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15 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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Shaq To Sit Out Tonight and Tomorrow vs. Hawks

Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe first broke the news last hour that the Big Diesel would not suit up tonight against the Knicks. Now Greg Dickerson has just tweeted the news that the seven-footer will be out for tomorrow night’s TNT showdown against the Atlanta Hawks as well to continue to rest his sore right calf.

CH Analysis: This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. O’Neal has missed the past two games now in Philly and Charlotte and the C’s right now may be in an easy part of their schedule opponent wise, but it is ideal as far as how spread out the games are. Let’s take a look at the upcoming contests:

Tonight: vs. New York
Thursday: @ Atlanta
Sunday vs. Indiana
12/22 vs. Philadelphia
12/25 @ Orlando
12/28 @ Indiana

Besides the back-to-back stretch tonight and tomorrow, that’s as good as it gets in the NBA when it comes to rest. So for Doc Rivers and trainer Eddie Lacerte, there’s no real need to rush O’Neal back here when you have the chance to give him some serious rest for the next two weeks. Undoubtedly, it makes the C’s depth very thin up front with just three rotation bigs in the fold, along with Luke Harangody waiting in the wings for emergency duty. With that amount of rest though in between games, it’s very fair to assume that Doc can divvy up the 96 minutes a night fairly evenly between those three bodies and do it without leaning on either of those three guys too heavily.

Semih has proven he can handle big minutes the past two games, especially Saturday night in Charlotte where he logged 41. KG is obviously playing some of the best ball of his Celtic career right now as is Glen Davis. Combine that with the fact that Boston experimenting well with going small over this 10-game winning streak as well, (which they will probably have to do tonight against New York) and you see why Doc hasn’t hesitated to give the big fellow some additional rest.

The last thing this team can afford right now is for O’Neal to have to sit out for an extended period, with Perkins not due back for two months and no real timetable yet on Jermaine’s return. Thus, when the time off can be given with minimal repercussions, it has to be taken. Shaq needs to be healthy when it counts, and resting him now is the best way to help ensure of it.

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