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Atlanta @ Boston
TD Garden
8:00 PM
CSNNE

Offensive Efficiency
Boston: 98.5 points/100 possessions (25th)
Atlanta: 101.5 points/100 possessions (17th)

Defensive Efficiency
Boston: 95.3 points allowed/100 possessions (1st)
Atlanta: 98.7 points allowed/100 possessions (6th)

Probable Atlanta starters: Jeff Teague (PG), Kirk Hinrich (SG), Joe Johnson (SF, still?), Josh Smith (PF), Zaur Pachulia (C)

View from opposing bench: Hoopinion

Thumbnail:

Things in Greenland have definitely been pretty sweet lately.  The Celtics will finish up their toughest seven game stretch of the season with tonight’s game against Atlanta and the Celtics have been playing out of their gourds.  With a win, the Celtics will be able to boast big wins against four Eastern Conference playoff teams.

Getting a win tonight might be the perfect way to cap off this tough stretch, but it will be far from easy.  In  order to make sure the Celtics left Miami with a win, Doc Rivers played the Big Four all well over 30 minutes.  We already know the Celtics are never the strongest on a SEGABABA, but a SEGABABA where you have to face Joe Johnson and Josh Smith a day after facing LeBron James and Dwyane Wade?  That’s almost always a scheduled loss, epecially given the tree lines on the Celtics’ starters.

This would be the perfect time for a let down but I just don’t see it.  The Hawks have had three days rest and got a chance to beat up on the Charlotte Bobcats twice while the C’s were toiling with San Antonio and Chicago.  On the flip side, the Hawks also haven’t played a really good team since getting destroyed by Chicago back on March 28th.   The Hawks have also recently lost to the Sixers.  It’s probably safe to conclude that the Hawks have trouble with really good defensive teams.  But who doesn’t?

News and Notes:

Ray Allen is out with a swollen ankle but Mickael Pietrus is back in the lineup tonight.  Expect a huge emotional lift from the home crowd.

Be sure to check out Rich Keefe’s chat with Kirk Hinrich!

I’ll be Tweeting tonight for ESPN’s Daily Dime.  Get at me!

@CelticsHub
@DimeAlert
@DimeUpdate
@DimeSmash

Prediction:

Let’s keep the good times rolling.  Celtics 105, Hawks 98

I don’t know a single person who didn’t shake their head after that game, so let me be the first to say I’ve been unfair to my dear friend Ryan. First of all, that game against Sacramento was pathetically awful and no Celtic should have escaped the wrath of those who cover them (similar to the recap of a Raptors loss from earlier in the season that some idiot wrote). Second of all, clearly publishing those words had some cosmic effect on the StiemCleanah because he has been on an absolute tear since.

Here are Stiemsma’s stats from the nine games after the loss in NorCal:

4 points, 3 blocks, 1 rebound at Denver (L)

4 points, 4 blocks, 3 rebounds at Atlanta (W)

6 points, 5 blocks, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals at Milwaukee (W)

2 points, 2 blocks, 0 rebounds at Philadelphia (L)

10 points, 0 blocks, 7 rebounds vs. Washington (W)

3 points, 2 blocks, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals at Charlotte (W)

1 point, 4 blocks, 4 rebounds vs. Utah (W)

8 points, 2 blocks, 5 rebounds at Minnesota (W)

6 points, 1 block, 4 rebounds, 2 steals vs. Miami (W)

I’m pretty sure the last time Jermaine O’Neal stuffed the stat sheet like that he was wearing Blue and Yellow. Perhaps even more impressive/encouraging is the spike in Stiemsma’s minutes. Surprisingly, Doc Rivers has consistently kept Kevin Garnett on the 5 on/5 off plan and Stiemsma is his primary (perhaps only) replacement. When the Celtics played Sacramento, Stiemsma was averaging a little more than 10 minutes a game. That number has risen considerably in this nine game stretch which has provided KG more rest and Stiemsma more opportunity to showcase what he can do; mostly block shots.

While Greg is primarily a shot blocker, he’s also shown all of us that he is a pretty deadly mid-range shooter with an extremely quick-release set shot. It’ll be interesting to see if he’ll ever be paired with Hollins going forward making him the primary stretch four.  While I want to see it out of pure morbid curiosity, I’m not entirely sure how much Ryan Hollins I want to see, making this pairing problematic.

Along with the shooting and the shot blocking, Stiemsma has also proven to be quite the cerebral player.  He’s picked up the Celtics complicated defensive rotations and recovers well for weakside blocks.  Nothing has shown how well Stiemsma’s been able to pick up the defensive rotations more than the charge he took on Chris Bosh on Sunday.  In the beginning of the season, that was a dunk.

Lately, the only complaint about Stiemsma has been his propensity to give up And-1s. Before the Heat game, Doc Rivers told the media that he laid into Greg for giving soft fouls and giving Minnesota some free points. I asked Greg about that after the Heat game, another one in which he gave up some And-1s:

Yeah, I’ve given up kind of a couple of And-1s lately and it bothers me as much as I think it does him. Not trying to hurt guys or anything like that but if I’m going to get a foul, I gotta try to get piece of the ball so I don’t let the And-1s go. I gotta kinda keep working on that and not pick up the cheap ones–a light foul–still, it’s a foul but you got to get a piece of the ball.

You can tell Greg is trying to avoid getting fined, and I don’t blame him. While it’s true he’s been giving up And-1s, I think a lot of it has to do with the “light fouls”. So much of those “light fouls” getting called has to do with familiarity. These officials just aren’t used to seeing Stiemsma at all, let alone be successful. Officials will always err on the side of blowing the whistle if a play is close and involves an undrafted free agent like Stiemsma. I asked him about that familiarity, and he wisely dismissed the notion:

It’s all part of the game, especially being a shot blocker I know I’m going to put myself in those situations to get fouls called even more. They call them. There’s nothing you can do. Just keep playing through it. That’s why you get six of them. I try to use up every one. As long as I’m not hurting the team getting too many fouls, I think that’s going to be my role.

Stiemsma’s saying all the right things and isn’t criticizing the officials because he can’t. Luckily, I can. Like a said above, Stiemsma’s only going to get the benefit of the doubt the more he plays. Right now, the officials aren’t going to give him an inch. Still, you have to admire the approach Greg takes. He understands the officials are going to call fouls and he’s going to continue to play hard, be aggressive, and soak up minutes.

And he’s going to have to if the Celtics hope to make any kind of meaningful playoff run. A lot of people will point to Mickael Pietrus being a bench x-factor going into the playoffs. They’re not entirely wrong, but the Celtics are incredibly thin up front and when the rotations shorten, Greg will be it off the bench. Luckily, he’s showing all of us now that he’s ready to be that big off the bench.

Boston @ Philadelphia

Offensive Efficiency
Boston: 98.2 points/100 possessions (25th)
Philadelphia: 102.3 points/100 possessions (10th)

Defensive Efficiency
Boston: 96.7 points allowed/100 possessions (3rd)
Philadelphia: 94.5 points allowed/100 possessions (1st)

Probable Philadelphia starters: Jrue Holiday (PG), Evan Turner (SG), Andre Iguodala (SF), Elton Brand (PF), Spencer Hawes (C)

View from opposing bench: Philadunkia

Thumbnail: Calling all optimists!  We have a game for you!

A few short days ago, I wrote a quick little post about a three game span that could have meant a lot in terms of how the season would play out for the C’s.  It seemed really foolish at the time, after all the Celtics had just suffered two embarrassing losses to very beatable teams, but I felt they had a real chance to make up ground on the Sixers before their March 23rd meeting.   All the C’s had to do was win their next two and hope the Sixers lost a game, and they would be playing for first place by the end of the week.

So here we are.  March 23rd.  The Celtics swoop into Philadelphia riding the momentum of two quality wins and the Sixers lost a tight one against New York.  If the C’s can make it three in a row, they will be in sole possession of first place.  It’s such a weird feeling that it bears repeating.  After starting the season so sluggish, the Celtics could actually find themselves looking down instead of up.

It won’t be easy.  The Sixers are the most efficient defensive team in the league.  They are young, athletic, and have multiple players who can step up at any given night.  It may sound strange, but the real x-factor may be how Rajon Rondo and Avery Bradley can defend Lou Williams.  The undersized guard has been absolutely torching teams this year and the C’s will have to limit his effectiveness if they hope to pull out a win.  They cannot allow Williams to go off like they let Marcus Thornton do.

Prediction:

Celtics 95, Sixers 90

You may have missed it, but there was an awesome string of plays where Pietrus hits a three on the offensive end and then, well, just watch:

It’s a little hard to see because Pietrus is in the background and the resolution is a bit small.  To recap, Pietrus gets picked by Jason Collins while trying to follow the curl, loses his balance and goes down.  Pietrus is no dummy.  He knows the shortest distance between two points is a straight line so he does the most efficient thing:  he crawls through Collins legs and gets back into the play.  He then proceeds to snag the defensive rebound.

I love when a player’s antics don’t negatively affect that player’s production.

Since we’re still talking playoff odds, Pietrus is essential to any hope the Celtics have to make a deep playoff run.  He plays with great energy, he rebounds really well for a guard, he can defend the SF or SG and he can hit threes.

And he provides much needed comedic relief.

In a sort of pseudo-dramatic irony, the Celtics were swept on St. Paddy’s day weekend.  While Bostonian revelers bounced around from pub to pub, the Boston Celtics were thousands of miles away in Denver, Colorado suffering their second straight loss to a beatable opponent.

Going forward, the schedule doesn’t seem to get any easier for the C’s, which could be the most discouraging part about losing to the Kings and Nuggets.   After beating a young, athletic, and talented Clipper team, the Celtics failed to carry any momentum into Sacramento.  The loss in SacTown seemed to carry into Denver and now the Celtics are 2-3 with three more road games.  To make matters worse, the C’s play the Hawks (25-19) and Sixers (25-20) and both games are guaranteed to be tough, energy-sapping games.  All the more reason it hurts so much that the C’s lost their last two. 

While using games against the Hawks and Sixers to get back on track may sound like a terrifying, if not impossible, prospect there is one added silver lining.  The Sixers are struggling only slightly worse than the C’s right now.  If the Sixers continue to struggle in their next two games, at Charlotte (ha!) and at home versus the Knicks (it could happen) and the C’s pull out two wins against the Hawks and Bucks, the Celtics could go into their showdown against Philly actually up a game and a half (26-21 and 25-23, respectively).  Even if the C’s lose to the Hawks, the Sixers beat Charlotte, and everything else stayed the same, the C’s would go into Philadelphia down a half game. Either way, these next three games could mean a lot to the C’s reshaping their playoffs hopes.

The news gets a little better after these next three games as well.  Take a look at the C’s next 7 games (including the last three of their current road trip).

From the looks of things, the Celtics could continue to see more wins than losses.  Since this post is supposed to be encouraging, I am not even going to touch the schedule starting in April.  That’ll be for another time when you don’t need a little pep talk.

Remember:  it’s important to keep the loss to Sacramento in your mind whenever you try to schedule wins.  Any team can beat any team on any given night.  It’s why they play the games.  These are just some optimistic predictions.

We’ve seen the Celtics sleepwalk through the middle of the season in the past.  Two years ago, the Celtics lost to the Lakers in the finals and they played the last 2/3rds of the season at near .500 basketball (30-27).  Nobody thought the C’s were going anywhere that year and they ended up a quarter away from their second Championship in three years.

I’m not ready to say the Celtics are fine.  They aren’t.  They have a lot of unsolvable problems (poor-rebounding, age, desire, injuries).  I’m just not ready to completely give up on them yet.  This is why we care, right?  This is why we watch every single game.  If we knew without a doubt that the Celtics were not title contenders, Danny Ainge would have flipped the big three for first round picks.  We’d be assured a completely different roster next season.  By not trading any of the Celtic starters, Ainge could be saying one of two things: 1) the Celtics are still title contenders and everyone could be here for this season and beyond, or 2) no one offered the Celtics anything of value for their aging core.   I choose to believe the former.

The time to get down to business is now.  Okay, the time to get down to business was two games ago, but now the Celtics have no choice.  It’s business time.