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13 hours ago

Rondo Replacing Johnson on All-Star Team

The Herald got it right from Rondo’s agent. According to his agent, Bill Duffy, the Celtics point guard has been named to the Eastern Conference All-star roster, presumably to replace Joe Johnson, the injured Atlanta Hawks guard. This would be Rondo’s third all-star appearance. Nice birthday present for RR, who probably should have been selected [...]

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3 days ago

Comments Deleting?

We apologize if your comments are being deleted (provided that they are not offensive). We are looking into why this is happening. We also want to apologize for the lack of a game thread for last night’s game.  We had a premonition that the Celtics would play that poorly and thought if we pretended the [...]

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7 days ago

5 Questions With Greg Monroe

I talked with Detroit star forward Greg Monroe prior to the Celtics-Pistons game on Wednesday night.  Here is what the 2nd year big man out of Georgetown, who is averaging 16.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists per game had to say. 1. Just your 2nd year in the league, but playing so well, were you disappointed [...]

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8 days ago

Call for Responses: 5-on-5

Readers! Last week’s responses to the 5-on-5 questions were really, really great. We had way more qualified answers than we were able to use. So we’re going to keep doing it! FOREVER. Here are this week’s questions: 1. Are you concerned about Rondo’s media boycott this week? 2. The trade deadline is less than a [...]

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11 days ago

5 Questions With Ronnie Brewer

I talked with Chicago starting guard Ronnie Brewer prior to the Celtics-Bulls game on Sunday.  Here is what the 6th year man out of Arkansas who is averaging 7.6 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.1 assists had to say. 1. You guys have a lot of the same players back from last year’s team which was [...]

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13 days ago

5 Questions With Josh McRoberts

I talked to Los Angeles back up big man Josh McRoberts prior to the Celtics-Lakers game Thursday night at the Garden.  Here is what the former Duke Blue Devil, who is averaging 2.9 points and 3.8 rebounds in his first year in LA, had to say. 1. How have you guys been able to deal [...]

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Don’t pencil in the Sixers as a 1st round opponent just yet…

Well the chances of the Celtics playing the Bulls in the 1st round, just got a little bit higher thanks to our friends in Cleveland who like to make life difficult for the Celtics without even playing them. The word from Cleveland is that Mike Brown will be resting Lebron, along with Mo Williams, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith and Big Z. This leaves the Cavs with a skeleton crew of Delonte West, Anderson Varejao and Daniel Gibson to lead the way tonight against Philly. (h/t Celticsblog)

A couple thoughts on this situation. First, for those who thought that the Celts didn’t care against Cleveland matching the C’s 40-1 home record on Sunday, it’s clear that Mike Brown doesn’t give much priority to the record either. He’s likely making the smart move, keeping his eye towards earning a Championship, rather than getting this team placed in the record books.

That being said, I still do not think the chances of us facing Chicago increase substantially after this move for a couple reasons.

1) There’s only a slim chance that Chicago loses at home to Toronto tonight. Of course Toronto has been playing better of late (6-4 in last 10), but Chicago has won 5 in a row, are 28-12 at home, making it apparent that they’re playing their best basketball of the season right now. I can’t see the Bulls letting the Raptors undo a month’s worth of hard work to get up to the 6th spot by allowing them to steal a win in the United Center tonight. Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose won’t let that happen.

2) The Cavs could still very well beat the Sixers tonight even with their limited roster.
I mean if the C’s beat Sixers last night in Philly with two of the big three out, I see no reason why the Cavs couldn’t do it at home tonight. They still will have some guys who can score in bunches if they get hot in Delonte, Wally and Boobie Gibson. The bench players will be motivated since they don’t want to be the ones responsible from keeping the team from matching the homecourt record. Plus the Sixers have been playing terribly lately, as we saw last night, so this one will not be a walkover for them by any means.

So count me among those who still think the odds are pretty heavily in our favor to see this Philadelphia team in round 1. The victory last night seems just that much sweeter now as seeing this squad take care of business then, ensured they would only have to count on one team to help them tonight (Chicago or Cleveland) and not both to make a first round matchup with the Sixers a reality.

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