Boston Aims for 3-0 Against Pesky Chicago
by Greg Payne on Oct 30, 2009 6:04 PM EDT
in Boston Celtics Games
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PrintChicago Bulls at Boston Celtics, Oct 30, 2009 8:00 PM EDT
The Boston Celtics continue their three-game home stand tonight when the Chicago Bulls visit the TD Garden at 8:00pm.
Boston takes the court tonight fresh off a dominating win over the Charlotte Bobcats on Wednesday, in which they held Larry Brown's team to a franchise-low 59 points. The Bulls find themselves in the second game of a back-to-back after impressively vanquishing the San Antonio Spurs in Chicago in their first game of the season last night, 92-85. Chicago saw six players score in double figures last night, including 17 from a healthy Luol Deng.
This marks the first game between these two squads since last season's Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, which went the full seven games and featured seven overtime periods. The Celtics were fortunate to move on from that series, but not before it became clear Chicago point guard Derrick Rose was perfectly capable of carrying a team on his own. Rose averaged an eye opening 19.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 6.4 assists as a rookie in last year's opening round loss to the Celtics, and engaged in a memorable one-on-one war with Rajon Rondo.
Rose scored 13 points to go along with seven rebounds and seven assists against the Spurs last night, so expect him and Rondo to renew their personal rivalry in tonight's game, which will take center stage amidst all of the media hype.
Don't sleep on the Paul Pierce - Luol Deng matchup, as Deng has proven to be one of the few defenders capable of bothering Pierce's offensive game in the past. Deng missed the 2009 postseason, but the Duke product seems poised to make amends for lost time.
Projected Starters:
Celtics: Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins
Bulls: Derrick Rose, John Salmons, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah
Health Check: For the Celtics, guard Tony Allen (ankle), forward Brian Scalabrine (ankle), forward Bill Walker (knee) and forward Glen Davis (thumb) are all out.
The Bulls are healthy.
Keep it in Mind: Ben Gordon, Chicago's leading scorer in the playoffs last year (24.3 points) is now a member of the Detroit Pistons.
Who's Hot: For the Celtics, Rajon Rondo shot 5-6 from the floor against the Bobcats on Wednesday, totaling 10 points to go along with 11 assists.
For the Bulls, Luol Deng shot 8 of 13 en route to his 17 points against the Spurs last night.
Who's Not: For the Celtics, Ray Allen amassed 18 points against Charlotte, but had to shoot 17 shots to get there, making only six of them.
The Bulls as a team last night shot only 35-84 (41.7 percent) from the floor.
Key Matchup: Rajon Rondo vs. Derrick Rose.
Honorable Mention: Paul Pierce vs. Luol Deng and Kendrick Perkins vs. Joakim Noah
Skinny: The Bulls are a high energy team (regardless of their game last night) with guys like Rose, Noah and and Tyrus Thomas leading the pack, so expect them to come out hard in the first quarter tonight. The Celtics need to be ready to combat that energy early and try and stifle Chicago's offense and rhythm in the opening frame.
Chicago's coming off of an impressive win after taking down one of the Western Conference's best squads and even with Kevin Garnett back in the lineup for the C's, don't expect Chicago to be intimidated at any point during this game tonight.
Expect the Rondo - Rose matchup to live up to the expectations, but be sure to keep an eye on Pierce and Deng as well. Another interesting matchup will be Thomas against Garnett, as Thomas is arguably more adept at perusing the perimeter. Let's see if Chicago coach Vinny Del Negro tries to draw Garnett away from the paint to better free up his main slasher in Rose. Keep in mind though that Charlotte employed a similar strategy with Boris Diaw on Wednesday night and Garnett still finished with three blocks.
The Bulls clearly have a strong collection of players who are capable of scoring the basketball, but in the Celtics' first two games this season, opponents have shot a combined 36.1 percent from the field and have scored an average of 74 points. Defense will once again take priority tonight, but Boston will be up against a much more offensively capable team compared to the Charlotte squad they saw on Wednesday night.
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I think it'll be somewhat close
But I think the Celtics bench will be the difference. Celtics by 9!
Deng hasn’t been as good lately on Pierce. Obviously he’s had injury issues, but I think it’s mostly been that their team defense can’t gang up on Paul so much anymore.
Tyrus Thomas seemed to be all over the place in the snippets I caught of last night’s game. I’ll be interested to see what he does against our frontline and vice verse. The Bulls on the whole looked very good last night. The East should be pretty competitive this year if Washington, Chicago and Toronto all pick themselves up off the mat (I guess Chicago already did second half last year but you get the point).
I predict an easy win for the C's.
The game will be close in the first half but the C’s will pull out on all cylinders in the third, and the bench will finish Chicago. +15 for Boston at the end.
Still, the game will be interesting because it coudl be physical. Can’t wait to see Rondo perform against Rose, I expect a good game from Rajon.
Let’s go Celtics!
Nice to hype the game by comparing this year to last, BUT......
For them:Lose Gordon gain Deng>>>>>>>a wash
For us:::::gain KG, gain Sheed, gain Daniels, no Baby, no Powe…..big +++++
Maybe the game will be close, but we’ve got something to prove: that they played over their heads last year and we were hugely undermanned…..
We win by 15
22 against???
Seriously??? 22 people voted that the Bulls would win?
The reasoning behind that thought process begs explanation.
For years the Bulls have done much better against the C’s than they should expect, dating all the way back to—dare I say it—Pitino’s tenure. And if they can beat SA, we ought to recognize that the Bulls can pick off the C’s if Doc and our players aren’t careful.
by Thruthelookingglass on Oct 30, 2009 6:39 PM EDT up reply actions
And rising
It’s up to 35 votes now. Why? They beat San Antonio! One of the premier teams in the league. They play with great energy and have a shooters chance just like most good NBA teams. Go ahead and take them for granted because Boston won 2 games. Too early in the season to be so cocky!
Should Be a Good Game
I watched Chicago last night. They shared the ball and executed their defensive rotations. They played as a team, and beat a pretty good team.
I expect the Celtics to win, but only if they play well. These guys are not the Charlotte Bobcats.
Vinny Del Negro
The NBA often eats young inexperienced coaches alive (young players, too) but it looks to me like Vinny Del Negro is a pretty good coach. He has some experienced assistants (e.g Bernie Bickerstaff) but so far the Bulls staff has a relatively young team playing the right way.
some pre-game notes
Doc says Scal will not be playing tonight- he is game-to-game at this point
When asked about Tony Allen, Doc said he had no idea and he hasnt talked about the situation with anyone in about 5 days… can’t mean good things for Tony Allen.
Ray Allen and Doc both think the Bulls are better teams this year than last year. Ray says that the fact the Bulls took them to 7 games makes them realize how important home court advantage is, and how important the regular season is. Doc says that the loss of Gordon isn’t going to hurt the Bulls much at all
Big Baby was in the lockerroom during pre-game interviews but I didn’t see him talking to anyone. He was sporting a cast on his right arm going over his hand. He looked pretty dissapointed. Doc said that Baby did address the team and apologized for the situation.
Bill Walker was also in the lockerroom, he was in good spirits, had a brace on his leg, and was pretty sweaty, so it’s obvious he is working out to get back in shape.
Halftime
Shelden Williams is a heck of a lot better and more active than I was expecting. He may get no minutes when Davis is back up and running. But he’ll sure be nice to have for insurance (like right now).
Also, I love seeing Daniels and House out there as a backup backcourt. House looks like a different guy this season, now that he no longer has to try to be guarding 2 guards (as when he was out there last season with Marbury).
if he keeps on improving i think bbd will have to prove a lot more for minutes
ten points and ten rebounds in about 24 minutes of play is solid, solid defense for the second unit and he could just be the 4th or 5th option on offense since offensively the 2nd unit is also stacked with house, sheed, and daniels, williams can just focus on getting the rebounds both defensively and offensively.
gotta love these nail biter games
up 30 in the 3rd
can we just skip to the Finals now?
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" Henry V
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