Full grades will be on the way shortly so here’s some quick analysis of tremendous start-to-finish victory over the Pacers. The important numbers from tonight’s contest.

• Pierce finished with a line of 26-10-8 tonight. That’s part for the course over his past four games, as he has averaged 26 points, 8 assists and 8 rebounds over the team’s four-game winning streak.
• Only nine offensive rebounds for Indiana. They are a top-3 team in that category, and averaged 17.5 in the team’s first two meetings this season.
• The awakening of Chris Wilcox off the bench as the carousel of bench players stepping up continues for the C’s. 14 points and 6 rebounds for the team’s free agent acquisition.
• Indiana went 1-of-19 from beyond the arc and shot just 33.8 percent overall. Hitting 29 of their 30 free throws kept them in the game.
• Boston’s hounding defense limited Pacers ball movement all night. Just four assists in the first half, 10 overall.
• A four-game winning streak in the books, with three of the wins coming over quality opponents. Back to the .500 mark earlier than expected. Time for the NBA to take notice? Maybe not, but any plans Danny Ainge had of blowing up this core just got a bit more difficult.

Offensive Efficiency: 95.2 points/100 possessions (bottom five in the league)
Defensive Efficiency: 106.0 points/100 possessions (bottom five in the league)
Pace: 83 possessions (slow)

THESE TRENDS CANNOT STAND, MAN

The Celtics slipped to 21st in the league in defensive rebounding percentage after giving up 11 offensive rebounds to the Bulls last night. The Boston offense has slipped out of the top-10. The defense continues to linger in the bottom half of the league. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce appear injured, out of shape or on a slippery slope into decline.

Meanwhile, Rajon Rondo is killing himself every night trying to keep this team afloat and Ray Allen is logging longer and longer minutes while putting up his most efficient numbers as a member of the Celtics.

Some of these things are more worrying than others.

Boston’s renewed commitment to rebounding, after last week’s home loss to the Pacers, has made little difference in results. The Mavericks and Bulls both put up solid-to-huge offensive rebounding numbers this week. It’s exhausting the defense, and then, by extension, the offense suffers as well.

You can definitely pin some of this on Pierce and Garnett’s underperformance — assuming you believe that’s what it is. With Pierce, that certainly seems the case. He’s still working his way into shape in what would normally be just his second week of training camp. All this on top of a heel injury that may still be lingering. He’s going to get better, and there’s not any reason to think he’ll fall off much from last year once he’s back in game shape.

Garnett groused about the shortened training camp but by now he should have no conditioning excuses as he’s been engaged in formal basketball activities for a month. However, last night he was spotted with an ice pack on his left ankle and declined any comment on whether it was an injury or just standard post-game icing.

Then there’s the offense, which staggered to a finish last night after a Rondo-led comeback devolved into Paul Pierce-led hero ball in the middle of the fourth quarter.

We’ll have a look at this in greater detail next week but it’s fair to say that now is not the time for Pierce to be shouldering the burden of the offense in the fourth. Not when it kills tempo and ball movement, which is the only way the Celtics can score these days. And definitely not when Doc Rivers has gone all in trying to win the game by running KG up to 34 minutes, Allen to 41, Rondo to 40 and Pierce himself to 36.

The starters might have been gassed by that point, but if that was the case, Rivers should have gone deeper into the bench for some energy guys. Chris Wilcox had a mini-breakout in a handful of first half minutes and Greg Stiemsma has been inexplicably buried despite a promising start.

With the heavy minutes in a late-starting national game last night, a midnight flight and a SEGABABA tonight against a tough Indiana team, we may be headed for a “schedule loss” unless Rivers trusts his own offensive system down the stretch. The Celtics need energetic bodies on the court. Not just the ones he’s used to.

STAT’S WORRYING

Rondo is averaging 36.9 minutes a game through ten games, only a tick off his career high of 37.2 last season. These are generally hard minutes with him expending enormous energy on both sides of the court. Last year, this kind of burden finally caught up to him after the all-star break. With Rondo embracing the role of team leader this year, it’s incumbent on Doc to manage his minutes so he has something left in the tank when, presumably, the rest of the team rounds into form. Assuming they do.

Would this be considered "up in his grill"?

ESPN Box Score • The Two Man Game • Mavs Moneyball

Offensive Efficiency: 90.4 points/100 possessions (second to league-worst)
Defensive Efficiency: 95.7 points/100 possessions (teetering on the edge of Top-5)
Pace: 94 possessions (exactly average)

WHEREFORE ART THOU OFFENSE?

Many believed that the Celtics would be alright if they could just get back to playing Championship-level defense.  The Celtics were at that level last night and they are still not alright.

There was a moment in last night’s game (alright, two moments but we’ll get to the second one later) where I tweeted something to the effect of, “good offense will ultimately triumph over good defense.”  This was right after a play where Kevin Garnett was blanketing Dirk Nowitzki and the reigning Finals MVP still banked in an off-balance jumper.

The Celtics don’t need Dirk Nowitzki-offense, they just need some semblance of one.  They have shown flashes in the season’s early-going but it has almost come at the expense of the Celtics’ usual defensive intensity.  The Celtics should have  put it all  together by now and taken care of business on most of the non-back-to-backs but alas, they have not.  The fact that the Celtics weren’t on the second half of a back-to-back and the Mavericks were is probably the most depressing about last night’s loss.  The C’s need to be winning these games because they sure as hell won’t be winning many games played in consecutive nights.

IT WASN’T ALL BAD

Okay, I’m done with the pessimism for a bit.  While I will refuse to keep doing the “the Celtics just need one more piece/need to figure out one last thing” song-and-dance if the Celtics don’t find themselves in playoff contention, I will keep it up for now.  It’s still early enough to have hope that the C’s will get it together to make the playoffs, which, I might add, should be the only goal of this regular season.  Forget seeding.  The C’s just need to concentrate on getting in because as it stands right now, they’re clinging to the eighth seed in the East.

Premature playoff implications aside, there really were some positive take-aways.  The Mickael Pietrus era in Boston has officially begun.  I don’t think the C’s could have asked for a better first game from Air France.  As I mentioned in the Rapid Reaction, he got a steal, a dunk, and made a three.  He also, along with Keyon Dooling and Avery Bradley applied really great pressure to the Mavericks’ ball-handlers, pushing them  way beyond the three point line.

Along with the pressure defense, the Celtics also neutralized the Mavericks’ drastic height advantage through shear effort.  At one point, the match-ups consisted of Lamar Odom on Pietrus (6’11″ to 6’6″) and Brandon Bass on Nowitzki (6’8″ to 7’0″).  I don’t have the exact +/- figures but I would be interested to see the actual numbers.  I got the feeling that the Mavericks were trying to take advantage of Odom and Nowitzki post-ups but couldn’t.  Meanwhile on the other end of the court, there were times where Garnett was being guarded by Shawn Marion and KG was able to hit a couple over-the-top turn-arounds.

I glossed over it earlier, but Avery Bradley is an absolute menace on defense.  When I’m at the TDGarden, I’m usually up in the 9th Floor Halo and everything has a different perspective up there.  For example, I saw so many of the Celtics’ shots take weird bounces off the rims.  I’m sure you saw these too from whatever vantage point you had but from up high, I could tell very quickly how inaccurate those shots were.  I could also see how confident Bradley is on the defensive side of the ball.  He keeps his hands active, his butt low, and really stays attached to his opponent.  If his guy has the ball, he is attached to him regardless of how close they are to half court.

STAT’S SCARY

The Celtics shot 28% in the first half, a shooting percentage predominantly cultivated by the aforementioned “in-and-outs”.  It’s mildly encouraging to know that the Celtics were getting good shots in the first half, they just weren’t knocking them down.  It’s incredibly DIScouraging to see that the Celtics only attempted 64 field goals to the Mavericks’ 79.  The Celtics did attempt 32 free throws, but the disparity in field goal attempts still isn’t offset when you factor in the Mavs 25 free throw attempts.

The Celtics were just bad on the offensive end last night, especially the all bench units.  When Doc trots out the all bench units, two things a pretty apparent: 1) Keyon Dooling is there to initiate the offense, and 2) if his opponent makes him give up the ball, no one sets up the offense.

There isn’t really a stat that separates these from other turnovers (at least that I know of) but the Celtics forced the Mavs into a ton of shot-clock violations.  I lost count after five.  It’s nice to see that the Celtics’ defensive intensity remained constant even when they could not make a bucket to save their lives.

SHRUNKEN GARNETT

Did anyone else see KG miss a wide open 13-footer and completely blow a layup in the fourth quarter?  The shot is forgivable because even the best shooters miss.  The layup attempt, on the other hand, is a virtually unexplainable phenomenon that will periodically happen to KG .  The ball will inexplicably fail to travel anywhere after KG releases it.  It’s almost as if Garnett’s X-Men power is to turn composite leather into stone.

HIGHLIGHT GALLERY

3. Mickael Pietrus debuts in the “Abbott and Costello”

I have been trying to come up with a nickname for this play.  It’s just hilarious to watch as Ray Allen and another viable three point shooter spin around the lane setting half picks for each other until one of them decides to break for the three point line.  It’s like musical chairs or a merry-go-round.  I ultimately settled on the “Abbott and Costello” because it’s circuitous and absurd.

Even though Pietrus misses the shot and doesn’t really set a pick for Ray, I included this in the highlights as a kind of prayer for the future.   It seems like an Allen and Pietrus combo in the “Abbott and Costello” will work really well.  We’ll see if it makes an encore on Friday.

2. Keyon Dooling Fouls Roddy B.

From where I was on-high, I could not tell if this was a foul or not.  After watching the replay, I believe it’s pretty clear Dooling grabs Roddy’s shoulder and pulls him down.  The most frustrating thing about the play is the late whistle.  It’s as if the officials have been instructed to wait until the ball either goes in or misses on a 50-50 play and make the call accordingly.  I caught the end of the Miami game when I got home and Dwyane Wade got a similar call in his favor only the whistle blew after he screamed in the refs’ face.  Conspiracy theorists won’t like it, but either it’s a concerted effort or the officials become fans for two seconds before realizing they actually have to make a call.

1.  Last Turnover

It was a tough pass to handle, for sure, but Allen should have been able to collect it.  I’m not sure he would have been able to get a shot off cleanly but he still should have secured the ball.

0.  Momma There Goes That Man

Ryan cut these highlights for me and aptly titled this one “Dirk Nowitzki Will Kill You”.  This doesn’t really need commentary but the one thing I will say is that Brandon Bass was far too late on the help.  C’mon Brandon, you played with Dirk.  You know what he can do.

ESPN Box Score • 8 Points, 9 Seconds • Indy Cornrows

Offensive Efficiency: 88.1 points/100 possessions (league-worst)
Defensive Efficiency: 103.6 points/100 possessions (bottom-third of league so far)
Pace: 84 possessions (slow)

WHAT’S THE MEANING OF ALL THIS?

The Celtics have lost to New York, Miami, New Orleans and Indiana. They have victories over New Jersey, Detroit and Washington (x2). That’s a damning tale but it’s also incomplete, and authored by one of the most notoriously unreliable narrators in the NBA. The Celtics could easily run off a series of impressive victories that alters how we think of their position in the NBA hierarchy. But they might not do it until March.

It would probably be wise for us to modify our expectations. This is not the team that sprinted out to league-best records the last few seasons. This is a team operating in an environment that guarantees wildly uneven play. It’s also a team that lost a key rotation player to a season-ending injury. Doc Rivers is also integrating a number of new players into his rotation. You can hear his frustration at the offensive output of his bench and his eagerness to get some new sets into place for them.

Of course, none of this is being inflicted on the C’s in isolation. Every team is dealing with this stuff, and some — like Memphis — have it much worse.

But here’s a piece of context that’s equally important: even if these January games prove useless as predictors of the C’s fortunes in the playoffs, they remain important for playoff seeding. And right now, Boston is just a .500 team.

Worry not about the aberrant shooting nights, or the growing pains of a team-in-progress. Worry about the wins. They didn’t get one last night. That’s the real problem.

Video highlights, stats, referee talk and Tommy’s Complaint Corner, all after the jump.

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STAT’S AMAZING

Last night, the Celtics matched their franchise low for a half with 25 points. Here’s a look at the box score from the previous low-water mark back in 1995, although I’m sure it’s probably unnecessary since most of you will have committed every one of Dominique Wilkins’ 15 points and 12 rebounds to memory.

But that’s not all. Guess what else that 1995 game has in common with the one last night?

Eddie F. Rush.

That’s the same Eddie F. Rush who was one of the subjects of Tommy Heinsohn’s wrath last night and, in the 2010 finals, the victim of a Paul Pierce right cross, which you can see below as we enter the:

HIGHLIGHT GALLERY

3. How many players have punched a referee in the face during a game and not been thrown out of it?

2. Here’s a nice little bit of ball movement from last night, which I present to you in lieu of footage of the Celtics pounding the ball into the floor for 20 seconds before missing a jumpshot.

1. How many of these have we seen in 2011-12?

0. As a microcosm of what happened last night, this one is sublime in its awfulness.

TOMMY’S COMPLAINT CORNER

It was a strong night for Tommy on the complaints.

He’s in good voice here defending Greg Stiemsma from the dastardly officials.

ESPN Box Score • Nets Are Scorching • Nets Daily

EASY RIDERS

I completely support the meandering route the Celtics took to victory last night. Why bother putting in a full effort in a season where managed minutes mean more than margin of victory? Boston wisely phoned in the first half of the game and let a deeply wounded Nets team (sans Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Kris Humphries) hang around until the third quarter. Then, Paul Pierce and company exploded for a 29-12 frame that buried New Jersey for good before cruising home in extended garbage time in the fourth (Hello JaJuan Johnson!)

In what’s becoming a trend, Boston got dense production from its stars despite limited court time. Pierce put up 24 points in 29 minutes to go with 6 rebounds and 5 assists, Kevin Garnett cool jazzed his way to a 14-12 double-double in 26 minutes and Ray Allen took the night off with the sniffles. Oh, and Brandon Bass did his usual black hole thing to the tune of 15 points, 13 rebounds (4 offensive) in only 26 minutes of work.

All good, then. Win secured.

A few more errant thoughts after the break, along with our nightly highlight gallery.

***

• Am I supposed to be confident about Jermaine O’Neal’s reliability? Because his offensive game terrifies me right now. You barely have to guard him to force a front-rimmed jumper. Are his legs already dead?
• It’s entertaining watching Avery Bradley apply on-ball pressure because it seems to happen outside the context of the team defense. Especially when he goes full court on guys. He’s just doing it because he can and if he gets rebuffed, he’s still quick enough to recover. That’s great. He also looks a bit more confident in the sense that he’s no longer losing his dribble and throwing up airballs like he did last season. He actually knocked down a nice spot-up three late in the third quarter. However, Bradley still reminds me of those overmatched guys in pickup hoops who get the ball, dribble twice and then pass it right back, happy to have played any part in the offense. Bradley needs more confidence and more seasoning. Both will come if Doc Rivers continues to give him court time. In that sense, the lockout may be the best thing that could have happened to Bradley. Doc has almost no choice but to play him.
• MarShon Brooks is going to play in this league for awhile. Between him and Norris Cole in Miami, Danny Ainge missed two young difference makers in the back of the first round of last year’s draft. These are not his only late first round misfires the last few years, as a couple of people have noted in the comments recently.
• Brandon Bass is wonderful. He assaults the rim like it knocked up his sister. In an offense that often ends up too democratic for its own good, it’s useful to have a guy who thinks score first no matter who’s between him and the basket. That kind of bulldog mentality is going to be useful come the playoffs, especially because he comes with a low turnover rate and some offensive rebounding skills.

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STAT’S INCREDIBLE

Marquis Daniels is shooting the ball terribly right now (32.5% from the field before his 0-7 last night). Let’s hope this is just him getting his feel back after missing so many games late last season.

***

HIGHLIGHT GALLERY

3. So unnecessary, but so Rondo.

2. More Rondo, who seems destined to dominate these highlights over the full season. When he’s taking the ball strong to the hoop in transition, he’s just deadly.

1. Here’s a Bradley special from last night, harassing the Nets into a turnover.

0. And here’s the other end of the play with Rondo’s tricky dribble. Not quite as pretty. KG overpasses here rather than just taking the ball in for a layup. Result? Zero points. New Jersey ball.

 ***

Tommy’s Complaint Corner

Like the sedate TD Garden crowd, Tommy was unusually mellow last night. So, with no real explosion from the CSNNE broadcast and no obvious fakery to be invented, we’ll let sleeping Tommys lie.

At least until Friday night.

<cue ominous music>