The Celtics are a much better team than the Clippers even without Pierce, and they played like they knew it tonight. The end result should have never been in any doubt, but they let the Clips back in the game with a couple of runs in the 2nd and 3rd quarters and faced a tie ballgame with just 8 seconds left. Rondo took the ball strong to the hole and got hacked by Davis with 1.5 seconds left on the clock. He missed both shots and Baron made us pay with a buzzer beater to win the game. That's the danger of letting teams like this hang around.
- Rondo was in full control of the offense from the start. He just couldn't hit those free throws.
- Every time they looked to the 2nd and 3rd option with the extra pass, the shot was there. The Clips just don't work hard enough to defend more than the initial effort.
- The Celtics went inside to Sheed with great success in the first half. It didn't work as well in the 2nd and they went away from it, which is a shame.
- Glen Davis provided a nice spark off the bench. Good to see him out there. These are just the kind of games to get him involved again.
- The 3rd quarter run that the Cippers went on was mostly the Celtics letting them back in it, as illustrated by Sheed's missed dunk and Rondo's airball 3 pointer.
- Tony started off the game looking off Rondo bringing the ball up and dribbling off his foot in traffic - which had me wondering if this would be the game that Bad Tony showed up again. But once again, he stepped up and contributed a very solid game. As they say, its not how you start but how you finish, and Tony picked up a key steal with about 2 minutes left.
- Baron and Kaman can play. And that Davis to Jordan alley is going to be there a lot this year.
Update: Doc's comments after the game:
"For a veteran team, we played with absolutely zero composure," said Rivers. "We just didn't seem like a veteran team tonight and I thought it was more our composure than anything. Give the Clippers credit, they played extremely well and actually deserved to win the game. But, as I told our guys, we're a better team than that with our composure down the stretch. It's not about the wins and losses, it never is with us. It's about composure for later [in the season] and executing down the stretch. We didn't execute at all, on either end; we were just bad.
"We had a whole potpourri of mistakes we made down the stretch -- mental mistakes. It's nothing that anyone did, just us mentally. We talk about how the only opponent we have every night is ourselves and, tonight, we beat ourselves."