On the back of a horrific game six performance, Gary Washburn of the Globe piled on with more bad news: Avery Bradley is almost certainly done for the season. Washburn: A source close to Bradley told the Globe that it’s in the “high 90s” percentile that Bradley will be shut down and will perhaps need [...]
After the Thunder finished up their series by routinely dismantling the Lakers last night to send them packing in five games, a time has been announced for the C’s-Sixers Game 6 on Wednesday night. It will tipoff shortly after 8pm on ESPN. Looking ahead in the postseason, if the C’s do win Game 6, and [...]
I love this decision-making from Rajon Rondo. While leading the break, you can see him eyeballing Ray Allen, who runs the wing and spots up on the arc. The Sixers have a 1-2 disadvantage but are mostly concerned about Allen’s three balls, which allows Mickael Pietrus to make an unmolested baseline cut behind the defense. [...]
A note to all you local C’s fans out there that may be attending the game tonight at TD Garden. The game will start just after 7pm and will be broadcast nationally on TNT. However, unlike most TNT regular season games during the season, the tip will not come 15-20 minutes after the scheduled start [...]
Rajon Rondo is a tremendous player, but he tends to have a little bit of an issue scoring the ball late in games. I won’t go as far as saying he is scared, but he does pass up shots and defer to teammates in crunch-time….well a lot. Last night though may have been his coming [...]
Garnett followed up his season-best effort against Atlanta in Game 6 with a new season-high in points and another sensational double-double, as well 60 percent shooting (12-of-20) from the field. Over his past two contests, Garnett is averaging 28.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, two steals and four blocks a game. After the game, KG was candid [...]
Doc Rivers opened his media availability session on Friday, confirming reports over the last few days that Avery Bradley is out for the playoffs with his shoulder injury.
“He’s having surgery today, so he’s out for the playoffs,” Rivers acknowledged. ”It’s disappointing. Obviously, when a player goes down it’s disappointing, especially on what Avery has given us this year. His growth this year has been terrific. It’s been great. He’s become a very valuable piece to our basketball team.”
With Bradley out in the interim, Rivers talked about the chain effect missing his guard will have on his team’s lineup, especially against Philadelphia in particular.
“His ability to guard the best guard at the 1 or 2 has really taken so much pressure off [Rajon] Rondo in particular,” Rivers explained. “Without him, Rondo has to go back to that role and run the team, and that’s hard. That’s hard to do, especially against the team we are playing, who has two guards that attack. Rondo doesn’t have a lot of breaks [now]. That’s the way it is.”
Despite it all, Rivers is offering no excuses for this team heading into Game 7 tomorrow, who are dealing with their fourth season-ending injury of the season.
“We’ve been a team all year, stuff happens, you deal with it and you just move forward,” Rivers said. “That’s who we’ve been, and that’s who we need to be tomorrow.”
CH’s Take: The only new news out of the story is the fact Bradley is undergoing surgery so soon, which again signals just how severe the shoulder injury had become for Avery. Read the rest of this entry »
None of this is meant to kill the vibe in the room (Monday night’s game took care of that quite nicely). But it is a reminder to enjoy watching these guys tonight, no matter the result. There may yet be one final Rondo-to-Garnett alley oop left in them, one last ill-advised Davis jumpshot to draw your ire, one final demand from Doc that the team pick up the pace. And for all the scattered half-efforts and no-shows over the last four years, no final estimation of this era would be fair without recognizing how superb this group has played and the renaissance their assembly sparked for this franchise. And there remains the little matter of that seventeenth banner they hung up in the rafters.
In sports as with anything else, it seems like there’s never enough time with the things you love. And however wildly our opinions may vary about the importance of a group of multi-millionaires playing a game, it seems reasonable to assume that love is the word many of you would use to describe your feelings towards them. Because ‘millionaires playing a game’ doesn’t do it justice. It’s not even close.
Last night’s twin disasters (game six, the news on Avery Bradley) seem to have repositioned the Celtics’ playoff prospects in everyone’s minds. A series win over the Sixers is far from assured and even if they do advance, with Bradley out, Ray Allen a shell of himself and even Paul Pierce’s health in question, the C’s appear underequipped to stop Miami’s perimeter stars from getting to the rim. The C’s look like serious underdogs even if Chris Bosh isn’t able to play.
But I’m still feeling a sense of zen with this team because they’re playing with house money. With everything that’s gone wrong this (condensed) season, it’s impressive the Celtics are a win away from the Eastern Conference Finals. You could reasonably argue they’re already a success. Read the rest of this entry »
Offensively, things could not have gone much worse for the Celtics in Game 6. Beyond a quietly efficient outing from Paul Pierce (24 points) and some hot shooting by Kevin Garnett in the fourth quarter, the team’s offense delivered one of their worst performance of The Big Three era.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Paul Pierce, SF42 MIN | 5-11 FG | 13-13 FT | 10 REB | 3 AST | 24 PTS | -5Depressing waste of a solid Pierce game on offense, especially the 13 made free throws. Pierce was a total masochist in this one. He went straight up Fifty Shades of Grey. But his teammates let him down, and when they look at his bruises it should remind them of their own failures.
Brandon Bass, PF27 MIN | 2-12 FG | 4-4 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 8 PTS | -9Oh, right. Regression to the mean.
Kevin Garnett, PF41 MIN | 9-20 FG | 2-2 FT | 11 REB | 0 AST | 20 PTS | -7KG decided the offensive paint was hot lava tonight and didn’t set foot in it. 20 shots, not a single one closer than 10 feet. You’re a center now, Kevin. I know Spencer Hawes gets to shoot only jumpers, but his parents both work so he gets away with more than you do. Go inside.
Ray Allen, SG26 MIN | 4-11 FG | 0-0 FT | 3 REB | 0 AST | 9 PTS | -4Ray Allen has a tiny little knife in his ankle. That’s basically what a bone spur is. Every time he goes up to shoot, he gets stabbed with it. Every lateral step he takes to stay in front of Lou Williams: stabbed. He needs to sit more and shoot less, because he’s just not reliable on either end. On the bright side, at this point I could see Mike Breen fixing a Celtics-Spurs Finals just for the jokes he could make.
Rajon Rondo, PG43 MIN | 4-14 FG | 1-2 FT | 9 REB | 6 AST | 9 PTS | -4That’ll show the coaches who voted him second team All-Defense. Nobody tells Rajon Rondo what he can and can’t do. NOBODY.
Rondo’s alter-ego Rojan Rando dressed tonight, bringing with him all the classic elements of a Rando game (poor shooting, gambling on the perimeter, sloppy turnovers, avoiding contact, becoming sleepy) as well as a new one in the form of not finding his teammates. Rando, you crazy freak! What are we gonna do with you?!
Ryan Hollins, C11 MIN | 0-0 FG | 0-2 FT | 5 REB | 3 AST | 0 PTS | -6Ryan Hollins brings the valuable skill set of having six personal fouls. You can’t teach that.
Mickael Pietrus, SF35 MIN | 2-6 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 1 AST | 5 PTS | 0Pietrus needs to take over Ray’s role so he can defend either Evan Turner, Jrue Holiday, or Lou Williams at all times. The game’s been over for a half-hour and Ray is still trying to catch up to Lou Williams on the drive. I wouldn’t even hate putting Pietrus on Iggy and switching Pierce over to Turner. But before the next game, Doc needs to call Pietrus into his office (along with the candle from Beauty and the Beast to serve as interpreter) and order him to stop chucking and start cutting.
The longer this series goes, the longer a few things become apparent:
1)Evan Turner is shooting terribly. 31% from the field (18-58) to be exact. If he were to catch fire, the Celtics could be facing a Game 7 before they even get settled in their Philadelphia hotel room.
2) The Celtics injury situation is starting to become troublesome, sort of. Ideally, the Celtics want everyone fully healthy and Avery Bradley and Ray Allen are big parts of what makes the C’s successful. That said, the Celtics can and probably will get past the Sixers without those two being 100%. It’s beyond this series that brings on the troublesome feelings.
3)Kevin Garnet is slowing down. After starting the playoffs blazing a trail of destruction, Garnett has begun to cool off from the field and has not taken advantage of Philadelphia’s smallish (Elton Brand, Lavoy Allen) and poor defending (Spencer Hawes) front line nearly as much as he should be. As long as the Celtics keep winning and Garnett keeps bringing his energy, no one will really notice.
But those thoughts are for another day because the Celtics take on the Sixers in a potential series clinching game. I’d wish for a fast start by the C’s but playing with an early lead does not necessarily guarantee success. The Celtics need to keep their foot on the gas pedal and end this series tonight.
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