Agreed. Cs got schooled. But is there such a thing as a “good” loss? I think the Cs can learn a lot from this loss. By the way, I loved seeing Big Papi there in the crowd. That guy is a riot!

Terrible Refs Tonight, But we still shouldn’t have commited so many TO’s

Perkins grabbed boards at the end, but missed a lot of passes from KG, Rondo, etc.. Can you learn alertness and good hands?

Overall, its good to lose at this point for the Cs. They need to know that they have to keep improving throughout the season.

Terrible coaching by Doc. Pollard played well in the few minutes he played and Perk was terrible. So why did Pollard not get more playing time and Perk got so many minutes? And Tony Allen. Where was he earlier in the game when Rondo was in foul trouble? He did make a bad play at the end on Billups, but I think if Pollard played more and Tony played earlier, the Cs could have easily won. Oh, well.

we’ll get better – this team won’t really gel until february. it was obvious tonight…allen should have taken that shot at the end, not pierce. unlike us, the pistons core has been together for a while and know each other incredibly well. also, we missed FTs and 3s that we usually make. they earned it tonight. we’ll make it a much tougher game later in the season.

Tough loss but they didn’t deserve to win the way they came out in the second quarter. The good news is that the Pistons won because they had an above average night beyond the arc and C’s had a below average night at the free throw line (plus 1 technical).

the bad news is that perk got taken to school on the boards. offensively, they couldn’t get it done. it seemed like there was some sort of conspiracy to get pierce involved in the offense. when it didn’t work they didn’t know what to do.

why isn’t ray shooting that last shot? he was hitting everything. what was pierce doing on the last defensive stand? he wasn’t guarding anyone or the inbounds pass. i feel like i’ve seen this before.

i guess we can all jump off the bandwagon now.

I disagree. I still believe we are the best team in the East. Paul played horrendous (including a late shot that was taken much too early) Detroit went wild on 3s, and we missed a ton of free throws- and it still came down to the final play. We will beat them in a 7 game series.

Hopefully the whole group learns from this loss, from Doc to Paul to Big Baby on down the line. It may be a hit to our bragging rights as fans but I have faith they’ll be a better team after experiencing a few bumps in the road.

Props to Rondo, Ray Allen and Pollard. Kg was great but not dominant, a little out of control. Big Boooo for all involved in screwing up the shot with 5 on the clock, that should never happen.

make that second half

Welcome to the eastern conferance finals. Great coaches get the ball into the right guys hands. The celtics of old always rode the hot hand. KG kept us in the game and was hitting his free throws but lets get the ball to PP because he is 5-16. th

Doc Rivers’ preference to not guard the inbounds pass has become an obsession.

Sorry guys but I like Rip Hamilton so I don’t feel bad about losing.

In general, playing a team, who’s essentially clutch, is critical in managing pressure situations. And for that, there isn’t a finer team than the Pistons for the east.

Remember, these guys held the Lakers back from getting another title and like that, they’re our coach in disguise.

This was a very dissapointing loss, hopefully the above comments about it being a good learning exsperance are correct , but I still hold that when coaching matters there is just nothing up Doc Rivers sleeve. He is a great fellow, but not a great coach. T.A. getting five minites is just stupid.

Calm down boys & girls!!!! For a team with 9 new players and only a preseason and 22 regular season games under their collective belt before the start of this game I think they did quite well over all. By the time the playoffs roll around they will have eliminated a lot of tonight’s mistakes. Be patient and keep cheering!

2 simple things…force Rondo to take his man off the dribble,MAKE him be a offensive weapon..and tell KG to shoot the 8 fter and not pass to Perk…Rondo needs to take 8 shots a half to force teams to guard him…bottom line as we sit,we can hold teams easily under 90 and we can become a team that scores over 90…that means we win

Experience did matter but these are the thing that were wrong in the 2nd half(no im not blaming the refs). In the first half they had Billups tired and on his heels buy having Rondo drive on him. The 2nd half why were they not letting Rondo do his thing? Another thing Paul Pierce was playing terrible and they give him the ball with 5 seconds to go. That ball should of went to Ray. Another thing is Pierce had time for a up fake before he shot and he did not do that. The cardinal rule and everyone who is a die hard bball fan knows this never ever leave time on the clock. Even if Paul misses you have OT. They also should of had James Posey on Billups. Those are the reasons we lost the game. No Execution and dumb decisions.

I didn’t mind that it was Pierce taking the final shot. However, I wish he hadn’t taken it so quick. There were 5 seconds on the shot clock and he shot it like there was 0.4.
Can’t dwell on it though. It’s one of those “if he makes it he’s a hero; if he misses it, it was a bad shot.”

It was not the refs. It was the Pistons. They were the better team. And it’s not all Doc’s fault either. Don’t you think Detroit made some adjustments to slow down Rondo at halftime?

I’m not going to jump off the bandwagon, even if I only ride in the very back, but two glaring areas of weakness were exposed tonight.

Rondo, despite a strong first half, can be contained and turned into a non-factor. Eddie House doesn’t handle pressure well. The C’s need another point guard – either a starter so Rondo can play 18 minutes a game or someone to share minutes with him so House can move to the off guard.

Perkins should be a back-up and the 4th big as well. Start Davis or Pollard and look for someone who can play. Davis got abused by Jason Maxiell, by the way.

Bankshot said:
“Terrible coaching by Doc…”

Sorry, but I don;t think you can blame Doc for this one. Game tied at 85, Celtics then get a defensive stop with 18.5 seconds left on the clock. Paul Pierce ends up with the ball in the ensuing play coming out of time-out, and what does he do? Tactically, he should have held for the last shot of the game with no time left on the clock. I mean a veteran like PP should have known – if he makes the shot with no time on the clock, game over and we walk away with the win. If he misses we go to overtime. Simple enough for a veteran like PP to understand? If PP had done that, Tony Allen wouldn’t have been put into a situation where he was going against the much more experienced Billups. Hardly Doc’s fault. PP made an egregious tactical mistake, which pales in significance to Tony Allen fouling Billups.

They hit a lot of threes. Pierce was off and KG was sloppy (but put up some solid stats). We lost by two points, because a bench player made an idiotic play – Otherwise we go to OT with Rasheed at 5 fouls. This is not the end of the world!

However, a few glaring problems were made extremely apparent tonight (for either good or bad?).

1. We need a reliable backup PG. I love Eddie, but I don’t love him handling the ball. I love RayRay, but I don’t love him handling the ball. If Rondo gets into any kind of foul trouble like tonight, we need someone to step in and be a competent ball handler and defender.

2. Doc has flaws. Hey, this isn’t exactly news to anyone, but he makes mistakes. We don’t have the most terrific coach, but we have a competent and respected coach, whose players fight their hearts out for. It could absolutely be A LOT worse. He’s here to stay and we can only hope he develops as the team develops.

3. Perkins has no hands. Oh well. I don’t think there is anything to do here, but just hope he isn’t a very involved offensive player as time goes on, and hope he can rebound better than he did tonight (though he had some huge boards at the end).

Bottom line is this. It is December. We have the best record in the league. We have KG. We have a legitimate shot at the title. Think back to one year ago…is this loss still that painful? Didn’t think so. God bless.

On the matter of experience, after watching the end of the game on tape, I saw that Rasheed Wallace alertly grabbed Tony Allen’s arm when Billups made his break to receive his pass. Wallace did it so smoothly, the refs were unlikely to see it, or to call it if they did. But as a result, Allen was delayed an additional step or two behind Billups. This caused Allen to try to close on Billups in a greater hurry, and probably increased the likelihood that he’d bite on the shot fake.

Mind you, I’m not crying about Wallace’s play. That’s just smart veteran basketball. And I think the Celtics will be playing a bit more of it later this season, especially guys like Perkins, Rondo, Davis, and Tony Allen

Celtics were apparently ‘schooled’ according to some and still only lost by 2. That bodes well for the future then. Because the more experience this team gets the better they will be. This team has essentially been together 23 games. Detroit has been together for years now and still barely beat them with all their ‘experience’

all these are good points but our overall gameplan if we are talking a world championship is KG POSTING UP. every team is gonna make mistakes. the best teams still make big mistakes and sometimes at the worst times. we need to be good enough to win anyways. i believe we are definitely this right now in the east. but only if we are using kg in the post. he just makes it so easy for everyone if we do this. the defense is alwyas a half step behind if we do this. detroit would be too.

aside from pierce taking the last shot and taking it too early, it was thoroughly frustrating how maxiell outhustled the celts off the offensive boards at critical times. it did not help that doc went small ball at that time. why didn’t we see pollard in the 2nd half? perk played poorly. bbd was not effective tonight. our bench play just didn’t match theirs.

another thing, i question putting tony allen so late in the game on billups with him having hardly played in the game.

Detoit obviously aren’t perfect either though they are 18-7 and have had a similar apparently ‘easier’ sch. like everyone claims C’s have had.

I’m laughing to myself at how stupid 95% of this site is coming across right now. Am I the only one that realizes we handed Detroit this game, and Jeff would you please stop labeling the Pistons the best team over one game. We are 20-3 and 4-0 in the Western Conference right now. We have wins against the Lakers, Denver and Golden State and all were blowouts. Those are all playoff teams in the West, so to say we haven’t played ANYONE is a bit of a stretch. Detroit is the first championship contender we have played, but guess what, there are like 3 of those at this point in my eyes, and we are one. So we lost by 2 in a game where Detroit hit outrageous 3s and our best player was straight awful, and you are jumping out first story windows. I’m gonna lose my mind here.

Modawg, I once again agree. Glad I am not alone in not flipping out because of a loss. Good point about the teams we have beat. If Detroit was the ‘best’ how come with a similar apparently ‘easier sch.’ they have 7 losses including a loss to the Bulls? I think we can all agree that the Bulls are not better the the Pistons because they beat them. Let’s see how the Celtics are late in the season not after game 23. They have plenty of time to improve and have plenty og games left with elite teams to prove themselves. Too early to proclaim who is better then who in one game in Dec.

Its like one of those episodes of Happy Days that ends To Be Continued.

As far as some of you saying Peirce didn’t show up, so and so didn’t show up, that’s an easy excuse. Prince and Maxiell had terrible games, too, but I don’t hear anyone saying they’ll play better next time. It is what it is.

Give the Pistons credit. They played better defense in the 3rd quarter and their experience showed down the stretch. If there is ever such a thing as a “good loss”, this was it. The C’s will learn from this and get better. The Pistons have been in games like this before, so their only take-away is seeing the C’s up close and tweaking the game plan the next time they meet. No need for the C’s to hang their heads. We need to take care of the Bulls on Friday and prepare for revenge against the Magic on Sunday. Let’s make sure we have the best record in the East to gain home court advantage. It will matter in the play-offs.

I think a small welcome back to reality is in order for the whole organization. They were getting way too giddy before they played an elite team. We need a competent backup point guard a whole lot more than a competent backup big man.

The Pistons are a better team right now. Period.

The Pistons are a better team right now.

Well, yes and no. Are they efficient and know how to maximize their resources? Absolutely, and from that perspective, they are the better team. On the other foot, we have more talent and the time to gather our horses and start playing in a more efficacious manner. Does that make us the better team for the season, hell yes!

The funny part is if we had won this game, everyone would be talking about how we have now proven ourselves and we are the best. So 2 free throws by Chauncey Billups basically settles the debate of who the best team is? It is extremely apparent that it has been a while in Boston since we were a championship contender.

I wonder if the Spurs are starting to doubt themselves because they lost to Memphis last night? Of course they aren’t, because they realize that you don’t have to beat EVERYONE you play in the regular season, you just need to be the best come the playoffs. This team was not supposed to be where they are this early, so can we stop freaking out every time we lose. It’s like we win 6 or 7 straight, people talk us up, then we lose and its like we are starting over again. Please start thinking rationally, and stop buying into the national hype of how we “haven’t played anyone.” It’s the NBA, they’re all good and we’re still 12-1 at home with just under a 20 point avg margin of victory. That is amazing and needs to be recognized, not overlooked because we lost to the Pistons. Just think, if it had been a bad team people would say “oh that was a fluke.” But since it was the Pistons, it has become a huge deal. This was not game 7 people, it was one regular season game.

Even Chauncey Billups in the post game interview was speaking like a guy who understands how little this game actually meant. Sure he was happy to win, but he’s been there before, and he knows its one game before the all star break. So in the broad spectrum of this season, this game will never be talked about again. The Pistons knew they could beat us before it, and we knew we could beat them. Both teams are great, and a 7 game series is all that will matter in determining that. But from what I saw last night, it is going to be a very physical, well played series between two teams. People act like we lost by 20. It’s just depressing.