Yet, despite the 17 turnovers and the 33.3 percent shooting the Celtics were still right there last night. After falling behind by 11 with 3:15 remaining, the Celtics strung together a quick 7-2 over the next 90 seconds, pulling them within six points with 1:40 remaining. After squandering an offensive rebound, Boston eventually got the stop they needed and had the ball down 6 with 52 seconds remaining. They would need to play perfect basketball the rest of the way to have a chance to tie, but they still had a chance.

From there, they went to a pretty familiar play, that you likely recognized. In fact, it’s a play they’ve had tremendous success in using at the Wells Fargo Center over the past few years, as seen here. The play starts as the video begins at 29 seconds, but feel free to watch the whole thing……it’ll make you feel better.

Over the years, the Celtics have gone to this Pierce/Allen pick and roll a lot, with Ray Allen slipping to the wing after a pick from a C’s big man. However, they started doing it so much and so well that teams started accounting for it. Check it out as seen in this game from 2010 against the Lakers, where Lamar Odom slipped off Kevin Garnett to challenge the Allen shot after the pick from KG:

So what did the Celtics do last night, when trailing by six points? They went back to old reliable, this time with a simple adjustment. Instead of running the pick and roll to the right, they sneakily ran it to the left side at the top of the key, and this time had Allen roll to the right wing. The result? A wide-open look, that would have made it a one possession game with 40 seconds remaining.

Now, even if Allen makes this shot, the Celtics’ still likely fall in this game. Boston would have needed another stop, and another 3 just to tie the final 40 seconds. Possible, but certainly not probable the way Boston was shooting all night.

If anything, this just goes to show you the value of a minor adjustment or twist to a play that will throw your opponent off guard. Boston has run this pick-and-roll set hundreds of times over the last five years probably, but that’s one of the first time I can remember them having Pierce take the pick to the left side of the floor (not his comfort zone) to get Ray open on the right wing. Nonetheless, despite the Sixers almost surely seeing this play on video, the subtle change to the setup alignment was enough to get Ray the wide open look.

Like 66.7 percent of the shots Boston had in Game 6, it didn’t fall. The good looks were there though for a lot of the game for this jump-shooting team. They just have to hope they will be there again for Game 7, and this time not rely on them so much.

Last night though may have been his coming of age moment as he hit three crucial mid-range jumpers in the fourth quarter down the stretch, made a smart foul on Jrue Holiday in the closing seconds to prevent a 3-pointer and dribbled out the clock off the final in-bounds play helping Boston clinch the win. He finished the quarter with six points, five rebounds and five assists. I think it may have been the best fourth quarter of his career in the postseason.

After the superb effort late, he joined David Aldridge in the postgame and pure goodness ensued. Watch and enjoy the swag as Kevin Garnett would say.

This is the hot non-story going around the web today, with Rajon Rondo getting heated at a TNT cameraman filming him from a distance before his postgame press conference. For everyone who may be giving the All-Star point guard a hard time (like Ernie Johnson) about his reaction, it’s important to keep this in perspective.

Rondo just squandered away a chance at Game 5 in the closing seconds. Boston doesn’t have a chance if it isn’t for his steal of course, but still in his mind, he’s probably pretty mad at the world and himself so fresh off of the defeat. Let’s cut the guy some slack here for the unpleasant reaction.

With that said, Charles Barkley is hilarious here.

Tragically, that’s the only one of the three blocks that earned a slow-motion replay from the NBATV production crew. The art of the slow-mo replay was set back generations by that decision.

Bradley is behind Hinrich when he goes up for that shot. How he recovers is beyond our science. Watch this last one a hundred times:

NBATV announcer on the play: “Teague with a runner…that won’t go.” He completely ignores Bradley’s block…because hedidn’t understand what he saw. How does Bradley get up and redirect that ball with his back hand?? NOBODY does that. He doesn’t even get a towel wave from his own bench: Stiemsma gets up and lurches a couple steps forward and then sits back down. Bradley was about five years ahead of his time on that block.

Over the top? Perhaps. Premature move with 1:15 left? Probably. Chances any Celtics fan will complain about it after a 36 point, 14 rebound and four assist performance? 0.0 percent

Here’s Pierce after the game to Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports on what inspired the move:

“I’ve seen it on TV,” Pierce said later. “I don’t know what inspired it. I don’t know why. I wasn’t thinking about it. It was instinctive. It’s just like I don’t know when I’m going to shoot a three or jumper. It was instincts.”

And to cap things off, Paul delivered with a couple money tweets to finish out the night

44 mins toniteto old for this I need a bed right now !!!

— Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34) May 2, 2012

followed by this at around 3am this morning

Finally found a bed goodnight twitter world

— Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34) May 2, 2012

The Captain and The Truth ladies and gentlemen!