C's Win 8th, Beat the Heat

• Didn’t We Win?
• Don’t We Lose?
• Do we feel Lucky? 
  

Maybe you can count the times in this article I say: "Didn’t", "Don’t" or "Do". Maybe you can count them like some people like to count the times Allen Iverson says the word "practice" in his famous rant, or the number of times Cousy says "The C’s" during a game. I am just in the mood to use these words to say what I saw at the Gah-den.  

I watched the game twice. The first time was live TV and the second time on tape. I didn’t mind the outcome on either version. We won both times. 

1st Quarter – I don’t think it was a bad quarter, especially the second half of it. I saw a great rebound by Rondo. I saw a great pass from Ray Allen to Perk. I saw the starters start to come out of the game at about the right time near the end of the first quarter with Posey being the first off the bench. I saw a Miami team that looked much better than their record indicates, especially with Wade back in the lineup. I saw 37 year old Alonzo Mourning (who is the only Miami guy I really like) still bring something to the game of basketball with two great blocks in this quarter. I saw a Celtics team, while a work in progress, that still gets me pretty excited at what we have. But the score was tied at the end of the first quarter 24 to 24 so I guess I really DIDN’T need to see it at all. I didn’t see us play a bad quarter, but I don’t think we looked crisp and clean either.  

Qtrs 2 - 4...

2nd Quarter – I DIDN’T like seeing Mark Blunt come in the game at the 10:22 mark of this quarter because I despise him. However, I do like seeing him ineffective and meaningless to the game, which he was. His first shot was like his head – nothing but air. Pollard played a bit in the first part of the 2nd Quarter. He got lucky on a shot for an "And 1" play but that was about it. I did like seeing all the starters back on the floor by 7:10 mark of the quarter and for Scal and Pollard go sit back down at that point. I do think Doc did a fairly nice job of playing the right people at the right time (except for Scal) throughout the game and I do think Doc used his timeouts wisely throughout the game, especially late in the game. The starters played in this quarter as unit until PP picked up his 3rd foul @ the 2:34 and back came Posey. Tony Allen played for about 1 minute I think. We opened up an 8 point lead with 1:41 left in the half at 49-41 and closed out the half up by 6 points @ 52-46. Ray Allen, Perk, KG, Posey, and Rondo all played well with moments of brilliance and moments of just a dull shine. 

3rd Quarter – The big news here was that PP picked up his 4th foul with only 2 minutes gone in the third quarter. Posey (probably the player of the game) came in for PP. We built our largest lead (15 points) @ 1:44 left in the quarter. In came the subs of Scal and Pollard and we finished the quarter only up 9 @ 75-66. Do I think we played a great quarter without PP? Yes, and that was good to see. I didn’t however like the way we closed out the quarter in the last 2 minutes. However, I do think Miami did a god job by not folding up the tent as they really had strong emotions for this game, and played very hard throughout. 

4th Quarter – I didn’t see a "meltdown" as much as I saw for the first time a lack of focus throughout the quarter. There were lots of mental mistakes (several by Rondo) and bad passes by many, yet we had just enough grit, talent, veteran leadership to pull it out despite our worst quarter of the season. I didn’t like all the three-point shots in this quarter, especially some ill-timed shots by Posey. I do think Doc was excellent in calling timeouts to try and stop Miami from crawling back in the game, but they did anyway. I didn’t like his substitution mid way through the quarter by taking Perk out as that allowed Shaq and Wade more control of the paint. I do however remember at this point that I am not a coach in the NBA. I didn’t like some referee calls, but I never do, and I can easily sound like Tommy Heinson on a three day booze fest about a few of the calls last night – but let’s not go there. The ref’s didn’t cause us to lose the lead, and neither did Doc – it was the players. In the end though, our captain pulled it out on a drive to the basket to take a one point lead. We DIDN’T choke (Wade did choke on the final shot in which he was wide open). We DIDN’T lose (Miami did - Riley did- Ricky Davis did - Skippy Blunt did). Do I feel lucky to be 8-0? Yep. Don’t we ever lose anymore? We will ……but not yet. Sunday will be a big test. Until then …..Do keep the faith and Don’t forget that we are not perfect but we are 8-0.