Exhausting

me a headache literally, I have screamed so much at the TV that it has rattled my brain.

after a great comeback in the fourth quarter, the veteran Celtics blew this game and likely the series. Honestly, the Bulls deserve to win. I felt so badly for Pierce tonight. Except for a few glimmers he was awful. And what was up with Rondo never taking the ball to the hoop. I know he had 19 assists, which is tremendous, but he truly looked afraid to take the ball to the rim. Amazing how Orlando can win without the defensive player of the year, but the Celtics can’t beat the Bulls.

Awesome effort by Ray Allen.

This may be the best playoff series in the history of the NBA, and it is being played by two slightly better than average playoff teams!

the current Celtics bench is the worst in the playoffs, and worst by a long shot, Cannot win a playoff series with ZERO bench.

Hmmm … We turn a 12-point deficit into an 8-point lead in about six minutes with the starting five, so what’s Doc’s bright idea? PUT TONY ALLEN, WHO DOESN’T KNOW HIS ASS FROM HIS ELBOW, IN FOR BIG BABY.

If Baby’s in for TA at the end of regulation, we win. End of sentence, end of story, end of series. This is entirely on Doc. Instead of facing a Game 1 on Sunday, we have a Game 7 in less than 36 hours on EXHAUSTED legs. Good going moron. I’ve had it.

why is he playing?

Doc wrote up a number of great plays that were executed very well. You can’t blame it on him. He also called a play for Rondo just before that that was beautiful. He drew up the call for House. He made plays for Allen. So he’s not perfect. If anything, blame it on the Bulls.

right Doc?

I don’t even know what to expect for game 7. I don’t even know if I want to know.

Even though there might have been moments where you question him there is no way that he is getting outcoached by Vinny Del Negro. No matter what, the celtics have the advantage when it comes to coaches. If the bulls had doug collins drawing up those plays in the final seconds they would actually run plays instead of desperate isos.

did you bet thousand of bucks for this?

just wait for game 7.

then sit back,relax and enjoy the series!

c’mon, during this game rondo just dribbled the ball until there was like 5s or so left, then pass—-once ray or others made it, it was an assist.

Part of Doc’s coaching is about managing the egos of the team and defining roles – its easier said than done telling Pierce he in no longer the “closer” on end of game posessions…

Ray should have had more shots in a number of these games, but its not like you can just do it and have no consequence…

Boston can’t defend with this group consistently – bottom line….they will be lucky to win game 7, just like either team has been lucky to win any of these games, save game 3…

If they get by the Bulls it’ll still be about whether or not KG come back – this team is all O and no D…there’s no future in that…

Doc Rivers, thanks for screwing us again. River’s Bizzarro-Coaching thought:
“Hmm, were up by 8, let’s put Tony Allen in, he hasn’t scored a point, heck he nearly lost game 5 for us. We’ll take out Baby Davis, our go to guy when Ray and Pierce bail out. Hmm, two bricks by Tony, I think I’ll stick with him in OT. "

Doc: “No Pierce, I don’t want you to take the ball at the top of the key where you hit all your shots, I’m putting you on the wing to take fadeaways, where you never hit them, and it’ll make it easier for the Bulls to double you on the wing,”

I know one thing…I miss the hell out of " KEVIN MAURICE GARNETT"….!!!!!

While I think Doc was outcoached tonight, I actually feel badly for the guy. He has NO ONE on the bench he can put in the game and depend on. What does it say when the best bench player tonight was a guy who has missed about two months, and is a low, big, white guy with few if any skills? Danny, ask Wyc for more money and please spend it wisely next year to build a bench.

In Bizzarro World, Rondo strokes those shots: “me bizzarro doc, you no complain Ray, you ’fraid to shoot ball, you no good, me go to my best shooter rondo.”

He was the team’s leading scorer coming into this game and he vanished because the crowd was taunting him. It’s on him to initiate the aggressive offense that wins us games. Other than Ray (who was on fire) everyone else should have been driving to the hoop in the 4th-OT3. The only one who did this? Baby. Rondo drove to the hoop once in the middle of OT3, but that was it for the whole game. Anyone know what was wrong with him? Just rattled? Ankle acting up? Just an off game for a blooming star?

Enough mistakes here to fill another 200 posts. Let’s not dwell. Saturday – Rondo shows up and we stay out of foul trouble and I feel good. Rondo disappears and we pray that Jesus Shuttlesworth plays out of his mind? Time to start thinking about next season.

there are no ref consiparicy theorists tonight on the celtics blog. If the bulls lost, the bulls blog would all be up in arms about the rondo goaltend as well as getting all nitpicky about questionable foul calls which always happen regardless of the team.

Although I dislike most of the boston team, Perkins and Davis have come a long way although they are playing against the bulls frontcourt…and Ray Allen is pretty amazing.

You guys sure the game is at 8:30 PM on Saturday?

Had Big baby been in there…we would have had a 3rd outside shot option and at worst…Big baby would have made 1 0f the 2 shots TA missed… I know the Bulls went small..but Big baby was badly needed. I would have been more comfortable with Marbury instead of TA…Was a bit frustrating…but loved the heart especially being behind in in 2 OT and 3 OT.

Pierce had a great look at end of 1st OT..clear shot…just didn’t go

Honestly, Walked can’t be any worse than TA, Moore, or Starbury. I’d seriously much rather see him out there than any of those three.

Also, no excuses for Eddie House – your job is to make threes. Yes, that means knowing when you are shooting a 3 or a very long 2. Toe on the line? I can forgive it. Both feet clearly halfway over the line? You blew it.

NO KG, No Powe, Rondo has 2 bad ankles, Scal is still woozy (lol), and Pierce has an undisclosed injury…we’ll finally hear about it after playoffs.

problem with that is that Eddie can’t set and shoot..he shoots where he catches…I was OK with the shot especially with 24 seconds still left.

It’s amazing after watching Big Baby help give this game away, Rivers is actually the bad guy on this blog for not subbing him for TA earlier in the game. Fact of the matter is they both suck at crunch time and Paul Pierce, for all his heroics turns the ball over waaaaaayy too much late in games!! To have not gotten the ball to an unconscious Ray Allen in the third overtime is just criminal. But blame the tame Rondo…not Doc. Those assist numbers that Rondo put up tonite is one of the most lying stat lines i’ve ever seen in my life. Hell i could’ve had at least twelve assists the way RayRay shot tonite.
Just too many stupid blown plays by Baby tonite. And freakin awesome display by Rose. sheeesh…how dangerous is rose gonna be in a couple of years?

when they finally switched to the Houston game…there was 8 min left in the 3rd qtr…LOL

How did Glenn Davis lose the game for us? Can you elaborate on that? We had 27 minutes of crunch time tonight. Big Baby had some huge baskets, but I guess you werent paying attention at those points.

Awesome display by Rose? Ya, how about those 5 turnovers.

Hate to see Ray’s 51 points went down the drain, all for nothing. Some of those 3 pointers were absolutely amazing, especially the one that sent the game to 3OT.

Rondo was playing with two bad ankles. Why would Doc let him go 1-on-1 on Rose in the final play? With 2 minutes left in regulation, we were up 8 and Rondo had 2 FT. He missed them both. Those were two huges misses.

Whoops — never mind!

Hopefully he learned a lesson tonight! He cannot allow himself to be rattled by the crowd and to be worried about retaliation. Great point guards put that stuff out of their heads, and Rondo will be great, soon.

It was an entertaining game – a very entertaining one — but the C’s delivered a knockout punch in the 4th quarter to build an 8 point lead and all they had to do from there was run their offense and trade baskets. Instead Rondo clanked two FT’s which totally changed the momentum and then Tony Allen found himself shooting on subsequent posessions. A team this thin on the bench really doesn’t want to go to OT, so I really think they blew their best chance to win right there.

That’s why I say this wasn’t a great game for the C’s. If they end up losing he series, you can point to that sequence right there as the reason.

TA lost this game for us….Doc coached well but this one cost them. If you’re thinking of putting TA in, might as well consider starbury or even Bill Walker.

Is I wish I had each of these games saved on my TiVo to keep. 7 Overtimes!!!

Meforyou is out of touch… Maybe he was thinking of gane 4 when Big baby missed all those easy layups….LOL

he played huge tonight…yes there was a period where he missed 3-4 shots in a row…but he mad atonn of big shots…remember the lauy and FT (3 pt play in 3rd OT) How about the big shot off the inbounds pass with 3 seconds to shoot… People are quick to criticize…but always forget the good

Rondo will not be suspended…Both players were tangled up and falling backwards…if anything heinrich was the aggressor because he pushed Rondo

Fine thats why he got a Flag 1…Why did heinrich get a T?/ because he pushed Rondo in the chest….OK?

Flag 1 does not carry a suspension…end of story

…is absolutely right.
TA with 1 minute to go in regulation?
Paul iso’s when Ray is the 51-point hot hand?
Wasting the last timeout in the nth OT, so we can’t score on our last possession? (Gee, isn’t that a Vinnie move??)

But Rondo and Paul were also AWOL… Come to think of it, the whole team except Baby (most of the time) and Ray (all of the time) was AWOL. (Well ok, Scal was reasonable and Perk was good… not his fault he got 2-3 phantom fouls called on him. Refs sucked as usual, for both sides.)

Note: Rondo was reacting to Hinrich’s grab… no wind-up, no follow-through… should have been just a hard foul, nor a flagrant. Hinrich should have gotten an automatic ejection for fighting. All per the rule book. (And I can quote you chapter and verse if you want.)

Seriously, TA HAD to take those shots down the stretch…because the team started to sit on the lead too early and we had no ball movement and consistently started possessions with less than 10 seconds on the shot clock. To hang this loss on TA is unfathomable. He played within himself, played good defense, rebounded, and did what he was supposed to do.

Attending this game … was probably the best viewing experience I’ve had watching a basketball game. My head is still buzzing.
I think you pull this out in seven, but … you know, Allen isn’t supposed to be able to get a 3 pointer off over a fully extended 7 footer. He’s not. What the hell, Ray Allen? STOP!
Rondo didn’t have the effect on the game he had in the other five … I personally think that was because of Tyrus Thomas altering shots inside, though it may have been something else [that I wasn’t aware of].
… Did I mention Ray Allen was completely unconscious?
I’m afraid of Game 7. I don’t have a single clue about what’s going to happen, except that it’s probably going to go into overtime, and then everyone will suddenly be unstoppable.

And the thing is… even if we win game 7, we cannot beat Cleveland playing like this. That’s impossible.

Our guys with no bench must be dying to get this done. What time is that game on Saturday? I hope it;s a night game. I can’t get d Doug Collins voice out of my head.

… and I just finished watching the game.

During the last few minutes of regulation, it was Perk, NOT Tony who caused us this game. Tony got caught with the ball twice as the clock was winding down … but it was Perk who lost Miller twice on defense which resulted in a 3-pointer and a lay-up.

Lousy defense at the end of regulation caused teh Celtics the game.

why does doc keep talking about defense? when has pp ever sniffed a all d team. ray sure aint gonna stick his nose in there see his career stats on d. marbury ,scal,allen,all jokes at defensive end and pp isnt hurt just lazy on d see ten years before kg arrived

real peaceful novacain…

if we had won by one then it would be a classic. As it is this ranks up there with Magic’s baby hook over McHale. This is a game that will haunt us forever so while the objective side of me recognizes it as a classic I will never watch this game again. There are a ton of reasons why we lost this game and you could discuss everything from why rondo and tony are taking critical shots instead of ray to if only ray and eddie were behind the line. Once we lost the lead in regulation it became a crapshoot and a war of attrition.Despite our record we have made dumb plays and blown leads all year long. At times we are not a smart basketball team( remember San Antonio?) and we seem to always make things more difficult than they need to be ( Hawks series last year, Bulls series this year). We also get complacent in a hurry. You could see in Pierce’s face that he thought hte game was over when we went up 8. Everyone relaxed and stopped playing with urgency. I just don’t get how a veteran team makes the same mistake over and over. I often compare pierce to bird and perhaps that’s unfair but one thing about bird was thatwhen he got an advantage he never let up. He had the killer instinct and he brought it every night. Pierce doesn’t have that and as great a player as he is I think he’s going to be remembered as a player who won the MVP because he had ray allen and KG on his team and not as a player who won the MVP because he put his team on his back.THis whole series comes down to defense and the play of paul pierce