Logo
The Ticker
16 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 [...]

3
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 [...]

19
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
12 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 [...]

13
15 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 [...]

44
Browse Archives by:

Game 4: Heat at Celtics Open Thread

Update from TD Garden:

  • Doc Rivers confirmed that Rondo will play tonight. He said Rondo will wear some kind of brace on his elbow, but he expects the point guard to “be okay.”
  • Doc also said Delonte West is just fine and that his bothersome shoulder is not a concern.
  • Carlos Arroyo is active tonight to provide depth at point guard. Troy Murphy will not be in the lineup.
  • Udonis Haslem, who has not played since November 20th because of a foot injury, is active for tonight’s game. It’s not clear how many minutes Spoelstra plans on giving him, but Haslem could be a potential spark for Miami. Not only can he match up defensively with Garnett, but he could provide some much-needed offense for the Heat bench.
  • Joel Anthony is expected to start in place of Zydrunas Ilgauskus. Anthony, though, had already been averaging 32 minutes per game this post-season, in comparison to Big Z’s 12 minutes.

-Mike Salvucci

This is massive.

The C’s take the floor tonight, again, with their season effectively on the line. If the Celtics win, there’s hope for Boston basketball beyond this weekend. If not, the C’s set themselves up for, at best, three consecutive elimination games.

The good news is that this team performs best when the lights are brightest. Boston played their most heartening game of the season on Saturday night, with a season-best outing from Kevin Garnett, a remarkable turnaround for Paul Pierce (who finally checked into the series) and of course, Rajon Rondo’s astounding return from a dislocated elbow.

The bad news is that Miami will likely get more than the nothing they from Chris Bosh on Saturday. And both Dwayne Wade and Lebron James should bounce back from subpar games.

The usual keys apply: control the paint on both ends, close hard on shooters, play inside-out on offense, and push tempo. But with everyone unclear what Rondo can do tonight, this may be the game that Danny Ainge was envisioning when he signed Delonte West.

Game four. Let’s do this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>