Tuesday Morning Links
Posted by Brendan Jackson on May 5, 2009
Celtics Make a Game of It: When the Magic were up 28, I confess, I had all of those thoughts. I wondered if the second round would be really boring compared to the first round — it’s possible there will be four lopsided series. I wondered if we were learning that the magic of Bulls vs. Celtics was really the magic of parity, which is not the same as the magic of quality. I wondered if the Celtics were going to be a one-hit wonder. I even found myself wondering if the Cavaliers would start taking it to Dwight Howard in the conference finals. [TrueHoop]
A costly loss in Chicago left them a little spent: Ray Allen tried to relax Sunday, physically and mentally. Put the emphasis on “tried.” The Celtics guard had lots of errands to run after going on two road trips to Chicago. His wife and two young boys needed some attention. And, oh yeah, there was this crazy, draining, and memorable seven-game series against Chicago to get over on a Sunday that didn’t have enough hours in it. And by the looks of the Celtics’ 95-90 loss to Orlando in Game 1 last night, it seemed that from a mental, physical, focus, and preparation standpoint, one day was not enough time to get ready for a brand new series. [Boston.com]
Magic need to work on their closing act: Orlando’s 95-90 Game 1 win wasn’t really secured until J.J. Redick finally put a sleeper hold on the Celtics’ second-half rush by drilling four free throws in the final 13 seconds. But, honestly, if he could have drilled 23 more of them, he would have been glad to. “I would have liked to have won by 28 and not to have let it come down to that,” he said. For a second it looked like that’s how things would play out. [Boston.com]
Slow start kills Celtics: Early hole turns grave: There are many ways to look at what happened to the Celtics [team stats] last night, but the two that matter most are these – they went a half without taking a foul shot and their top-three scorers went 11-for-42. The amount of playoff games you will win in the NBA playing that way is zero. One can talk all one wants about the C’s commendable comeback effort from what was at one point a 28-point deficit. But really, they never came back against the Orlando Magic because if you didn’t win, you didn’t come back. You came close, which is not often rewarded in professional athletics. [BostonHerald.com]
Celtics need consistent effort from opening tip: No time to wait: The list of NBA commandments grew by one at the Garden last night. To the scroll that includes the likes of not shooting for money against Larry Bird and not taking a charge from Shaquille O’Neal unless you’ve made out your will, we can now add another: Thou shalt not wait until thou art trailing by 28 points to decide thou wants to playeth. [BostonHerald.com]
Powe undergoes successful surgery: Celtics forward Leon Powe underwent successful ACL surgery today, according to a statement from the team. Powe underwent ACL revision reconstruction with microfracture and cartilage repair at New England Baptist Hospital. He tore his ACL in the first round against the Bulls. Team Physical Dr. Brian McKeon, Dr. Paul Weitzel, and Dr. John Richmond performed the surgery. [WEEI.com]
No moral here, just a Magic win: Despite nearly losing 28-point lead, Van Gundy happy with 1-0 lead on Boston: We’ve all debated moral victories, whether or not they truly exist, whether some good can come out of a loss, blah, blah, blah. And that idea was certainly floating around the new Boston Garden on Monday night, the notion that the Celtics had established themselves as the more aggressive, more assertive team by the time all 48 minutes of their 95-90 loss to the Orlando Magic were in the books. If ever there was a moral victory, this had to be one, no? [ESPN.com]
Start Scalabrine?: Brian Scalabrine was one of the best Celtics on the court last night and the prevailing wisdom is that he matches up better with Rashard Lewis than Big Baby Davis does. Big Baby has been solid in Garnett’s absence but Scalabrine has been a spot starter in the past before (with positive results). So why not start Scalabrine? (the idea is being discussed at length on the message boards) [CelticsBlog.com]
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