Celtics lost their third straight game, second in under a week to the Detroit Pistons, 96-81. Kevin Garnett did not play due to personal reasons in his family. Rajon Rondo was also ejected in the 3^rd quarter after the referees missed a layup where he was clearly hacked. He got up and had some choice words for the referee, which got him the first technical. As the ref was signaling the technical, Rondo threw an underhand chest pass to the ref. Unlike the assist that usually follows, Rondo was ejected from the game and the Celtics were left down 13 without their motor.

Nice to see Paul in a little bit more of an attack mode tonight, especially when the Celtics were trailing in the fourth quarter. The ref’s weren’t giving a lot of calls but he was getting into the paint and getting his shots off. He had 18 points on 6-11 shooting. Before the ejection, Rondo was 1-6 with 5 points and 10 assists. Pistons outshot the Celtics from the line 46 to 15. The Celtics committed 22 turnovers and gave up 31 points of their turnovers. The Pistons were all over the place tonight, they went to a 3 guard lineup for a majority of the game. The players were just ball hawking all night and the Celtics were way to lazy passing the ball.

The Celtics have the 3^rd game of their 5 game road trip at Dallas tomorrow night 8:00.

Extra Notes:

Tommy was so angry after the game that he wouldn’t appear on the initial postgame show. He later said that “I can’t blame Rondo, but he’s going to lose a lot of money for a simple pass to the Referee”. Rodney Stuckey had the same amount of free throws as the Celtics; Game could have been a lot worse, the Pistons missed 17 free throws;

Avery Bradley Alert

Avery Bradley played relatively well tonight; he was 3-8 from the floor with 7 points and 2 assists. While his defense at one or two points was overaggressive from his defense, he still played well and pushed the pace for the Celtics. I would like to see him help set the tone of the game earlier as he did in the Magic games this season. Nice stat from Comcast sports network, when Bradley plays +10 minutes, the Celtics are 13-4.