I’ve seen this movie before. You know the one where a certain captain refuses to drive to the basket, and the Big Ticket can’t take over the game when it mattered most. And, not, we don’t need Posey!

Bad coaching, bad rotation, bad attitude, and catatonic players.

They came out in the 1st half and thought they would walk all over them. They played the worst half I’ve seen all season (I have League Pass and have seen all the games) in the 2nd half.

This was embarrasing. My wife was dreading the end of the winning streak but I was fine with them losing to the Fakers. This loss pisses me off because they showed no life in the 2nd half.

Tony Allen needs a good shooting coach. KG gets called for traveling at least once a game for his post moves. Has anyone noticed that PP’s shot looks different this year. It seems, especially on 3’s, that his right foot is alot further forward than it used to be. Maybe causing his poor FG% this year? We desperately need a sold FA signing for our bench or we won’t make it this year.

I have been visiting this site for a long time. I post sometimes but read a lot. This is a great team. These two losses will bring out all the doubters and questions of “how good is this team?” I have watched the C’s since their ‘86 title. I have and will always stand behind this team but this shows a chink in the armor. The LA loss could be expected. This loss, 3 of their 4 best players injured, should have been easy. Lack of focus and desire to bounce back killed us. Hopefully we end the road trip 2-2, or every sports reporter, newspaper, and sports show will be talking about us…and we won’t like what they have to say!

Or another thing we can do, give sam cassell some burn.. I know he takes some bad shots, but he’s clutch-worthy, used to close game situations, and he makes the opposing team respect his shot. When rondo is scared to shoot a wide open 5 footer, why not give Cassell a try?

Is it just me, or did they not run any plays for Ray Allen? I know he was in foul trouble..

I’ve been travelling man. But I’ve been reading your posts though, it has kept me both entertained and informed.

Even the greatest of teams have ups and downs in the regular season. After 19 straight, you had to expect this would happen sooner or later.

I am not worried. I actually kind of like that Doc is leaving the bench guys on the floor for longer stretches and making them accountable, it will only make us better come June.

what matters is the we can see what our issues are now, and even the swarms of fools here may well get it soon

summary: need a big. need a bench scorer. need that scorer to be a forward who can play the 3 and 4 on d. can’t count on kG ever to take over a game on offense. please no that ray is way ocd and will have bad stratches that can last entire play off series. rondo can’t shoot a jumper. some of these things can’t be fixed

Yes. Gabe is a scoring point guard, handles pressure better than House, and can also shoot 3s. We ned to see more of him so he can get battle hardened well before the playoffs.

Hey, D Dub, I also like the fact that Doc is leaving the bench guys in longer, but shouldn’t that include more minutes for Gabe? When he’s been played, he showed flashes of competence.

+1 wahz, that’s why you go get starbury.. He can create his own shot, Certainly not afraid to take a big shot when we need it, and he will create better spacing then having eddie house or Tony Turnover slashing.

Also, why not have Obryant start instead of Powe? He might’ve had that certain spark to get the guys going considering he is playing his old team and he would want to stick it to Nelly. Besides, he offers up some height and doesn’t mess with the bench(having Powe come off the bench instead of starting). Thoughts?

Can we stop with the Gabe stuff?? this kid wouldnt have changed a thing in this game, and he’s clearly not going to play in the playoffs, and just isnt an NBA player

are a serious problem with us, and yes I know, it was the same last year…but just imagine how much better this team would be with less turnovers

off topic, but isn’t the NBA fining players for flopping now? Because Ballinelli will probably have to sacrifice his game check for all the flopping he did tonight.

Seriously, how long can we keep blaming the refs for the Celtics problems??? We need to wake up and realise that we’re not as good as we think we are! Our bench sux and at this rate lebron’s going to take the top spot from us. We look like we’re getting old and I think we are!

judging by the praise heaped upon him here i might say so? now the headline is obviously sarcasm, before anyone jumps down my throat. my only point is posey is not the answer. the answer is a big who can anchor the second unit, a mutumbo or a pj. i myself vote for signing big D, but that is just my opinion. winning breeds a lust for wins but i for one am happy to see doc sticking to rotations and not thinking any single game is more important than a season. let the second unit play. if it costs us a game or two in the name of experience it is well worth it. who cares about 70 wins when the goal is #18.

the sky isn’t fallling, this is still the team with the best record in the league. learn how to see things in all those nuanced shades, not just black and white.

To bring the immortal Semih Erden to town?

Seriously, if we aren’t going to give O’Bryant any run, then make a trade. I like the trade idea in another post on here of getting Boone from NJ.

Funny but as I sat back to watch the 4Q with beer in hand the taste got bitter and bitter with each passing sip.

Damn, we blew this game, up by 14. Ray’s effort and the rest of the bench’s effort tonight was as useful for us in trying to win this game as tits on a hog.

It’s past 1AM in my neck of the woods. I wrongly thought going into Sunday’s game that we were a a notch above the rest of the NBA elite. I now think we are in the mix and until we get healthy and get a better bench roster we are one of only about 4 or 5 teams that may win it all this year. As others have said and I agree, we will hit a funk period and here it is.

No Polly Anna posts on how we are still 19-2 from me and no Chicken Little the sky is falling either. Time to regroup and look for bench personnel answers.

My advice:
1) play Pruitt at least 5 to 10 minutes the next 7 games. (these come at Eddie’s expense).
2) activate Sam or I guess he is and give him some minutes too.
3) we need a commitment from PJ or we need to move on. Even if he says yes and slowly and stays inactive (on the 15 man roster but doesn’t suit up, we know we got him and can let him get into playing shape).
4) I don’t know who of the 2 is doing better Walker/JR (hunch it is Walker) but get him up here and give him some of Baby’s and Tony’s minutes too.
5) Eyes and ears, calls, see what we can do before the trade deadline. Baby, Eddie, Tony, Scal, sometime Powe too are killing us. It is now costing us victories against mediocre competition. We can’t expect the starters to play lights out all year long and they too will have so-so games.

• For the second night in a row I see our own players yelling at each other. We need a bench and attitude adjustment.

As Ringo Star used to say, “it don’t come easy”.

Pruitt deserves his shot to excel. If he flops after a half dozen games where he gets a good 5 min. run in 6 straight games (and the minutes are game minutes, not junk time) then I’ll live with the results. We need a back up point. And we better all be sending cards and letters to PJ too. If he doesn’t tip his hand soon that he’s coming back we should be on the horn to the Thunder trying to land Joe Smith. And OB I think is softer than a baby’s bottom.

I thought this past summer we should have made a serious 3 yr deal for Posey and locked him up. Or if he wanted to be cute and continue to test the waters than we at least gave him an honest effort out of the gate. I know on most nights we can beat most NBA teams even with a lackluster bench. But the bench is taxing our starters and it is the bench that has to come through against the Lakers, Cavs, Magic, Hawks type teams not the Thunder, T-wolves, Bobcats, Bulls, and Grizzlies.

The committee to replace Posey needs to step up soon or we need some new members on the committee.

Everyone, well KG and Rondo and Doc tried to play it off saying that they do it all the time, but I seriously think there is something going on internally with the team causing them to behave this way. I’m trying not to look into it too much. But the constant arguing, along with these two losses, its not a coincidence.

I dont know wat Doc is doing. When the second unit comes up, they never pass to Ray. Ray has been up to something and I have no clue what.

Rondo has disappeard, Pierce and KG are trying to hard and failing at it. The bench sucks, and TA is trying to make himself a Posey when hes not, thats why I laughed when he tried to say hes better than Posey. House has become very inconsistent, and soo many problems, my head hurts.

The TO’S are killings us badly. I came into the game thinking, “Oh we shuld put them away quickly and start a new streak”. And now look, Ive spoken to early.

pslakerfan: I dont see anyone complaining about the refs.. So continue looking longer and deeper but u wont find any…

Are you blipping kidding me. The announcers for the Warriors were basically calling out Rondo to shoot the rock! He never did!

I don’t give a darn if he has 10, 15 or 20 assists, 5, 10 or 15 rbs and or however many steals! I will call for this kids head until he begins to shoot the ball!

It appears to me with the exception of Pierce that the rest of the team was cold last night. These are the type of games where Rondo could’ve taken over and or at least tried to not only drive to the basket but keep teams honest by making them defend his shot.

Pathetic and until he does develop something other then a layup and for crying out loud,,,,,,,54% FT shooter! He will never be a true championship caliber PG in the modern day NBA. I don’t care if we did raise 17 last year, because now other teams will get it.

Any team that makes the Warriors look good defensively cannot expect to win the game, it’s as easy as that.

I think people tend to dramatize a bit too much at this point. The team is what? 27-4? And now we need to change the entire bench, give players who hasn’t been doing well a starting chance and so forth? From my point of view it’s still looking very good.

games I’ve seen this team play…real bad, and if they dont pull their heads out of their butt, theyre gonna go 0-4 on this road trip and come home in 2nd place

there’s a lot of blame to go around but start with the NBA and the schedule makers who made the celts play on christmas day and then on the 26th. That has to be the toughest back to back in the season. We’ve been dodging bullets for several weeks now but we had the home court in most of those game and the nba schedule finally caught up to us. I don’t think there’s any reason to panic here but clearly we could be a better team with more size and more scoring off our bench. If we can’t swing a deal for joe smith or PJ then let’s bring back giddens or walker or both. I was hoping for more out of gabe this year but he doesn’t seem aggressive enough when he’s out there. I think doc needs to give him the green light. Conversely Leon needs the yellow light because when the ball swings to him it never comes back. Rondo was clearly off last night with 7 turnovers and ray had a poor game but jackson is a tough cover for him. that guy always kills us. Someone suggested trading for him and I say why not? he would be a perfect 6th man. would scal and tony allen be enough to get it done? anyhow outside of eddie and leon I say everyone else is fair game in a trade

The issue is not why House played almost the entire 4th quarter. The issue is why Ray Allen didn’t.

Agree 100% that it’s Gabe Pruitt time. House is too short to be a full-time shooting guard.

The next time Rivers complains about not having enough “length,” he ought to just shut up.

I’ve never posted here before but I’ve been reading for a while now. I’m a lifelong NBA fan. I’ve really enjoyed watching the celtics last season and so far this season as it is a true story of redemption for KG, Pierce and Ray (indiviudally they had all been written off).
I just wanted to say:
1) Don’t feel too bad, every team takes a night off sooner or later, it is an 82 game season (note to “NCAA is better than NBA ball people”, if NBA players played less than 40 games with no back to backs they would be pumped up for every game also).
2) Additionally, any team at this level can get hot for at least one night. The Celtics just got unlucky enough for this to happen to them. Christmas day the Cavs almost lost to the Washington Mike James’es. Detroit only beat the laughable Thunder by 2 last night. It happens.
I wouldn’t worry about it, not every game is going to come off a back to back and not every game is going to come when your starting center is sitting out. The team’s chances of taking down the ’96 Bulls however appears in serious jeopardy

It seems as if the sky is falling in. It’s time to place blame. Might we be a bit realistic about these last two games. They were due to lose sometime. Fatique might be a factor due to the travel circumstances and back to backs. The NBA is an incredibly tough league to play in. The game itself is exhausting, both physically and mentally. The season is long. The schedule is crazy. The travel conditions are insane. It is amazing these guys play as well as they do night after night. Even the best team will have a lull sometime during a season. In addition, we know Perk is hurt because he said so. Do we know if anyone else is hurt (who are not saying so)? It’s not time to break up the Celtics. It is time for us fans to calm down, face reality and not have unreasonable expectations. Does everyone participating in this discussion not have a few bad days at work or home every once in a while?

not cool, but its the name of the game…Also not to use this as an excuse but these guys are away from their families during the holidays and are just mentally and physically exhausted right now…hopefully they can re-group in Sacremento, neither of these last 2 games are gonna be a gimme the way we’ve been playing.

Also, I love the balance of this team, but I think it can actually hurt us at times, including on the road in last years playoffs.. we have 3 superstars on the team who dont play like superstars, sometimes you just gotta ride the hot hand, which has been Pierce lately, and hes only getting like 13-14 shots, He should of had 20 shots in that LA game.

rondos jumpshooting problems are really annoying as well, I love rondo as a player, but seriously my man sometimes youre way to unselfish its ridicoulous.

Also, every time Perk is out, KG is lost, why is that?

Well, Derek Fisher for the Lakers when Kobe and Shaq were together for one! Two Tony Parker in San Antonio! Chauncy Billups in Detroit for a third example. Now granted when I wrote that post I was exhausted and irritated. Since I woke up and had my cup of coffee I am a little more even keeled. However, what really got to me is that Rondo was given some wide open shots in the 3rd and 4th quarter and he made one attempt. The good is he has made himself into a pass first point guard which I can appreciate. The problem and I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE! If we had a Chris Paul or Devon Harris type of player they would probably take over some of the scoring woes that occurred in those quarters while Rondo was on the court. Check out NBA.com and compare Rondo and Harris. All I’m saying is Rondo needs to do more then make floaters and layups! Cross our fingers on Perkins bec the defense in the paint suffered big time. Didn’t realize how much Perk would be missed.

they have hit the wall. they have been very intense and the big three look tired. doc does have to spot them more and gabe would be a good choice. pp played well but was beat at the end and kg is not going to the offensive boards. big baby had the most energy last nite. last year, they pooped on the west coast trip and did it again. se la vie. ray has definitely looked unsmooth which is not his nature. the warriors were missing a lot of their important pieces and played alive in the 2nd half. i miss monta.

I’m not a believer in attacking sports figures personally for their lackluster performances on the court or on the field. However, I think objective rating of an professional athlete’s performance is the right of any sports fan.

The Celtics second unit just can’t cut it. All of this talk about lack of focus misses the point that this unit is severely limited physically. It fields two 6’ 7" post players who are too slow to cover small forwards, who have no game facing the basket (yes, BIg Baby occasionally puts up a tenuous jumper) and who have trouble covering offensive players who have length.

They have a point guard who has weak ball handling skills, who can’t create his own offense, and is too short (he looks more like he’s 5’ 10" or 5’11" than 6’ 1") to cover most guards.

I have always been a defender of Tony Allen, but let’s face it — he’s a liability. How many times does he fumble the ball, commit offensive fouls, and fail to finish at the basket? You can’t say he creates his own offense if he doesn’t score at the end of the play. I wince at the number of high dribbles he makes and am surprised that he isn’t called for it. Someone is eventually going to point this out to the refs.

These guys are probably all fine people and deserve some place in the NBA. But, they cannot play as a unit. Some of them are not talented enough to be in a NBA rotation. They have to be relegated to spot action with skilled starters or serve primarliy as practice and garbage time players.

It’s so funny reading these comments..2 things jump out at me:

1. Just like football, the second string qb is always the most popular player. It’s amazing to see the infatuation with Pruit considering the fact that he hasn’t shown any potential to do anything. If I didn’t know any better it sounds like he’s the second coming of Chris Paul.

2. Chill out. 2 losses in a row and we’re ready to revamp the entire roster. Forget about 19 wins in a row….2 losses and we’re a terrible team!! Ha…it’s amazing. Did you really think we were going to go 79-3 on the season? It’s a race, not a marathon.

Everything is fine…come back from that ledge.

From the worst post – frank gibbons – to the best one. Back to back.
frank gibbons, our 2nd unit is not a first unit for a very good reason. But that doesn’t mean they don’t belong in the NBA. Give me a break! You need to see the forest (27-4) through the trees (0-2). I don’t know how many games you’ve watched but Leon and Big Baby get it done most nights. The most over-rated “need” in blogosphere is for “length” . The most under-rated talents are lateral quickness and hands. Leon Powe has to lead league in charges taken per minute (ie lateral quickness) and Big Baby and Leon both play position defense and have way above average hands.

uccs, you are right re. “chill out”. But I do agree with the concensus here that Pruitt should see more minutes. Not necessarily at Eddie’s expense, who can play the #2. Pruitt has shown defense and shooting skill. He hasn’t shown that he can lead the offense. But a year ago Leon was just now getting some real minutes and BBD too for that matter. So I think we will see more of Pruitt and O’Bryant as well (giving the blogosphere its "length").

Calm down folks. Danny and Doc have earned your patience.

I had know idea you were a Laker’s fan. Hats off to you for a good game and I think Odom is better suited coming off the bench. I would say we will see you in the finals but apparently we see you at the Garden before that. I don’t know what rumors were floating about Fisher being on the block but he came through for you guys on several occasions verse the Spurs. Anyway, Rondo has got to learn to shoot and make teams respect that part of the game and if that happens then even with our bench the only team I see beating us is Cleveland. However, that is a tall order.

We lost to GSW because we do not know what are we playing into since 3 out of 4 of their best players are out with injuries.

The only way we can continue streaking is to continue to be consistent with our plays and defensive gameplan. A team who has a lot of variables can cause us problems like the GSW team.

We are not a team who can cope up with a lot of uncertainties—our offense and defense is geared specifically for a match-up, geared for a particular play for a particular team. Variables are not in our equation. That is why the bickering—they met a lot of variables in the last two games. Things they did not anticipate.

As soon as we met them all, we adjust. We continue these march to greatness.

Those are just variables in our team that we can learn and adjust quickly. That is why the turnovers and the bickering.

Cold shooting we can handle, short bench we already know, bad refereeing is a fixed predicament. It was the opposing teams variable. Usually these variables come out of the scouting report. Not the past two losses.

We need to show them that we know how to keep poise if they present us with a surprise. We should have a counter surprise. Play or a defensive execution whatever.

The lakers have a lot of variables this season. Cleveland we already know what to expect. They are the same team as us. But their offense we can handle.

Rondo is not a leader. The big three should agree among themselves who will takeover in a particular stretch. Rondo loses his poise in this situation a number of times.

Well at least someone agrees with me about Rondo. Mine as well see what Pruitt can do outside of practice. Or maybe in two drafts look for a PG of the future bec I don’t know where Rondo would be with only 1 orf two of the big 3?