The Boston Celtics jumped out to a 24-13 1st quarter lead and never looked back, beating the Bulls 96-80.
The night had it all, ghoulish shooting, scary defense, and ghosts of the past season for the Bulls. They were dead and buried by half time. The Celtics played the vampire and sucked the life out of their opponent before they knew what hit them. Both teams were in a ‘foul’ mood.
The Celtics dominated so much that at one point the Bulls were shooting 3-18. That improved in the second half, but the Bulls finished at a beleagured 29.8% from the floor.
The Chicago Bulls came to Boston with new hopes, a new coaching staff, and the number one
draft choice running the team in 20 year old Derrick Rose.
The Bulls have a talented roster and are coming off a throwaway year. They ended up with a throwaway game to go with it. Drew Gooden knows they have a lot of work to do before they can play with a team like the Celtics.
They got after us at jump. At jump ball they took us out of everything we wanted to run offensively. We shot terribly from the field. And we couldn’t get stops defensively.
We didn’t distribute the ball well tonight. With 11 assists and 30% shooting…we didn’t do what we wanted to do. We’ll put this game behind us and move on. We have a game tomorrow, so this game is done and over with.
Kevin Garnett was particularly aggressive and had 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting with 7 rebounds at the half. He finished with 18, leading a balanced scoring effort by the Celtics. Defensively, he was challenging everything. Though he missed some open looks, Tyrus Thomas ended up shooting 2 of 17 largely due to the defense of Garnett.
Kevin:
I thought that tonight I was a lot more under control. I told “P” I put a lot of burden on he and Ray the first game. Nonetheless we anchor a lot of the responsibility here. Tonight I was more poised.
This was Kevin’s 1,000 NBA game. How dies it feel to be the youngest player in NBA history to reach 1000?
It feels crazy, to be honest.
At least he didn’t say, “Scary.”
The Celtics didn’t really want to have to start the year against the Cavs. The Bulls must feel the same way for Vinny Del Negro’s 2nd game as a head coach. Face the NBA Champions in game two of his coaching career?
They were more physical, more aggressive, they competed harder than we did. We didn’t shoot well enough to put any pressure on them.
For the Celtics, the scoring distribution after one period was a model of the team concept they have locked in on. Four starters had 4 points each and Rondo had 5. Rajon took it to the basket all night, ending up 14 points, but it could have been more as he was 6-11 from the line. His defense was even better, as he made things difficult for Derrick Rose all night.
It appears that Derrick got caught up in it a bit as he finished with 18 points on 6-14 shooting with 6 of 6 foul shooting, leading the Bulls, but with just one assist. But that has do to with more than just Rondo’s defense. The Celtics’ team defense broke up plays all evening.
Kendrick Perkins was aggressive early as the Cs controlled the paint. What Garnett didn’t stop Kendrick did. Kendrick had a strong first quarter when the Celtics established complete dominance. He blocked a Drew Gooden baseline jumper, then hit a turnaround jumper over Gooden and put the exclamation point on his run with a thunderous put back dunk from out of nowhere on a Rajon Rondo miss.
Though still a foul monster (5), Perk tied with KG with 10 boards (4 offensive) to go with 8 points in 28 minutes.
The scoring rundown: Ray Allen and Paul Pierce tied with Rondo for 2nd with 14 points each. The Big Three all took exactly 11 shots each. How is that for equality? Leon Powe had another solid outing wit 13 points in 18 minutes and 6 rebounds.
Glen Davis (2 pts., 0 of 3) and Tony Allen (6pts. on 1 of 
had difficulty scoring, but both played solid aggressive defense all night.
A perfect example was a scrum for an offensive rebound that Glen muscled away from 7′ Aaron Gray and passed to Tony Allen underneath. Tony missed the shot but also fought hard for the rebound and passed to Leon as the crowd roared.
Paul Pierce scored with surprising ease against his usual nemesis, Luol Deng, but played completely within the system by helping out where needed. He almost finished with a double-double with 9 rebounds.
Both teams went to the foul line often with 69 foul shots total in a foul fest complete with 3 technical fouls ( Chicago bench, Andres Nocioni and Kevin Garnett).
I loved the way our guys played tonight. The first five, six minutes of the game, that was great. Great execution. Great intensity. That was just perfect for us early on.
It stayed that way for much of the game. The Celtics seem to be getting better after playing together for a year. That’s scary news for the rest of the league. Happy Halloween.
