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7 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

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7 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

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8 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

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9 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

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12 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

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12 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

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Frozen Moments: Games 1 and 2

In close playoff games, fans tend to remember plays during crunch time, but the the truth is that every possession matters in games as closely fought as these first two against Chicago. Throughout the playoffs, I’ll highlight one play in every close game that sticks in my mind as an overlooked basketball nugget. This is totally subjective; feel free to add your own in the comments.

Frozen Moment, Game 2: Perk’s Momentum Killing Turnover: First Quarter, 6:47 to go: The Celtics are killing it to open Game 2. Derrick Rose has two fouls, Rajon Rondo is in the middle of arguably the best quarter of his life and the C’s are up 20-8. Ben Gordon misses a long jumper, which Kendrick Perkins rebounds with Joakim Noah on his back. The crowd is on fire. Noah does a little stunt back toward midcourt, convincing Perk it’s safe to toss an easy pass to Rajon Rondo, who’s about 10 feet away to Perk’s right. Noah sees it coming, steals the ball and dunks it. 20-10, and the first Bulls play that slowed the C’s momentum and got Doug Collins talking about “withstanding the Celtics punch to the mouth.”

Frozen Moment, Game 1: Ray Allen’s missed dunk. I watched this game from a hotel room in Washington, D.C., so I haven’t been able to rewatch a recording of it–meaning I can’t remember exactly what led to Ray Allen attempting a slam dunk. It was 49-42 Bulls with 1:12 left in the second quarter. From what I remember, Ray was bringing the ball up on what might be classified as a slow/secondary break, and the Bulls defenders failed to stop ball or protect the paint. So Ray accelerated through the middle and rose for a lay-in…only he attempted a one-handed dunk and bounced it off the back rim. It looked like he decided to go for the slam in midair, perhaps figuring the Celtics needed an emphatic reminder that they were the Champs. 

I can’t remember when Ray Allen last attempted a dunk in any circumstance other than wide open fast break. I was so shocked I actually tweeted about it on the Twitter. Next time, just lay it up, please.

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