Well i was worried about he bench tonight but Leon Powe came through tonight with his best game of the year. I missed the big baby incident since we already had the game in hand i went to grab an extra beer. But i dont think that should affect us at all?

first on big baby, I agree there is reason to be concerned. sure the bench stunk it up and they rightfully deserved some criticism but kg has to be careful that he doesn’t lose those guys or create division within the team. from my POV baby needs to do a lot of growing up. Pierce had another subar game. 4 turnovers and bad shooting and get this ZERO rebounds. that is very unlike pierce. I suspect he is nursing some kind of injury that he’s not talking about. he tried hard on D. Bavetta also took away Pierce’s game tonight with thosse 2 ridiculoous offensive fouls .

comcast coverage did not discuss the baby incident or i was surfing. the blazers were chippy for a while and could not back it up. they are good but too young and seem intimidated by the c’s. another super game from rondo but let’s not overlook ray and his overall play. and perk is mature and oden is not.

two emotional guys got caught in the heat of the moment. happens all the time. espn just happened to broadcast it. no animosity was apparent by game’s end, which the espn crew did acknowledge. this is nothing. baby has been playing very good for us this year. he played out of character tonight, kg called him on it (possibly too harshly), baby overreacted, they gave each other dap at the end of the game, and i’m sure they talked about it in the locker room, issue is almost certainly squashed.

KG – Big Baby interaction

i feel like this is feeding off a tendency to overanalyze everything to absurd degrees. this isn’t a play date on the jungle gym, its a nba team. yes, perhaps kg was slightly aggressive, and yes bbd took it to personally but i have no doubt this will be worked out internally to the satisfaction of all. if it wasn’t being blown up, in ways it shouldn’t be, all over the media it wouldn’t be an issue at all. i don’t know, it seems some people think this is the decline of the roman empire when it seems to be the kind of thing that goes on all the time in professional sports and will be a thing of the past within days, if not quicker. maybe i’m just giving the benefit of the doubt but i hardly see this as the team falling apart and the collapse of a bright era. also, you can’t have it both ways with kg, or pp for that matter, these people aren’t infalliable and the same kg that gets you to work extra hard in practice is going to be the one who calls you on your bs in a game. that doesn’t seem like a bad thing in either situation to this guy.

Portland is ridiculously talented and young. If McMillan can keep his guys on track (he lost Ray Allen and the Sonics with his abrasive style) the Trailblazers could be THE team in the West.

The C’s starters played well. Rondo and Perk are starting to show some consistancy game to game. If they can keep it up, the Celts could be even better than last season. That’s hard to believe.

As far as the Davis outburst, I thought the commentators had it right. Vets can and will get on the younger players when they are not holding their own on the court. That’s what vets are supposed to do. It can’t be all Doc. The collapse wasn’t all on Davis, but he took it like that.

KG was doing the right thing by pulling Baby into the huddle and then trying to keep him there. A lesser teammate would have been happy to have Davis at the end of the bench.

I agree that this was blown out of proportion, but it makes for good tv, so ESPN ran with it.

Can’t imagine this having more than 24hrs of life..btw..Davis looked more frustrated than teary eyed..could have been worse, could’ve played like Oden …

I don’t know what happened, but I found a curious play. Powe missed, and he was besides Aldrige going back for defense, everyone was already back. Aldrige started sprinting, while Powe didn’t bother to run faster… no one picked up Aldrige and he got an uncontested layup once the ball got to him. Davis had already picked up a man and didn’t notice Aldrige coming. At that moment Doc called POB to get him into the game… soon after a timeout was called.

So, my question is… who was at fault for Aldrige having that layup? Powe for not running back quick enough? Or Davis for not seeing Aldrige?

I ask because soon after in that timeout it was when Garnett called Baby out, so I’m wondering if it was particularly about this play. Maybe Davis didn’t think he was at fault here or something? Don’t know, but worth considering.

I like when a vet call a young guy to do the right thing (be in the huddle) and I like a young guy showing that rage because he is playing bad in a game you’re winning.
So no matter about that incident.

Other then giving us and the national media something to talk about it is irrelevant. These players are professionals.
    
I love seeing this offense run through Rondo more. Perk is showing more all the time also. Ray Allen looks terrific. To see this team basically blow out the Blazers with Pierce playing sub-par show considerable improvement in the overall team.

Expectation that the second unit is going to hold or expand leads every game is not realistic. The argument could easily be made that substitutions should have been made quicker to prevent the run. Portland is a very deep talented team and they made a run.

As stated earlier there is considerable value to Tony Allen in this second unit.

Very impressive win for the Celtics.

  First, I’m a die-hard Celts fan, but the realization has to be that Portland SHOULD be a much better team in several years. This assumes:

 No major injuries.

Oden learns how to spend his fouls and upfake.

The Coach doesnt lose his team someway.

Free Agency doesn’t rip it apart. (Tough for the ‘smaller towns’ like Portland to compete with the LA and Miami glitz and the NY money). (Same for Boston BTW).

=

This also assumes Danny has no more magic left in three years to replace RA, KG, PP in the next three years. (If Walker, Gibbens and/or Tony Allen make a JUMP in skills, it would not surprise me to see RAllen traded after this season).

Hi,
defense, defense..this is the key to be the champion again

The second unit missed Tony Allen last night.

As for the rest of the game, Portland looked a little road weary. Oden picked up two very cheap fouls and Roy obviously hurt his leg, even though he went back into the game.

But IMHO the key to the win was the superb defensive job by KG on Lamarcus Aldridge. Aldridge hit a few jumpers, but otherwise had no impact on the game.

1. The C’s are now making up plays while the game is going on. I loved it when late in the 4th quarter Rondo was yelling at Perk to go to the other side of the line (which he did) and then did the alley-oop thing with KG. To me the great thing about it was that all the C’s knew what was going on while Portland didn’t have a clue.

2. I think Nate McMillan set a poor example to his team by not putting his starters back in when the C’s did in the 4th quarter. The Blazers cut the lead and had a real chance to win with plenty of time left. It’s bad when a team quits, but worse when the coach quits. And from what I could see of the Blazer’s bench they either couldn’t care less or didn’t understand the situation.

My seats are close to court and I watched all the Portland players closely. They LOOK great. Not sure about Blake at point. Seemed he held the ball too much (maybe Celts D). Roy, Aldridge, Batum, Outlaw, 2 Spaniards, Pryzbilla – very complete looking team. But we demolished them. We are looking very good and we didn’t show them Tony Allen. I’m sold on Oden as a nice kid, easy to root for, but he looks like Sam Dalembert, not Bill Russell. Still, they have scary raw talent. The first quarter was a game. We had a hard time getting open looks.