Greetings from Waltham, as the C’s have wrapped up a short practice session before gearing up for a showdown with the Houston Rockets tomorrow night at TD Garden.
Everyone was in uniform, everyone practiced, and there were no injury reports to give out for tomorrow night’s contest.Things were quiet, scary quiet for a change, which, in all honesty must come as a sign of relief for this coaching staff.
Coming off of a tough loss against the Thunder, it was surely good motivation for these guys to clean up their mistakes at full strength, on both ends of the floor as they enter the home stretch of the regular season.
Doc Rivers had an extended session with the media, where he commented on a variety of topics. One thing he addressed was the issue of home court and whether teams are no longer fearing The Garden coming into the playoffs.
On Home Court Intimidation Factor:
“That will be up to the playoffs and the way we play. Let’s put it this way, if we get into the playoffs and win the first two games, all of a sudden The Garden is a tough place to play again. That’s how it is.
“I think we forget, a couple years ago Atlanta wasn’t a tough place to play, then they won a couple games in the playoffs, and all of a sudden, it became a tough out. That’s the playoffs. That’s what it comes down to, when you get to the playoffs, it’s a clean slate.”
Interesting points there by Doc, that quite frankly are tough to disagree with. A lot of places will have energy in the playoffs that didn’t earlier in the year and it’s up to those home teams to take advantage of it. The Hawks did it a couple years ago, with some help with the subpar play of Boston on the road in that series. Let’s hope Boston can do it this year.
Let’s put it this way. If you have a team, would you rather they be vulnerable at home and one of the best on the road…..or vice versa. In all honesty, I’d go with the latter. When you are unstoppable at home, there’s so much pressure for you to win those games at your place in the Garden. And while those games will without a doubt, be crucial to the C’s, it won’t be panic time for The Green if they drop one at the Garden, since they have proven they can win almost anywhere on the road. Cleveland, LA, Orlando, Dallas. It’s an impressive track record.
They shouldn’t be counting on being able to do that, but it’s still a nice chip to have in your back pocket, if you are Doc Rivers, knowing you are fully capable of stealing a win on another’s team floor at anytime.
More from Doc and Ray Allen at practice, later this evening.
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Swagger, momentum, chemistry, intimidation, blah, blah, blah. They are all lazy storylines and buzzwords ALWAYS thrown around AFTER THE FACT. You win, you get all that stuff, not the other way around. Doc’s definitely intimated that and interestingly I think it’s something this team has finally learned this year. They are not going to show up and win because they just think it. They have to step up and actually do it.
Yeah we gotta get the back to being unbeatable at the Garden. I think it was the 2002 playoffs when people called it “The Jungle” We were really unbeatable at home then.
Road or home it doesn’t matter. Maybe in the first round it does when you’re a lower seeded rookie filled team coming into someone elses court and you’re getting boo-ed and the whole crowd is against you. But for vets, they just tune it out and keep playing. Which is what makes us a good road team. Only problem is as KG once said, we get overconfident at the Garden.
@ILG — just a point of trivia — the Garden has been called “The Jungle” by opposing players since the 1960s. The Old Boston Garden was so tight and claustrophobic that it made opponents feel like they were about to be thrown to the lions. I think that we probably lost that reputation in the 90s when the team just wasn’t very good.
Personally, I think that other teams should not be allowed to play “Welcome to the Jungle” over the loudspeakers.
It was the Magic dominating game 7 last year, not the mediocre play this year, that killed any home court advantage mystique the Celtics.
Let’s not forget either that the only C that showed up for game 5 at the Garden last spring was Steph Marbury. Or giving away game 1 to the Bulls. Really, they haven’t been playing well at home when it matters for more than a year.
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