C's escape despite bench, & KG's shining minute

nice article – we sure need to play better if we are going to go anywhere in this series or after this series. would like to see more krystic – bench needs more scoring punch – their defense is atrocious

If game 3 at Madison Square Garden doesn’t wake up the bench and get them pumped up, I don’t know what will. Green played passive yet again. On one posession, he tried to lay-up the ball and missed twice at point blank range! BBD and Nenad nowhere to be found on defense and offense. C’mon, we aren’t gonna win a championship with you guys sleeping around.

Green——averaging 5 pts., 1 rebound, .333FG%
Krystic——averaging 1 pt., 0 rebounds, 3 MPG

-50% chance of getting past depleted NY team {despite 2-0 lead}
-100% chance of getting swept by Miami

too, too many VERY hard fouls on Rondo

If this keeps up, he will get hurt

Next time that they grab his shoulder and drag it down to his knees, then someone needs to clobber Melo

it might be a good idea for someone to say to the media, cut the shit

maybe then the refs will step up

last night was refereed like a rugby game where the ref didn’t show up

Watching the game, Nenad and Green weren’t even fighting for rebounds under the basket. At one point you could see JG actually DUCKING as guys fought for the ball around him. Paul Pierce is right…. the bench really has to start getting nasty — fighting for every ball on D and playing team ball on offense. If they don’t, we won’t make it back to the championship.

 we’ve got issues everywhere but 2 of them are that Rondo and Baby are outta shape.Guess is that because of Rondo’s foot issues he’s lost his indurance and when Baby ’s knees acted up he put on weight.
Having said that,Rondo played like he shoulda been all year and if he can remain in attack mode that will help.But because he needs to rest Doc cannot leave him out there with 2nd unit and with Delonte running that show they cannot score

Has lacked an identity (because of injuries mostly) all year. Someone must step up if for no other reason than pride. Individually, this is one of the better benches in the NBA but they have little cohesion. Their weaknesses are showing rather than doing anything to exploit their considerable advantages, especially over the meager bench of the Knicks. Some of this will change naturally when Green and BBD’s shots start to fall but I still think we are talking about needing someone to spark this unit. Maybe even a little bit of Delonte’s brash craziness is in order. BBD needs to pump his fists and yell and spit on every play. Something, almost anything is better than passive, especially when you are playing an opposing bench you should be mopping up the floor with. And they have to do it without Rondo leading the show. He must get his rest at some point even though I think Green, for one, is much better on the offensive end when Rondo is passing him the ball down low. Hopefully, the annoying Knicks fans in the garden will be enough spark for the bench to get fired up and angry. At least we’re working out these kinks in the first round. There will be no room for this in the upcoming rounds.

For a nice read with some details. I missed the game and wasn’t able to record it so articles like yours are important to me today.

Looks like you can look at this game 2 ways….

They are coming out on top without playing particularly well or….

They are coming out on top without playing particularly well.

Anyway it buys them some valuable time and experience trying to get it going. It is talented bench, but they have been up and down all year it seems.

Agree with Pierce’s statement that the bench must come out thinking defense first. Become known for stopping momentum instead of fueling it. I think they can do it.

I would rather have JO finish out games with starters instead of Davis. I don’t understand Doc’s coaching strategy sometimes? BBD is 6’7 why is he defending guys that’s 6’10-7ft?? BBD has been playing like a complete bone-head lately. It don’t know what his problem is, but he needs to fix it asap.

I’m happy the Celtics won, but not happy how the game was won. I saw a lot mistakes on the C’s part. The Celts shouldn’t of got out-rebounded by a smaller Knicks team. Jefferies and Turiaf are not offensive players so why is the Celtics letting these guys score? The Knicks are a good three-point shooting team and Celtics were allowing them so many attempts. KG, BBD please learn how to rebound the ball with two hands instead of slapping or reaching. Celtics almost lost the game because they got killed on the glass.

The bench needs to step up big time. BBD, pull your head out your butt, Green stop acting like scared little school boy and just play your game; it would be nice to see Sasha get some PT being that he has a lot of Playoff experience. Celtics have to play better in games 3 and 4. You’re the better team stop giving the Knicks confidence!

This is DA and Doc’s bench. They claimed the trade was going to fix it. Clearly that hasn’t happend. I am glad to see the veterans say something publically. Maybe they can get the bench to do something Doc can’t. Maybe DA will realize what a mistake he made in bringing over a couple of soft players who can’t help you win a title.

but there was one point in the 4th quarter were he dived for a loose ball with Walker. The way Garnett moved I thought he got injured again!! but thank god he wasnt

Tough the Celtics played down to the competition again, last night these refs were calling some ridiculous calls during 3rd and 4th quarters. I nearly pulled all my hair out!

Knicks fan here. This was another great playoff game between two hungry teams. The C’s have beaten us so many times in the clutch that Knicks fans are almost numb to the pain (ALMOST!). I hope we have at least STAT or billups next game so that you guys cant just double Melo all day lol. I have been saying this for a long time that the celtics have the best execution in the league when it comes down to the final minute. MSG is going to be out of control on Friday and I hope that we can make this series a little more interesting.

Also many people on knicks blog have said Toney Douglas is a good defender. Thank you Rondo for making my point clear and showing that TD has a lot of work to do (mostly strength wise). I thought he was about to get a cone out and set up a lay-up line for rondo lol

Good luck to both squads and lets hope the officials dont ruin a great series.

Isn’t it too early to taunt. We haven’t wrapped it up yet you know. Besides, do you really want Douglas to do that to Rajon? Save the banter until after we’ve won, ok?

Without Shaq this is how minutes will or SHOULD go:

JO 28, Krstic 10 Baby 10(weve got to get something from Krstic)(Jo has to get more boards and easy bucket or two like Shaq would)
KG 34, Baby 14(Babys better here than at c but 24 minutes total is enough)
PP 35 Green 13(sad to say but if his d aint there, Sasha is an aggressive defender)
Ray 36 DW 12
Rajon 40 DW 8

Mainly its still about getting the big 4 off the floor enough and you JO has to play this much and get his hands on basketballs, Baby has to play better. We don’[t need so much from Green UNLESS THERE ARE FOULS which there will be. And this is where not having Shaq just hurts so bad

and depressing how bad the bench is. Really depressing. And I don’t understand why. Other teams throw benches out there with less talent than ours but do better. Why is ours so bad?

I’m glad PP is calling them out. Hope he calls them out in practice too.

carmelo anthony became bernard king for a night, circa 1984. remember we won it all in 1984.

that’s all we want to see and all they ahve to do. they’re making this way harder on themselves and our team than they need to. just hustle your A off and play ball. that’s it