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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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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