The ball just barely left a leaping, twisting, fading Baron Davis’ hands at the three point line as the backboard lit up signaling the end of the game. The ball dropped cleanly through the net, as the Clippers, like last season, once again surprised the Boston Celtics on their west coast trip, 92-90.
It was the first sell out of the season for the Clippers, but had a number of Celtic fans in attendance, according to Mike Gorman.
The Pierce-less Boston Celtics led the entire second half and built as much as an 11 point lead. They held on until 8 seconds left when Rasual Butler hit a corner three pointer off a drive and dish from Baron to tie the game at 90.
Rajon Rondo then drove the lane and was fouled by Baron Davis on a lay up attempt with just 1.1 second left. In Greek mythology, super warrior Achilles’ weakness was in his heel. Among the Celtic gods of basketball, super warrior Rajon Rondo’s ‘heel’ is his jump shot and free throw shooting.
Playing a tremendous offensive game while leading the Celtics with 20 points on 9 of 16 shooting, and a lay up clinic in the first quarter, Rajon was unable to finish the Clippers off. It looked like overtime. Baron Davis made sure it wasn’t.
A season 54% free throw shooter this season, Rondo has actually been improving lately (63% over his last 8 games) and was 2 of 3 in this game up to that point. He actually missed three attempts, as there was a lane violation on the second attempt, giving Rajon another shot at winning the game.
Rajon has been hitting a few jumpers lately as well and made of 2 of 6 in this contest. Not exactly Ray Allen territory, but better than earlier in the year, when he wasn’t even taking jump shots.
Just as it appears we must accept Rasheed Wallace’s technicals, so it goes with Rondo’s lessons in free throws. Normally a pretty clutch player, Celtic fans will hope that Rajon improves in this category as he continues to grow his game.
Bump in the Road
The Celtics’ road winning streak ends at 9, as they fall to 13-2 on the road, and are now 23-6. After beating Orlando, they stood a half game behind the Lakers for home court advantage throughout the playoffs. They are now 1-1 on this road trip, having nullified that win to a certain extent with this rather unexpected loss.
Throughout a slow paced game, Boston looked in control for much of the game.
The first quarter was a back and forth affair with 2 ties and 7 lead changes, before the Celtics went up by as much as 8 points in the second quarter.
Rajon Rondo was aggressive attacking the hoop from the get-go. He was making highly difficult, well timed lay-ups and floaters over 7 foot shot blockers Chris Kaman and DeAndre Jordan. He ended the first quarter as the Celtic leading scorer with ten points, adding 3 of his 6 assists along the way.
The second quarter featured Rasheed Wallace early. Sheed made three straight post up jumpers over Brain Skinner and DeAndre Jordan as the Celtics went up 30-26.
Glen Davis Productive
Glen played in his second game of the season and had a productive burst with 4 points, 4 offensive rebounds, an assists and a steal in 7 second quarter minutes, giving the Celtics some needed energy, particularly on the boards.
Davis finished with 8 points on 3 of 4 shooting and 6 rebounds in 15 minutes with the team’s best plus/minus at +5.
A driving Ray Allen lay up extended the lead to 38-30. Ray finished second on the Celtics with 13 points on 6 of 12 shooting. Ray also made the only Celtic three point shot as the Cs went 1 for 12 from the arc.
The Celtics went up 60-50 in the third quarter on a Kendrick Perkins spin-around banking jumper and had their biggest lead at 65-54 on a Perkins lay up after Rondo passed to Ray in the middle who spun and dropped it in to Perkins for a lay up.
After going up 71-61 on a Ray Allen assisted Rajon Rondo lay up, the Clippers went on an 8-2 run to close out the third, finishing down just 73-69.
In the fourth quarter, Davis had a put back to make to 77-74, then Tony Allen got active. He was blocked, but put it right back up to make it 79-74. After that Glen Davis blocked Craig Smith, but Baron Davis hit a three pointer shortly after.
Eddie House was fouled as he hit a long two pointer and made the free throw to go up 84-79. Shortly after, Ray Allen made a floater in the lane to go up 86-81.
Rajon Rondo did his pass fake move and spun and hit a jumper for an 88-84 lead with 3:29 left.
The Celtics would only score once more. Kevin Garnett deflected a Baron Davis pass and Tony Allen made a fast break lay up to go up 90-87 with exactly 2 minutes left. The Celtics wouldn’t score again.
Kevin Garnett played 31 minutes and looked pretty good overall, but started slowly offensively.
After shooting 2 of 7 in the first half, he went 3 of 4 in the third quarter, as Rondo drove and kicked to an open Garnett for his easy jumpers. I am sure it was with KG’s leg in mind that Rajon Rondo chose not to throw an alley oop to a driving Garnett as he headed right for the basket at one point. Instead, he kicked it back out to Ray Allen for an outside shot. Garnet finished with 12 points on 5 of 13 shooting.
Tony Allen started again in Paul Pierce’s place and comported himself well with 4 steals, 4 assists, solid defense, while adding a double double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Kendrick Perkins had his hands full with Chris Kaman who scored a game high 27 points and added 12 rebounds. It was one of the best offensive games I’ve ever seen Chris play. He made jump shots, lay ups and put backs, keeping the Clippers in the game with Baron Davis.
Perkins scored 9 points with 6 rebounds, and one block, but had 4 turnovers. He was visibly upset with certain calls and non-calls throughout the game. But it Eddie House who got a technical.
According to Mike Gorman, Celtic announcer, the language that the ref said he gave House the T for, was something that is said regularly by many players throughout any given game. In other words, the T was uncalled for.
House attempted just one three pointer, missing it, but shot 4 of 7 for 10 points, as the fifth Celtic in double figures on the night. Of note, Ray Allen brought the ball up when he was in the game with House.
While Rajon Rondo was trying to make Baron Davis and the Clippers defend him, Baron was making life difficult for Rondo and the Celtics at the other end. Davis had 13 points and 7 assists by half time. Baron finished the game with 24 points on 3 of 4 lay-ups, 3 of 6 jumpers and 9 for 9 from the free throw line. He added 13 assists and 3 steals, while also having 6 turnovers.
Things That Make You Want to Go Hmmm.
In a game that is lost by a single basket, you can point to a lot things that might have contributed to the loss. But a Wallace missed easy dunk on a Rondo feed and Rasheed’s 0-6 from the three point line stand out, as ‘things that make you want go hmm’.
It was not a normal Celtic-like game. The Cs had only 21 assists on 39 made baskets. That is quite low and while the Celtics play a controlled pace, it seemed to play into the Clippers’ hands.
The Clippers are 20th in pace and 24th in offensive rating by Basketball-Reference.com.
Other stats of interest:
Second Chance points –
While Celtics enjoyed a rare and large advantage on the offensive boards to one of the league’s best offensive rebounding teams (12 to 4), and had more second chance points overall, the Clippers were more efficient with 11 second chance points to the Celtics 16.
Fastbreaks – Celtics 12, Clippers 9
Points in the Paint – Celtics 46, Clippers 48
Points off Turnovers – Celtics 17, Clippers 14
The Celtics head right over to Golden State for a 10:30 game on Monday night.
Frankly, I found it quite infuriating to lose for the second year in a row to the Clippers — especially since we also recently had an embarassing home loss to the 76ers. As great as this team can play, they can also lose to ANYONE.
The reason games like this concern me is that there is a danger to “turning it on when you need to.” After their first (and ONLY) Championship, ‘Sheed’s Pistons used to say “if it isn’t rough, it isn’t right” because they would have to get into trouble in a playoff series before they played their best basketball. The result was, they never won another title because eventually they ran into a team that they couldn’t dig them selves out of a whole against (like Shaq and Wade’s Heat, or the Cavs, when LeBron single-handedly beat them). It almost happened to us in 2008 when we couldn’t win on the road to save our lives in the first two rounds, and survived a tight game 7 vs Cleveland. If you keep playing with fire, relying on being able to “flip a switch” at the right time, you WILL get burned. This team has too narrow a window to risk getting burned and missing out on a championship — especially with formidable teams like the Cavs, Magic, Hawks and Lakers lurking about. We need to develop better focus and maintaining it consistently if we want to achieve more than “one and done” status. IMO, you don’t avoid burnout by taking games off, you avoid burnout by using your depth and spreading the work load around. We need to be much better mentally by the time the season is over.
Comment by Mauricio — December 28th, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Can’t argue with any of that, Mauricio.
I have had the same thoughts recently. This team seems to overestimate itself a bit too often this season. And…as you said, they don’t pull it out at the end against teams they should be beating.
Now they are still 23-7, so it would be scary if they only took care of business when they should.
The hope is that they know it as well and will turn it up as we get into the last third of the season.
thanks for the thoughts Mev!
Comment by Thomas Halzack — December 29th, 2009 @ 8:54 pm