Winning Ugly

of course we won ugly but we did not win lucky. the c’s earned it and were the better team that night. should it not have been as close? sure, but they had their hard hats on. big baby has me swearing 1 minute—4 missed free throws- laughing the next. he’s still a young pup. the young guys are growing up and even tho they won’t repeat, the young guys will be battle tested next year and have something to prove.

That is all that matters. Identifying trends within a specific game is a meaningless pursuit. The next game will have a story line all to its own. No, the Magic probably won’t shoot that poorly from 3 again, but so what? Many other things will also be different, like perhaps the C’s bench scoring more than 2 points at home. All of the subplots of this particular game have no bearing on exactly what will happen moving forward. The bottom line is, however they got there, the C’s are evened up 2-2, with 2 out of the 3 potential games remaining at home. A good place to be. Game 5s at home the last 2 years have been very good to the C’s.

When we get ball and player movement on offence we are ok… when we dont then its up to individual talent… and referee whistles

It was not a particularly enjoyable game to watch. The numbers that jumped out at me were the LACK of 3-point attempts (not just that we only hit one; we only got off ten deep shots). The assist numbers, too; only sixteen for the team, only three (three!) for Rondo. Still seems like they’re either playing in sand or their sneakers weigh about twenty pounds each; they look tired.

I think the answer to your questions is the no-show by the Celtics bench. 2 points, and 8 attempts total. Petrius and Lee had 8 attempts EACH. So really, it comes down to the number of players actually making attempts at the basket. The starters HAD to play as well as they did. Magic fans may point to this horrible game and feel good that they almost won thinking the Celtics played well, I was worried about that too, until I saw the box score and realized we only had 2 points off the bench. None in the last 3 quarters.

Like you-know-who or Mo Williams

I’ve decided to go with the moment. Last nite was a high. I’ll take it. Who knows what’s next. One thing I noticed which makes me think the C’s are just playing their hearts out to hang in: When Baby hit that shot the bench went wild, but I also noticed Doc jumped a mile. In a game like this, a team that knows it will win, will celebrate a bit and walk off the floor, especially the coach. Doc’s reaction surprised me. The team on the floor should not be winning due to a variety of factors, but they just don’t quit. I’m on the ride for as long as it goes.

The Celtics aren’t going to shoot 10% from the 3 point line too often either (C’s were the #1 3point % team in the NBA this year.) Did you see some of the wide open looks that didn’t go down for Ray? He hits one or two of those and the game doesn’t come down to that last shot.

Heck — if the refs don’t put Paul on the bench (in the midst of a 7-7 streak) with a phantom 5th foul, the game doesn’t come down to that last shot.

Either way — it’s 2 – 2 and we’re headed back to Boston.

Wow…what a playoff season for C’s already. We’ve dot more DVR materail to keep us occupied until next season…. What a reel of highlights!!!!

The Celtics are going to win this because they are just plain TOUGHER than the Magic.

i think we(celtics) can beat the cavs.because like last year the lakers were crusing to the finals just like the cavs this year then we shitted .so dont says the cavs are going to win because it didnt start yet

 It seemed like Orlando got every loose ball. We had 5 shots go in and out in the first half. Howard makes 7 of ten free throws. We miss 9 free throws. Ray never goes to the line.Orlando plays fierce d throughout even to the extent of being all over Scal.
 At a critical time, they get two easy layups because Rajon feeds his player into Minnie Moore.We play Minnie because though no one fouled out, Perk, Scal and Baby all had early fouls so they had to tone down the aggression.The 13 shot difference partially is explained by Orlando having 3 more offensive rebounds, and we had 5 turnovers. But it felt like a hockey game where we have way fewer shots at the net and the puck is down in our end too much.

We didn’t shoot deep jumpers well at all, being 1 of 10. We went around HALF the 4th q without getting a bucker. We went the last 7 minutes of the game with only BABY getting a bucket. Perk missed critical 4th q minutes with an injury. PP had 5 fouls while playing in the 4th quarter. Ray Allen couldn’t do much of anything right turning it over twice late while trying to get in the lane and missing a wide open three from the corner. We repeatedly let Orlando get layups in the ast 3 quarters to avoid fouls. PP is on fire but sits 16 minutes.

A lot went wrong for us. But agree that we can’t win again unless we play better than yesterday because Orlando will not shoot this poorly again

Of course Cleveland will be a huge challenge. The Celtics can still win, or get far, though it’s hard to see them making all the necessary changes in time.

They have one huge clue: game 2. Magic game 2 is the key. What happened in game 2 was that because Paul basically sat the whole game, Rondo ran the offense most of the time. Distribution and ball movement were terrific… through-the-roof terrific. 34 assists on 41 baskets, 18 for Rondo. THAT’S how you win games. Paul Pierce being the Paul of old is NOT how you win games. That’s the old-school way, which sometimes worked – when Paul was brilliant – but certainly cannot work now.

To have ANY chance in these playoffs, the Cs must try to emulate game 2. RONDO must control the offense. Paul must be a role player like everybody else. His role on O is to execute the plays that a fluid Rondo-driven offense provides for him. Rondo gets everyone involved, including himself. That means Ray and Eddie get early easy looks, along with everybody else. For many reasons, this is the only way the Cs can win consistently.

This last game was a ticket to failure for the Cs, in that if they were to play that way again they would probably lose by a blowout. And let’s not forget about Cleveland… the Celtics almost lost game 4 to the Magic, who are currently a mediocre team. Imagine what the Cavs would do to them.

For the first time in a long time we abandoned the Rondo-led offense in favor of a Pierce-led offense, where basically it was iso after iso at the top of the key. Surprisingly, Pierce made good decision after good decision, and bucket after bucket and we were able to gut out a win…

But we can’t do that next game. It’s too easy too defend, it wastes the talents of Rondo and Ray Allen, doesn’t get the ball in the post to Perk and Baby (who can beat Lewis in the post if he ever got touches there), and puts WAY too much of the burden on Pierce to play a perfect game. He did it for a night, but if he tries to do it for a series then we might have problems.

I expect the ball to be back in Rondo’s hands in Game 5…