Hes playing spectacular on his bday, and killing Nash again. I hope he gets the win on his bday.. :)

Maybe the sleeve’s his bday present from the basketball gods. :P

BIG hint of the offensive greatness this young man can become. VERY impressive.

No Garnett, no problem. They almost had three guys over 30 pts. Have the Celtics ever done that?

Frankly, the Celtics got the benefit of some close calls on the road, especially in Q3. It was almost as though the officials were embarrassed by what happened in Utah the other night.

when he peaks!!!, he would be burying those elbow 15-20 footers with consistency I hope….All he will need is another Kevin to partner him in the future(…. Durant I Hope)

Rajon Rondo showing why he’s going to be a blast to watch in years to come. Ray continuing to be the most consistent Celtic on the team. Great stops overall.

Solid game from Baby (great stretch late in the 2nd quarter with the two forced charges on Shaq and the two jumpers), and good hustle from Powe. Scal scored 14 points to offset the fact that the Suns small ball lineup (with Hill at the 4) made him a defensive liability.

On the other hand, House and Pruitt were absolutely invisible out there. Luckily our starting backcourt scored 63… This was one of those games where we really missed TA—he could have got to rim just as easily as Rondo did…

Rondo was the best player on the floor for most of this game, much needed win and a great job overall

Why are people knocking Pruitt? He made a good defensive play on Barbosa and otherwise stayed within his role. Greez, the guy only played a couple of minutes.

when Rajon has a game like this. Thank goodness Danny saw the potential in THAT draft pick.

Just realized we still had 19 turnovers and pierce played 43+ for his 4th straight game…yikes

not our best game but one of the fun ones. 1. the suns are a terrible defensive team. 2. shaq can’t keep up in a running game. 3. rondo and ray were some backcourt today. mr. inside and outside, the both of them. 4. i have gnarled my teeth many times at scal, but he has been rejuvenated, and he came up big. 5. bbd can hit the jumper with no one in his face. 6. pp is on target after a poor start but he still plays great d and boards even when he’s cold on offense. 7. pruitt is self conscious- hope the doc lets him play thru these tough times. 8. i loved listening to thom t. screaming all game when they were on d.

Powe played poorly. Anyone else see him get owned by Shaq on that post up at the end of the 1st half. Proves he CAN NOT play center under any circumstances.

Big Baby on the other hand, played extremely good defense today. Picking up a steal, couple blocks, couple offensive boards, boxed out well, played good help d, and did a pretty good job bodying up Shaq.

I think Scalabrine’s play goes without saying. He is soo smart out there.

When Eddie was on fire earlier this year he too had just switched to the sleeve. If we could just get a pair of gloves made out of the same material maybe Perk would stop having Kwame Brown-like stone hands.

Especially after Phoenix came out smoking. Celtic defense was too much for them and they have no defense. The game plan was great. It also helped that we got a fairly well-called game. We got the calls we should have gotten and even a few we probably shouldn’t have. We had alot of turnovers and missed alot of free throws as in other games, but we still were able to win because of the officiating. It just gets one madder about those other games we lost because of officials.

They were just terrible, but I’d rather have bad announcers and a well-officiated game any day.
It was wonderful hearing about VanGundy’s high school teammates and about the academy awards while the game was going on. It was also great to hear that they get their facts right as when they said the C’s went 8-1 last year when KG was hurt. Unfortunately it was 7-2. Why can’t we just get Mike and Tommy or Donny to also do the games that are on national TV. I think that was done when we played Utah.

People seem to think that Terry Porter severely slowed down the Suns… they were playing at the 6th fastest pace in the league before he was fired (they’ve climbed into a virtual tie for 4th now). The problem was Porter’s schemes and lineup combinations…the guys at Baskeball Prospectus did a nice job looking at this, showing that the pace of play wasn’t really the problem:

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=549

As Pelton put it in this article, “If Phoenix remains intact, I don’t think massive changes are needed so much as a few tweaks here and there. Most of the analysis will start with encouraging Gentry to play faster, but I think that’s a red herring. Over the course of the season, the Suns are sixth in the league in pace. However, since about the 30-game mark of the season, they’ve been playing just as fast as they did under D’Antoni. In that span, the offense has gotten worse.”

“Whats more impressive? Scoring 128 (most this year) or holding the Suns to 108? I say the latter.”

By my calculations, there were between 102 and 103 possessions in this game- Offensive efficiency of 124.9 and defensive efficiency of 105.4, against a team that averages 109.5 offensive and 106.3 defensive efficiency? I’d have to argue that the Celtics offense was clearly the more impressive phase of the game on this day

(Phoenix defends slightly better and scores slightly less efficiently when Amare doesn’t play, according to 82games.com, so the Celtics defensive efficiency, adjusted for his absence, was pretty close to Suns’ offensive season efficiency, while the Celtics offensive efficiency is still FAR greater than both the Celtics’ norm and what Phoenix normally allows)

If I heard correctly, Steve Kerr said in an interview during the game, that Porter wanted to establish defense as a priority as that has always been missing in Phoenix. Bringing in Shaq doesn’t bode well for an uptempo game. (He was clearly run out of town yesterday by both teams). Scoring 143 points is great, but you don’t win championships that way. Porter should have been allowed to stay and establish Phoenix as a good defensive team. Good defense often comes from the right type of offense. Shooting quick and often doesn’t lead to good defense. Kerr should have made personnel changes to allow this. This takes years. Phoenix will go nowhere by firing Porter. The funny thing is that Danny Ainge has shown everyone else how to build a winning team. It takes awhile, but it can be done. Some teams are moving in the direction shown by Ainge and also by Doc in the way he gets his players to come together. A trip to Italy, a barbecue in Orlando, a team dinner, a movie or bowling night.

I read today that the C’s arrived in Phoenix 4 hours before the game. That’s why they were sluggish at the start. The fact that they were able to get thru this and stay pretty close in the first quarter really shows how much heart this team has.

Just wondering, i noticed that perk only played 18 Minutes, haven’t checked out his minutes average but i think its a little low, is he ok? was he benched because the C’s always had the lead and Scall/Powe/Davis played well? or is there something wrong with him? I also notice an “angry” face of him at the end of the game when he was at the bench!