Celtics Win Triple OT Thriller

Posted on February 10, 2013 by christoph131

The Celtics were up by as many as 10 during tonight’s game against the Denver Nuggets. However, the Nuggets, who were on a 9-game winning streak coming into tonight’s game, made it a game late in the 4^th quarter. The Celtics seemed to have the game wrapped up when they got robbed by a call. At least that’s how it looked on every single replay that they showed. It looked like two Denver players clearly knocked the ball out of bounds. This would all be okay If they didn’t review it. But they did. They spent two minutes looking at a play from every angle and it still seemed like they got the call wrong. Denver then tied it up with 0.8 seconds left on an easy layup.

In the first overtime, the Nuggets got off to an early lead. However, Jeff Green made a clutch 3-pointer from the corner to tie it up at 99 a piece with one minute remaining, eventually forcing a second overtime. Pierce made an unbelievable 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds left in the 2^nd OT to tie it up yet again. However, it was really close as the officials reviewed where his foot was, and it was about a centimeter from the line, thankfully. Eventually, the Celtics were able to win the game 118-114 and extend their win streak to 7 games. They are now 27-23 on the year.

Pierce led the C’s with 27 points, but also was only 7-of-20 shooting from the field.. He was also able to add 13 rebounds and 8 assists. The bench played huge for us. Jeff Green scored 17 points and played amazing all around. Jason Terry has stepped it up as of late, putting in 26 of his own. JET made five 3-pointers in the contest. He also had 15 against the Lakers the other night. Avery Bradley played great defense as usual and scored 13. Garnett was off early, but really stepped it up in overtime adding 20 points and 16 rebounds.

The Celtics now have only two games until the All-Star break next weekend. They will travel to Charlotte tomorrow to take on the league’s worst team—the Bobcats. The Bobcats are 11-39 this season and allow 103.0 points per game. On Wednesday, the C’s will take on the Bulls who are 30-20 (4^th place in the East) even without their MVP Derrick Rose. With Rajon Rondo injured, Kevin Garnett will be the only Celtic player represented at the ASG next Sunday.

Rivers Wins 400th with Celtics

Posted on February 7, 2013 by christoph131

Doc Rivers is one of three Celtics coaches who have reached the 400-win plateau. He is third behind Tommy Heinsohn (427 wins), who is now the very colorful commentator for Celtics games. In first place is the greatest coach of all-time, Red Auerbach. Red’s record won’t get touched seeing as he has 795 wins, and could have probably reached 1000 if he didn’t decide to step down as coach and move into the front office. Still, he is responsible for bringing Parish, Bird, and Mchale together after he was done coaching, so he should get credit for those years as well!

Doc is 400-288 with the Celtics over the 9 years he has been in Beantown. He won 171 games as a coach of his hometown Orlando Magic. Doc was also an NBA player beforehand, and is regarded as one of the best, if not the best players’ coach. He was also voted as one of the best coaches at designing set plays from out of bounds. That was from a poll taken before every season. The Celtics have now won 5 straight games.

Garnett Going Away?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by christoph131

There is a rumor going around that the Los Angeles Clippers are very interested in obtaining Kevin Garnett to help them in a playoff run. With KG’s experience, tenacity, and outside jumpers, who wouldn’t want him on their team? He is still a solid player, even if he is just a fraction of his former self. It is great that Garnett always says he wants to retire a Celtic, and I think he should too, but if it is between trading him or Pierce, I’m letting go of Garnett. Pierce got stabbed a bunch of times, had to play alongside some of the worst Celtics ever (i.e. Antoine Walker after his “prime”), and stuck with the team throughout their down years. He holds many records in this storied franchise and I think he deserves to stay. But I digress..

It’s hard to keep Garnett with the season we are having. Yes, we have been playing a lot better since Rondo went down, but before that, it hardly seemed worth the two year, $23.5 million deal that he still has after this season. However, for what they are offering, at least what is rumored, is to trade him for Caron Butler (10 year veteran with 15.7 PPG in his career, most of which occurred a few years back), and 2^nd year point guard Eric Bledsoe, who the Clippers are very high on, it is not worth it. Bledsoe is averaging just over 9 points a game this season, playing behind Chris Paul when he was healthy.

Danny Ainge went on the record saying that he really hasn’t talked about moves, but will take a wait-and-see mentality before the trade deadline on February 21. Anyways, KG has a no-trade clause in his new contract, and can veto any trade that we try to do. That being said, do you think he would go? In my mind, the Clippers have a lot better of a chance of winning than we do. However, he has been the harshest since the Ray Allen-to-Miami signing. Would it make him a hypocrite? What do you think?

Sullinger Out For Season

Posted on February 1, 2013 by christoph131

Well… so much for wearing my Sullinger shirt all season. The breaking news is that Rookie Jared Sullinger will be out for the rest of the season after re-injuring his back. The reason why he fell so far in the draft was because teams didn’t think that he could get past his injury. I guess they were right. Apparently, he will be perfectly fine after he rehabs, but you never know. This happens less than a week after we found out that Rajon Rondo would miss the rest of the season as well.

Sullinger has proven himself to be one of the better rookies in the league, and by far the best one the Celtic’s have brought on board in years. Jared averaged 6 points and 5.9 rebounds in just under 20 minutes per game. These aren’t outstanding numbers, but as of late, he has been on of our most solid contributors. The Celtic’s have called up Fab Melo from the Development League, and he may see some time.

C’s Versus Kings

Posted on January 30, 2013 by christoph131

The Sacramento Kings (who probably won’t be known as that for long) come to the Garden tonight to take on the Rondo-less Celtics. We are better than them in every category except rebounds and points (barely), even though we are going to miss Rondo’s 11.1 Assists Per Game. After beating the Heat in double OT on Sunday, this should be an easy game, but ya never know.

There has also been speculation that we were trying to acquire their hot-headed star Demarcus Cousins for Bradley and Sullinger and maybe something else. I hope this doesn’t happen since I would then be stuck with a Ray Allen and Jared Sullinger shirt and nothing to do with them. Anyway, tune into our Twitter (https://twitter.com/BostonSB) tonight for periodic updates and follow us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/BostonSportsBlog)

	Kings	Celtics
W-L	19-29	21-23
Points Scored	96.9	95.1
Points Allowed	103.2	96.5
Rebounds	40.5	39.6
Assists	19.9	23.1
Turnovers lost	14.7	14.6
Turnovers forced	14.8	15.8

C’s Top Heat

Posted on January 27, 2013 by christoph131

The Celtics were able to outlast the Miami Heat on Sunday in a double-overtime victory. Boston escaped with a 100-98 victory that few have thought much about. The reason is simple—Rajon Rondo is out for the remainder of the season with a torn ACL. The starting All-Star Point Guard was averaging a league leading 11.1 Assists Per Game and recorded back to back Triple-Doubles before hyper-extending his knee on Friday against the Hawks.

The good news is, we beat the 1^st place Heat behind KG’s 24 points and 11 rebounds and a Triple-Double by Paul Pierce. Even the struggling Jason Terry contributed with 13 points while Jeff Green added 11 of his own. Other than that it was a defensive matchup for the most part, until the two overtimes allowed the teams some more time to raise their scoring averages. LeBron James had 34 points and 16 rebounds for the visiting Heat. With this win, the Celtics break a 6 game skid and will host the 16-29 Kings on Wednesday.

C’s Take on the Heat

Posted on January 27, 2013 by christoph131

The Celtics have yet another tough test on Sunday when the first-place Miami Heat come to town. Everyone knows that it is Ray Allen’s first game back in Boston since leaving, but we have a lot more on our plate than that. The Heat are in first place in the East once again. However, we always play them tough, and as of last game, they are the worst rebounding team in the NBA, we are second to last. I know it’s not much, but they need to cling onto anything that they can to beat this team.

It’s not Ray Ray that we have to worry about, as he is only averaging 11.4 points in 25.5 minutes per game, both significantly lower than the rest of his career. It’s another guy, named LeBron James, that is having a quiet but huge season. He is averaging 26.4 PPG (.7 lower than last season) but has raised his Assists per game up to 7.1 (from 6.2) and 8.1 Rebounds per game (7.9 last season). Below is a quick preview of how the teams match up. Who do you think comes out on top?

	Heat	Celtics
W-L	28-12	20-23
Points Scored	102.8	95
Points Allowed	96.9	96.4
Rebounds	39.1	39.5
Assists	22.5	23
Turnovers lost	13.6	14.6
Turnovers forced	14.9	15.7

C’s versus Knicks

Posted on January 24, 2013 by christoph131

The Celtics will take on their division rival tonight when they host the New York Knicks. The Celtics topped the Knicks a few weeks ago 102-96, and Melo wasn’t happy after that one. There is footage of him screaming at KG through the locker room door after Garnett supposedly said that Melo’s wife tasted like Honey Nut Cheerios. Classic.

The Knicks are leading the division and are 2 games behind the Heat for first place in the Eastern Conference. The Celtics are currently on a 4 game losing streak after winning 6 straight and are sitting one game below .500. Below are some stats of how the teams match up. Everything is close except for the points scored and turnovers lost. Celtics are last in the league in rebounding. Knicks are favored by 1.5.

	Knicks	Celtics
W-L	25-14	20-21
Points Scored	101.1	94.9
Points Allowed	96.3	96
Rebounds	40.5	39.1
Assists	19.9	23
Turnovers lost	11.1	14.5
Turnovers forced	15.4	15.9

C’s Struggling Again

Posted on January 22, 2013 by christoph131

The biggest loss this past Sunday had to be the Celtics dropping a game against the Pistons 103-88 right? That’s the only game I am willing to remember. The C’s fell to 20-20 after losing their 3^rd straight game. They also lost against the Bulls on Friday in overtime, but at least that was a hard fought game. We also got to listen to the ugliest player in the NBA, Joakim Noah, complain about how dirty of a player KG is again.

The C’s will look to bounce back against a struggling Cavaliers team on Tuesday night in Cleveland without one of their best players, Anderson Verejao is out for the season with a blood clot in his lung. However, they still have Kyrie Irving who is proving himself once again as one of the top players in the league, without a lot of help around him. The Green will also take on the Knicks on Thursday and the Hawks on Friday before hosting the Heat next Sunday. Should be a tough road ahead, but at least we have something to watch with no football!

C’s Streaking

Posted on January 13, 2013 by christoph131

What a great weekend for Boston sports fans. Pats win, Peyton loses, and the Celtics extend their win streak to 5 games with a win over Houston, 103-91, on Friday night. For now, let’s just focus on the C’s. When I wrote this article a little over a week ago, we were on a 4 game losing streak and playing some of the toughest teams in the league. Now the Green and White are riding the hot hand going into a game against a 9-27 Charlotte Bobcats team on Monday night.

On Friday, the Celtics were ready to play. Garnett scored 17 points and grabbed 8 boards. Pierce shot lights out for 23 points while Courtney Lee dropped 14 of his own. Once again, Jared Sullinger came up huge, scoring 14 points but grabbing 11 boards off the bench. He only missed 1 shot and is developing into an amazing role player. Sullinger is leading all rookies in +/-.

Rajon Rondo has been a little off recently. I mean he is playing great basketball for anyone else, but according to his high standards that we have come to know, he isn’t that great. He only had 8 assists last game and 8 the game before, bringing his league-leading average down to 11.1. Once he gets going again we should be able to put up some serious points. The return of Avery Bradley on the defensive end has been huge as well, as he covers the opposing teams best player in every game.

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