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8 hours ago

Jason Terry’s 2012-13 Final Grade

  Acquiring any player, whether it’s via trade, free agency, or the draft, comes with an air of uncertainty. The NBA has no guaranteed covenant and all sales are final, no matter how talented, proven, or productive the player may have been in year’s past. But these memories—especially recent ones—often clouds the judgment of a [...]

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9 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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10 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 [...]

12
11 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 [...]

94
11 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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14 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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If Not Now, When? C’s 102, Hawks 90

ESPN Box ScoreHoopinionPeachtree Hoops

I honestly don’t know what it would take at this point.

This was the first game in which both Shaq and Rondo were out. But despite those major injuries, back-to-back exhaustion and Nate Robinson trying to see how many different kinds of mistakes he could make, the Celtics won tonight. And it wasn’t close. I predicted this, but I’m still amazed.

Tonight was enough to make me believe the claims that this team won’t give away the regular season like they say they did last year. Actually, I’ve always been inclined to believe that the “veterans wait for the playoffs” defense from last season was A) a defense mechanism in reaction to genuine bad play and B) led by Rasheed Wallace, whose face should be on a poster in Celtics security headquarters this season so he can be forcefully ejected from the building if they see him coming near this team. But I don’t think we have to worry about that coming up this year. This team is really good, and they really want to win.

Garnett was running hot tonight. Ray was Ray. Paul Pierce ran the point like it was his natural position after Nate Robinson made clear his intentions for the evening. And Glen Davis played among those guys like their equal.

That was the thing about tonight: each of those four stars of this game looked exactly as good as any of the other three. The system gave them each their shot, they all got great looks because the Hawks D couldn’t focus on any of the four of them, and they all made good use of their time with the ball.

More on those good basketball players and Nate Robinson in a little while. Oh, and this:

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