t sound significant, but that’s a little unusual for a Celtic win. I’m sure that Atlanta was trying to show that they can play with the big boys.

Mike Bibby has been a difference maker for this Hawk team. The Hawks played the Men In Green just about even when he was in there. Since his arrival 31 games ago, the Hawks have gone 17-13 and have won 7 of the last 10 to be close to elevating into the play-offs for the first time in 9 years. Mike has averaged 14.1 points and 6.7 assists as a Hawk.

This is from my interview with Coach Woodson from the last time the Hawks played in Boston. They had just gotten Bibby…

“He brings us more leadership. He brings us a point guard that’s capable of running a basketball team…something that I really hadn’t had since I’ve been here. Plus he can score the ball. He’s very crafty in terms of making plays for guys around him. Our guys are really starting to grow with him, considering that it’s only been 7 games with him.”

At that time, rumors were swirling that Woodson’s job was on the line. While he wouldn’t address those rumors, his answer spoke directly to how he viewed some of the difficulties of trying to playing winning basketball without a PG who can run a team. Since then they are over .500, proving Mr. Woodson correct and perhaps not such a bad coach afterall. Has his job been reprieved? I have no idea. But it would be fair to think he has bought himself some time.

Should the Hawks clinch, which the Celtic win last night delayed, it will be their first play off appearance since 1999, a nine year drought. They are 2 games ahead of the Pacers with 2 games left.

The Celtics were led by Garnett’s 24 points in 29 minutes, followed by Cassell’s 20, then Pierce, and Ray Allen with 14 each. Sam added 5 assists to tie Rondo for team honors. Glen Davis played one of his stronger games in a while, contributing 8 points and 10 rebounds while playing solid defense. James Posey officially had no shot attempts in 23 minutes, though he did go to the line twice for 3-4 while adding 3 steals.

Doc Rivers once again was able to give the starters solid rest and the bench pulled out a win.

The Celtics are 23-4 since that 3 game losing streak out west.

The Celtics play next in New York on Monday night.

In the penultimate home game, the Celtics exacted revenge, or maybe just rectified a small situation.

The Beantown Ballers were coming off of a very close win against these same Bucks in Milwaukee in overtime, and then losing to play-off bound nemesis, Washington, in their next game. Nothing major to be concerned about. But nothing you want to see continue either.

You don’t really get revenge or even need to get revenge for a previous win, even if it was an OT win against one of the league’s doormats. As the saying goes, the Celtics have ‘bigger fish to fry’.

Last year these two teams were going head to head at this very time…for better position in the NBA lottery.

The Bucks are in rerun mode. Their season collapsed early on and they are back to scenes of hopes and dreams. They are in last place in their division, are 26-53 overall, have lost 5 straight and are 2-9 over the last ten games.

Celtic fans can relate. Boston just came off of two of the worst years in franchise history, before hitting the mother lode with their off season acquisitions

Last year’s lottery pick, Jianlian Yi, didn’t want to come to Milwaukee. When he finally arrived he had a lot to learn. His season is on the shelf with injury. The team’s plans to make the play-offs this season never had a chance to materialize.

Bucks announce John Hammond as new GM

The Bucks made it official yesterday. They announced that John Hammond will be their new General Manager, effective immediately. They plucked John from the Detroit Pistons where he had served the past 7 years as Vice President of Basketball Operations. He replaces Larry Harris who was let go recently, after not meeting Buck’s owner and President Herb Kohl expectations of making this team a play-off team. Whether that was a reasonable expectation or not, I’ll leave to your judgment.

The Celtics continued their habit of devouring teams under .500. They have lost only once all year to the nether regions of the NBA to 36 wins.

The game itself followed the script to a T. The Cs started fast, played smothering defense, got strong bench help and rolled over the hapless Bucks.

Rajon Rondo had a particularly effective game. He did a days work in just 23 minutes, garnering 16 points and 10 assists to lead the team in both categories, adding 4 boards and a steal to just 2 TOs.

Believe it or not, Rondo was ill the past few days and coming into the game, according Kevin Garnett…

“If you saw him 2 days ago, you would never think he would have played tonight. Rondo knows how ill he was, seeing how he played tonight. He’s being superman, the extra time for us today, not having shoot around (because he was ill) ….he looked to be aggressive early. He was his usual self.”

Both point guards played well, as Sam Cassell anchored the 2nd unit. He was one of 7 players in double digits with 10 and had 4 assists and 4 rebounds.

Doc Rivers…

“Both were very good. Efficient. Obviously Rondo came out, was attacking early….I thought Sam kept the second unit together. I was really surprised how sharp he was, with all the time he missed.”

Doc said before the game that he would limit Sam to 16 minutes because of his recent back issues. True to form, Cassell played 17 minutes. Gabe Pruitt got some 4th quarter run and looked pretty comfortable out there, scoring 2 points with 2 assists and a steal in almost 8 minutes.

Doc summed up the win well..

“I just thought everyone came in and was very professional about doing their jobs, trying to stay within their roles, and that’s what we needed.”

Micheal Redd’s thoughts…

Tough game for us. We knew we were going to be in a dogfight. Boston has been playing well, especially at home. They’re tough to beat at home. They did a tremendous job tonight……We’re not going to back down from anybody. We have pride. We’re going to play hard. It’s my job as a leader to not allow us to play anything else but. We came in feeling that we had a chance to win. If you don’t come in that way, you are already defeated. This was a tough game. We battled. We just came up short.”

The Celtics travel to Atlanta to play the possible play-off first round opponent Hawks today.

The final score was 107-104. Boston wins in OT. How they got there was a wild ride.

The Boston Celtics Big Three ended up playing tonight after they got Doc to change his mind about sitting two of them for this game.

They blew the game wide open with a 17-2 blast out of the gate. But by the end of the quarter they were only up 32-29. It was a somewhat deceptive game as the Celtics starters played just fine. At the half, Boston was up 60-45 and had caused 15 TOs on the Bucks. The reserves were playing relatively well so far.

The second half was a different story for reserves on this evening. They had gone wire to wire without the three stars just one game ago, beating the Bobcats by 20. Tonight would not end the same way.

By the buzzer to end regulation, the second unit lost a 14 point lead to start the 4th, and accounted for 19 of the Celtics 23 TOs on the night. But they played the majority of the minutes as Doc placed a firm 20 minute rule on all 5 starters, it appears. No starter played after the 3rd quarter. The game was placed firmly in the hands of Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Tony Allen, James Posey, and Eddie House. When Powe fouled out in regulation, Brian Scalabrine replaced him for the final minute and OT.

I still can’t figure if Big Baby played a good game or not. He was on the floor constantly and drew fouls like flies. Things didn’t seem to be going his way all night. Some of his TOs were offensive fouls. But he never stopped hustling and managed 8 rebounds, 4 of them in the OT. Posey added 9 more, but it was Kendrick Perkins 10 boards in 20 minutes that led the team.

Tony Allen performed well offensively with 17 points on 6 of 10. Posey added 16 points.

Of the starters, Ray Allen played the most with 22 minutes. Kevin Garnett played the least with 19 plus minutes and carved up the Bucks like they were Sunday dinner, scoring 19 in the first half in just 13 plus minutes, on 6-7 shooting and 7-8 from the line. Whenever the starters were in the game, they easily extended the lead.

The second unit could be called the Equalizers. Any lead the starters built, the reserves gave away. The lead was as high as 25 points in the 3rd quarter. With Boston still up by 14 at the end of the third, 80-66, Pierce, Allen, Garnett, Perkins and Rondo were done for the evening, regardless of the outcome. Not that Doc thought they would be needed. Boston was handling Milwaukee rather well and maintaining a healthy lead. Or so they thought.

Milwaukee outscored the second unit by 33-19 in the 4th and caused 7 Celtic TOs. Glen Davis had 7 himself on the night. But he was outdone by Andrew Bogut’s triple double, as he had 15 points, 15 rebounds and 10 TOs before the night was through.

Normally a fairly clutch foul shooter, James Posey missed 2 in a row with 16 seconds left and the Cs up 99-96. That was all Micheal Redd needed as he drained a three from the corner with 10 seconds left. He pump faked as Tony Allen flew by him, giving him an open look as a result. 99-99 and OT.

The Celtics reserves came back to eke out a win in OT on Eddie House’s first basket of the entire game, a three pointer. He had missed one as regulation drew to a close, resulting in the extra session. They won even while adding 4 more turnovers. James Posey had earlier hit a three pointer and added 2 more free throws for the only other points of the extra period for the Beantown Irregulars. It was enough. Whew.

Of note, Sam Cassell was not activated for this game and Doc did not use PJ Brown, adding more intrigued into rotation equation. The team’s rhythm and the players that he started the year with appear to be taking decided priority.

Boston has now won 7 in a row and is 62-15.

Theses two teams meet again on Friday night in Boston.

There was an article I wrote before I started writing for CelticsCentral for the Connecticut Post. It was at the very beginning of the season. September 12th, 2007, actually.

It was called Celtics: A Question of Balance. It was, by far, my most popular article (and most heavily read) on that site, though I’m not really sure why. I guess sports readers love statistical interpretations in their reading.

It dealt with the question that everyone was asking, “Would those three stars be enough?”

Here is the link

Here is a portion of it…

“This 2007-08 Celtics will have one of the league’s premier big men coupled with two of its top swingmen. All of them could score 20-25 points every single night, even under great duress.

I see these three averaging about 60-65 percent of the team’s points this year. If it’s five percent less than that, it means Doc has devised a good system to get other players in the flow. “

That question has been answered.

As it has turned out they are averaging 56.8 points of the team’s 100.5 each game. That is .565% of the team’s scoring. Hence, by my opinion, based on looking at where the team was at the time, Doc has done a great job of getting supportive scoring from the rest of the team. This is in comparison to the Celtics first Big Three and other top three scoring units as measured in the article

Rajon Rondo has managed the 10 points a game that I thought he must, and Perkins is close to the 8 points I thought he must average to help keep the dogs off the three stars.

House and Posey have also done as well as anyone could expect. I did have Posey going for a career year in scoring (14 points per), similar to his best year in Memphis. It hasn’t happened obviously. But that’s because it hasn’t had to happen. Posey is defending the power forwards more this year than ever before in his career. He still scores when they need it, and his stats are tracking the last few years pretty closely

The surprise contributions, (or preseason unknowns) have come from Glen Davis and Leon Powe. Both bring positives to the court most every time they play. Both can score, rebound, and play defense, though they do all of those things very differently from each other.

In fact, Leon Powe is the golden boy at the moment. He just keeps getting it done every time he goes out there. He is looking more and more comfortable out there. If he keeps this up, he is the Ryan Gomes pick of his draft, and Danny has struck gold late in the 2nd round twice (Powe was the 49th pick obtained from Denver in a trade).

There are almost no disappointments with the entire roster this season. Pollard and Scalabrine qualify, but that is about it. That is really rare and a credit to Doc for working everyone in, in a productive way.

Going forward, his job will be to get Sam Cassell and PJ Brown woven into the fabric of what they are doing in the final 6 games. I think he will be able to, as they are both very experienced vets.

This team has been hard to defend and that is because the support players have stepped enough to cause great damage when Paul, Kevin and Ray are double teamed. It is also worth mentioning that 2/5ths of the starting 5 are the remaining 2 young holdovers from the massive trade exoduses and doing quite well, thank you.

The recent win by the team over the Bobcats without all three stars, speaks well of the entire team and the coaching staff.

The most incredible turnaround in NBA history was obtained in the most incredible way.

None of the three ballyhooed Celtic stars were dressed for this game. Pierce was not there as Paul’s fiance just had his daughter. Doc chose to rest Ray Allen (who dressed in a suit and cheered his team from the bench) and Kevin Garnett (who did not sit on the bench – as always when he does not play) for the game, as well.

The Celtics win number 61 tonight against the Charlotte Bobcats in Charlotte, clinched home court throughout the play-offs and represents the biggest turnaround in NBA history. It was the 37th win above than last year’s 24 win squad, which beats the Spurs 36 game turnaround with Robinson and Tim Duncan.

It may have also placed a large stack of straws on the camel’s back where first year Charlotte coach Sam Vincent is concerned. His boss, Michael Jordan, is said to be unhappy with Sam’s performance with the Bobcat team this season. He has said nothing about Sam returning for another year. This game obviously did not help.

The Cats certainly looked bad tonight. With a starting line-up of Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, Tony Allen, Leon Powe and James Posey, the Celtics opened with an amazing 37-25 first quarter and never looked back. Though the Bobcats got within 7 on a few occasions, the Celtic lead ballooned to over 20 and stayed pretty much out of reach for the entire game. And this was against Celtic reserves for the most part.

What could have been a motivation for the Bobcats, as they had played the Celtics two strong games already, turned into a motivation for the Cs, sans stars, to win anyway with so much on the line.

The Celtics played magnificently with Leon Powe leading the team in scoring with 22 points on 5-8 shooting and a surprising 12 of 13 foul shots, to go with 9 rebounds in just under 30 minutes. Leon excelled this evening as he made a number of tough shots around the hoop.

But he was joined by a host of other Celtics who played well, led by James Posey who added 19 points including 3 three pointers. Eddie House was Eddie Money as he contributed 16 points in 29 minutes, often making back breaking shots that interrupted Bobcat runs.

Glen Davis was 2nd on the team in rebounding with 8 boards in 23.5 minutes, and added 9 points, 2 steals and a block.

Rondo and Perkins clearly steadied the team defensively, which allowed them to jump out to the early lead, behind James Posey’s 5-5 shooting and Leon Powe’s 16 first half points. Both players had excellent games offensively, as each of them made tough shots multiple times. This team looked like they wanted it, as Eddie House was on fire in the first half as well with 10 points in 11 minutes.

The Celtics pounded the boards for a 27-12 half time advantage. That aspect never changed as the Green Team B Unit out rebounded the Bobcats 54-35 on the evening.

Cassell and Brown got about 20 minutes each, though Sam’s shot was off all night. Brian Scalabrine played 17 plus minutes, contributing 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal.

Tony Allen started and played very well in 22 minutes. He scored 12 points and played solid defense all evening.

Rajon Rando ran a solid game, as he constantly set up his team mates for easy baskets. He had a team high 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals. Perkins was a presence in the middle, and added 7 boards and a steal.

This Celtic team continues to amaze me, as they had a great excuse to lose this game and they didn’t. Instead they won by 23 points. 23 points!

All Glen Davis’ Mohawk gets him is more attention. He is young. He is Glen. But he might want to become more discreet, as he draws enough attention from the refs without it.

Both teams shot poorly in the 2nd half as the Cs won the half 37-27. Charlotte scored just 9 fourth quarter points to the Celtics 19.

Still this was great team effort and another feather in the cap of Doc Rivers, who has the entire team playing a rather disciplined game.

Next up are the Bucks in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Boston just lapped the Indiana Pacers 92-77, and were amazingly professional in doing so.

All year long Doc Rivers has been saying it’s not about the individual numbers. So have the players on the team.

That unselfishness led to some very fine numbers tonight.

Boston just notched its 60th win of the year. That hasn’t happened since 1986 when the team went 67-15 on their way to their last Championship.

More incredible, they just tied San Antonio for the greatest one year turnaround in NBA history with a 36 game swing. They are certain to break that record against the weak remaining schedule.

And only 2 more wins are required to guarantee home court throughout the play-offs. That could come in very handy, especially if they make it to the Finals. Boston, now with the 2nd best home record in the league at 33-6, is especially hard to stop with home cooking.

Boston jumped out to an early lead once again and never looked back. They hit their first 4 shots to go up 9-2 and finished the quarter 29-17. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce led the way with 8 points each. Leon Powe added 5 points and P.J. Brown supplied 4 more and 4 rebounds in just 3 minutes of play in the opening stanza.

It got worse as the Celtics led the previously warm Pacers by 49 -30 at the half. The Pacers could manage just 9 make baskets by the half. The Pacers came in having won 6 of 8 in a move to reach the play-offs. They were 3 games behind Atlanta for the 8th and final spot in the east.

Boston just shut down everything they wanted to do. They also missed some open looks and the return of Jermaine O’Neal, scoring 12 points in 20 minutes in just his second game back, wasn’t able to make this a competitive game.

Garnett led Boston with 20 points and 11 rebounds in 31 minutes. Ray Allen was next with 15 points. Leon Powe played a strong game and finished with 14 points, and 9 rebounds in 23 minutes. Rajon Rondo led the team with 6 assists and 3 steals.

The Boston Celtics clearly are focused and are making these wins against the lower teams look easy and almost effortless. The Pacers never challenged the rest of the way, though both teams were careless with the ball as Boston turned it over 18 times to Indy’s 20. Mike Dunleavy was responsible for 8 TOs by himself.

Dunleavy is having a career year, but it seems to me to be illusory. I don’t think he gets the kind of numbers he is getting with O’Brien anywhere else. He has career highs in points, rebounds, fg%, 3 point fg%, and ft %. Enjoy it Mike, while you can.

On the other hand, Leon Powe seems to be getting more comfortable out there every game. He is doing what he does best, and that is rebounding and scoring around the hoop. He has added a little mid range jumper from time to time, as well. He has averaged 12.2 points and 7 rebounds in just 21.5 minutes over the last 4 games, as Doc is relying on him a little bit more since the Houston game when he scored 21 on 8 of 12 shooting, while playing decent defense.

The quiet story of the game is the low amount of minutes Doc is giving his two new acquisitions, Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown. Tonight, in a blow out, Cassell did not play and Brown played 5 minutes. This would seem to be the time to be doling out PT to get them involved with the teams’ plays and getting them in sync with the rest of the team.

Whether Doc feels it could be costly to the existing team chemistry and certain players’ rhythm, remains to be seen. Cassell in particular would seem to need the time to learn to run the Boston offense. When he has given both new players solid minutes, it hasn’t always worked smoothly. With 7 games left, one would think they would be getting more PT, if they are to be instrumental in the play-offs. That suggests that Coach Rivers is pretty happy with the team as is, and loathe to make wholesale changes – veteran players or not. But we will see.

When the year started this team’s current success would have equated with my wildest dreams. It is now a reality, and what a ride it has been so far. Basketball is being played at such a high level and in such an entertaining fashion on any given evening, so as to make the previous 2 years seem worth it and…. long ago. The quest continues.

Boston’s next game is Saturday at Charlotte.