On the back of a horrific game six performance, Gary Washburn of the Globe piled on with more bad news: Avery Bradley is almost certainly done for the season. Washburn: A source close to Bradley told the Globe that it’s in the “high 90s” percentile that Bradley will be shut down and will perhaps need [...]
After the Thunder finished up their series by routinely dismantling the Lakers last night to send them packing in five games, a time has been announced for the C’s-Sixers Game 6 on Wednesday night. It will tipoff shortly after 8pm on ESPN. Looking ahead in the postseason, if the C’s do win Game 6, and [...]
I love this decision-making from Rajon Rondo. While leading the break, you can see him eyeballing Ray Allen, who runs the wing and spots up on the arc. The Sixers have a 1-2 disadvantage but are mostly concerned about Allen’s three balls, which allows Mickael Pietrus to make an unmolested baseline cut behind the defense. [...]
A note to all you local C’s fans out there that may be attending the game tonight at TD Garden. The game will start just after 7pm and will be broadcast nationally on TNT. However, unlike most TNT regular season games during the season, the tip will not come 15-20 minutes after the scheduled start [...]
Rajon Rondo is a tremendous player, but he tends to have a little bit of an issue scoring the ball late in games. I won’t go as far as saying he is scared, but he does pass up shots and defer to teammates in crunch-time….well a lot. Last night though may have been his coming [...]
Garnett followed up his season-best effort against Atlanta in Game 6 with a new season-high in points and another sensational double-double, as well 60 percent shooting (12-of-20) from the field. Over his past two contests, Garnett is averaging 28.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, two steals and four blocks a game. After the game, KG was candid [...]
Both the Celtics and CelticsHub had up and down weeks. The Celtics went 3-and-1 this week getting big wins against the Orlando Magic and the Utah Jazz but lost a heart breaker the other night against the hapless Washington Wizards. The Celtics had their most dominant performance of the season against a good Jazz team and followed that up with possibly their worst quarter of the season against the Wizards. So it goes.
Meanwhile, Brian Robb and I met up with Hayes Davenport in the earlier part of the week in Los Angeles for an extensive business meeting. The highlight of said business meaning: witnessing Blake Griffin“going Nova”:
Some day the Celtics will have a young player as exciting as Blake Griffin. For now, I’ll take winning.
Aside from witnessing a historic day from a soon-to-be-Superstar, CelticsHub also had you covered this week on the following topics:
Last Tuesday, Hayes pointed out that Nate Robinson is better than Rajon Rondo. After your arms became too sore to throw any more tomatoes, you heard him out, stroked your chins, and we all agreed to make ketchup. For the record, Hayes was merely pointing out that the Celtics’ most defensively efficient five-man unit includes Nate Robinson. Some very intriguing food for thought:
Does that make Nate Robinson a more valuable commodity than Rajon Rondo, even from the perspective of these rating stats? Noooooo. Nonono. No. Because Rondo boosts the C’s offensive rating by 10.83 points when he’s in the game. That’s the 13th-highest increase in the NBA (number 5, notably, is your captain Paul Pierce with a net increase of 14.72). Rondo is better than Nate and it ain’t close.
But, for whatever reason, the Celtics are playing better defense when Nate’s in the game. Better than pretty much anyone.
That is some dark magic, Hayes.
Bidding adieu to the first half of the 2010-2011 season, friend of the program Steve Gadsden put together this highlight reel complete with music from local product Speak! Your Rhyme:
There’s still a couple four game road trips out West, as the C’s venture out there next week for their first true test. Yet, with all the other heavyweights beating up on each other in plenty of head-to-head matchups over the final month, and the C’s slowly but surely getting healthy you can’t help but be encouraged by Boston’s prospects in this department. Clearly, there’s still work to be done but the goal looks a lot more attainable than it did last week, as the C’s looked to have gotten over their post Christmas day slide with only minor effects.
I like it Brian.
In the same vein, Ryan explained some second half story lines of which we should be aware. Surprisingly, Ryan assumes Von Wafer will get the nod to stay in the rotation over Nate Robinson:
Who Gets Squeezed Out – Assuming the C’s can get to the playoffs fully healthy, somebody’s gonna be on the outside of what will be a shortened playoff rotation. The bets here are Semih Erden, Luke Harangody, Nate Robinson, and maybe Von Wafer, who has made a case for himself with solid defense and an impressive off-the-dribble game.
Probably a safe bet given the impending return of Delonte West and Robinson’s poor play as of late. Still, I don’t expect Wafer to see much time when everyone is healthy.
We here at CelticsHub love this year’s The Association not only for its subject matter but also because we are all ravenous New Kids On The Block fans. Oh Donnie! Anyway, this week we provided the trailer, the full episode, and some commentary that mostly consisted of Hayes sharing his man-crush on Luke Harangody. From Hayes:
I like the way Luke hugs his seat back like a baby koala bear here. The bit on him that follows is excellent: really captures the endless internal monologue he probably goes through as he tries, perhaps futilely, to fit in. It’s weird, and this is based on a very brief clip, but it seems like Doc might not be helping that much. “This is gonna sound crazy,” Doc says as he draws up a play in practice. “But I’m gonna give a lob to Luke. I don’t know if you can dunk, but you can lay it in.” I get that Doc hasn’t been crazy about Luke’s play at times, but he’s only hurting the team by going after him.
In other news, Ryan reports that the league is pretty ambivalent when it comes to the Celtics in his aptly titled post “The Celtics Rule, The Celtics Suck”. Here’s Ryan owning Orlando Magic GM Otis Smith:
Which is where we bring up the Magic’s dissolution in the Eastern Conference Finals last year.
The series went six games but that’s deceptive as anyone who watched the games knows. The Celtics ran over the Magic before letting them back in, just a little bit. The C’s had Orlando turned inside out mentally, and really, you could see the Magic’s hangover from that loss the first two months of this season, which is why Smith went and rebuilt his team last month.
The new-look Magic have something to prove. Because for all his awesome-ness (and that is the right word), there are legitimate questions outside Florida about whether Dwight Howard, last seen giggling at Garnett as the Magic lost to the C’s on Monday night, can be the best player in a Celtics-Magic playoff series. Or overcome a Kobe Bryant-led Lakers.
Does Howard have the qualities Smith hopes his team will embody?
The answer is no Ryan. Instead he has sharp elbows.
Finally, what you have all been waiting for. The newest addition to CelticsHub’s Weekly Wrap: The Tommy Point. Tommy Heinsohn is a lot of things to a lot of people. To most NBA fans, he’s a blatant homer. To those people I let out a respectful whistle. Unfortunately those people do not understand schtick and that’s their problem not his.
For us and most Celtics fans Tommy is hilarious and always just and objective. He’s also hilariously incoherent at times. The Tommy Point is a weekly chronicling of these moments. For our first Tommy Point, Heinsohn takes offense (surprise!) to a foul call going against Paul Pierce. One that he characterizes as “spatchcock”:
The Celtics have a big week ahead of them so stay tuned to CelticsHub for more news, analysis and commentary.
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