- 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.
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.