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17 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
10 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 [...]

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Game 57/66: Celtics (32-24) @ Heat (40-15)

Boston at Miami
American Airlines Arena
7:00 ET
ESPN

Offensive Efficiency
Boston: 98.6 points/100 possessions (25th)
Miami: 106.7 points/100 possessions (2nd)

Defensive Efficiency
Boston: 95.3 points allowed/100 possessions (1st)
Miami: 97.3 points allowed/100 possessions (4th)

Probable Miami starters: Mario Chalmers (PG), Dwayne Wade (SG), LeBron James (SF), Chris Bosh (PF), Joel Anthony (C)

Injury Report: Wade’s day-to-day with an ankle injury (but he’s playing). Mickael Pietrus is still out although he seems to be feeling better.

View From The Opposing Bench: The Heat Index

“There are some things that we saw in that game that we can correct.” -Dwyane Wade, re: April 1st

According to Wade, the Heat are thinking of the thumping of nine days ago as a learning experience. For example, they’ve learned not to let Rajon Rondo score double digits in three categories. Good luck: this game’s on ESPN.

But while containing Rondo is a worthy goal for the Heat, what they really need to focus on is scoring more than 72 points, because the Celtics have leaned particularly hard on their defense in recent weeks. Since the March 23rd loss against Philadelphia, Boston has only allowed an average of 81.6 points in nine games. That number’s also being dragged up by their highest opposing score: 95 points from the Bobcats in a game the Celtics won anyway.

If the team can muster up the defensive performance they did a week ago, with Garnett throwing a pillow over Chris Bosh’s face and Bradley sucking the life out of Dwyane Wade, the Heat will absolutely not win this game. I don’t think they can hold Boston to a score as low as they can be held to. But home-court advantage could make that difficult: the Heat are easier to deal with if they’re discouraged early, but they’re not easy to discourage at home.

PREDICTION
Heat 89, Celtics 86. Does it help if I call it a reverse-jinx to bail myself out like Simmons?

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