POST GAME INDIANA

WHO ARE THESE GUYS????????????????????????????????????????

Key's to game, simple:

1) A lot of white shirts in the paint looking for rebounds
2) Defense, defense, defense - Bradley had Indiana start their offense almost at mid court!
3) Attacking the paint on offense
4) Limiting Indiana (Who Leads The League) to only 6 second chance points

Kudos to Chris Wilcox. He's getting stronger and stronger.

Celtic are going to have a killer bench come playoff time. As of now they have the best bench in the NBA!

4 WINS AND COUNTING AND WE ARE AT 500!!!!!!!!

Early start on Sunday against Cleveland 5:30PM

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WEEI 850 RECAP


FAST BREAK: CELTICS WIN FOURTH STRAIGHT, REACH .500
By Ben Rohrbach

For 24 minutes against the Pacers, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett looked like a couple guys in their mid 30s playing consecutive nights of basketball, combining for 4-of-16 shooting in the first half, but The Truth and The Ticket made a combined 10-of-14 second-half shots to lead the Celtics to impressive victories in back-to-back games — this time 94-87 against Larry Bird‘s club.

Pierce approached a triple-double for the second straight night, compiling 28 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, while Garnett added 13 points and eight boards (as did Mickael Pietrus). Meanwhile, recently returned Chris Wilcox enjoyed a breakout night for the Celtics (9-9), amassing season highs of 14 points and six rebounds.

Danny Granger‘s 21 points led the Pacers (12-6), who had beaten the C’s in their two previous meetings.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Bench clearing: Led by Wilcox’s six points and three rebounds, the C’s bench played an inspired first quarter, making all four of their shots and taking an early 23-17 lineup when Garnett and Pierce came out flat on the second night of a back-to-back. A lineup of Wilcox, E’Twaun Moore, Marquis Daniels, Brandon Bass and Mickael Pietrus actually stretched a lead when the Celtics needed a lift most.

Sharing the wealth: The Celtics assisted on 21 of their 38 field goals in the first half — without starting point guard Rajon Rondo in action. For the second consecutive night, Pierce (10 assists in Thursday night’s victory) assumed the role as the offense’s main facilitator, recording more assists by himself (5) than the entire Pacers team (4) in the opening half.

Double the fun: Sure, Doc Rivers has a philosophy that his team is better off getting back on defense, but offensive rebounding was a concern for the Celtics last season, as they rarely outworked opponents on the offensive glass. Against the Pacers, the C’s pulled down seven first-half offensive boards and outscored the Pacers for the game in second-chance opportunities, 14-6.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Health: Once again, the Celtics played without Rajon Rondo (wrist), Ray Allen (ankle), Jermaine O’Neal (knee) and Keyon Dooling (knee, hip). It’s been an admirable effort, especially on consecutive nights, in their absence, but they should hope those injuries are more cautionary than lingering issues that could catch up with them.

Stiemer: Center Greg Stiemsma continues to struggle after his breakout game against the Wizards on Jan. 2. He saw four minutes and missed his only shot, a jumper, badly. Stiemsma has a grand total of two field goals in his last 11 games.

Outside of that, it’s hard to complain about a team that just a week ago looked tired and beaten before managing to rattle off four straight wins, battle back to .500 on the season and raise its record on the second night of back-to-backs to 3-2. It’s no surprise this sequence has coincided with Pierce’s gradual return to form.

Stiemsma was stuck with the ball 20 ft from the basket with 2 seconds on the shot clock and the writer faults him for missing it? Yeah...ok.

Otherwise, good recap

Interesting player as back up to JON but too expensive for the Celtics

The New Orleans Hornets are actively trying to trade center Chris Kaman, according to sources close to the process. Although sources stressed to ESPN.com that no deal was imminent, Kaman was not with the team for its home game Friday night against Orlando while the Hornets field trade calls for him. The Hornets, sources said, have decided to shelve Kaman until they can find a trade home for him after making the decision to give his minutes to young players. Kaman had been made inactive for Wednesday's loss at Oklahoma City even though he's not injured. Kaman, who turns 30 in April, is making roughly $14 million this season. He became the oldest player on the Hornets' roster after being dealt with guard Eric Gordon, Aminu and Minnesota's unprotected 2012 first-round pick for Paul. ESPN

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Mrkleen,

Ya thanks. It was a foolish statement about the Steamer. It was a good win and now reaffirms that Orlando was no fluke. We could start picking up some ground this week.

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In a sense, I think the performances of Bradley and Moore in the Pacers game were more indicative of where they are in their basketball maturation than either of the Magic games.

In the Pacers game, I had the feeling they were more a regular part of the rotation, not contributing anything spectacular but settling in and playing very helpful complementary roles. They'll no longer surprise anyone as I believe Avery did in the first Orlando game. The ebb and flow of the game may not often lead to four wide open threes for E'Twaun as was the case in the second Orlando game. But, in the Pacers game, they played their roles, generally made more contributions than errors, fit rather nicely into the rotation, sped up the action a bit, and gave essential rest to veterans.

It's beginning to appear as though Stiemsma may be an unfortunate example of someone who makes an initial splash but struggles in trying to translate that beginning to a regular rotation slot. But I give the guy credit for giving KG some essential rest at a critical period of the Pacers game.

Otherwise, every Celtic who played this week has contributed. Forget Pierce. He was other-worldly (shades of the 2008 Finals). Please don't bother me with crap about KG's lift. He's a double double threat and strong defensive contributor in every game lately. Bass and Pietrus look to be among Danny's best pickups, and Wilcox could join that list if he maintains his recent quality of play. Quis and Sasha have chipped in at both ends. And we all know what Sasha and Avery have done.

I'm certainly not expecting them to continue pulling rabbits out of hats; and, in the not-so-long run, they'll need the starters back. They've got a long, long way to go before they can be considered serious contenders. Maybe Danny will shock me and break them up before the trading deadline. But, for the moment, I'm feeling pretty good about the direction the team seems to be taking.

Go Celtics!

Sam

Just one question

What true Celtic fan can't have a bit of a smile on their face this morning?

beat

PS. check the standings. Look out west. Lakers are tied with Houston for the 8th spot.

Little more curve to that smile.

The Celtics are really stating to find their way as a team. The defense is getting better every game because the new guts are learning the rotations. The guards are pressuring the ball and staying with their man.

Teams are now game planning for Avery. Note how WEST set screens for their guards all the way up the court so that Avery could not attack them.

Poor Greg...every time he steps on the court the refs call a foul on him.

Bass and Pietrus are the real deal.

The motor is all warmed up.

Dboss

Considering the latest surge which see the Celtics playing with new found intensity, Ainge is facing a quandry. Does he ride this out or does he break up the team's core group? I don't see any offers that would beat having the expiring contracts. Wonderful to see contributions from unexpected sources. The last 2 wins shows the C's can beat good teams, and can't help but bolster the confidence of the younger players (Bradley & Moore), and reinstill the swag of the old guard (Garnett & Pierce). League-wide respect for Doc's coaching prowess has to be growing and it was vast to begin with. I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know how long it will last. I'm happy and if it lasts until late spring, that is until another month that starts with "J".

Hi,
One more, this time, very solid win.
I think we've got a glimpse of what the Celtics are capable of. And this is without 3 starters. I hope they're coming back soon because PP, no matter how hard he tries, can't carry the team for much longer.

AK

Dboss - "The defense is getting better every game because the new guts are learning" Very appropriate typo.

A 4 game winning streak with 3 of those wins against 2 good teams and the last two back-to-backs against good teams. A heroic come-from-behind win 2 days ago and a steady mostly-keeping-the-lead game (we got a lead with 4:48 left in the first and never gave it up) yesterday. Have we (dare I say it?) turned a corner?

The Pacers were 30-31 from the line. That's how they stayed in this game. They were 1-19 from 3, that's how they lost this game. We were 12-14 from the line, which also pretty damn good, percentage-wise, but far fewer fta. Some of their fta came from aggressiveness by Hibbert and West and Grainger and some of it was bad reffing. I can't count how many times the wrong ref was making the calls (i.e. the ref on top, behind the players is calling the foul for body contact, when the ref underneath and right there with a good angle on the play, didn't). As a result, a lot of fouls were called based upon what the ref assumed must have happened and not what he actually saw, because he wasn't in position to actually see it. Well, at least Joe Crawford wasn't one of them, or we would have lost this game, no matter what happened on the court.

1. Paul Pierce has been The Captain this past week. He put the entire team on his back and has carried them with Rondo and Ray out. This doesn't mean other players haven't stepped up too, but Pierce has led by example. Point forward, designated scorer, rugged rebounder he has been doing it all. If he isn't the NBA Player of the Week, I don't know why not. He has, obviously, rounded into playing shape too.

2. KG is also back. I have to admit, as I have already in other posts, that I completely underestimated the lousy shape our guys came into camp in. The lack of predictable end to the strike really screwed things up, but KG's conditioning is getting back too. You can see his body responding more quickly now. His rotations are much quicker. Earlier this season he looked like we could stick a fork in him, now he's playing vintage 2008 defense and nobody is more pleased than me to admit I was wrong.

3. Indiana is probably the tallest team in the league. Their starters, with the exception of PG Collison, are all 6'8" and up and they use that height very effectively aggressively on the offensive boards. Nevertheless, we outrebounded the Pacers overall and only gave up one more O-board than we got. That is a complete turnaround from the previous game, where they killed us on weakside O-boarding. Great job by Doc and the coaching staff pounding that into their heads.

4. As long as today is Mea Culpa Day for me, I might as get it all over with at once. When the question of Pietrus signing with the Celtics was first discussed, I said that I was not impressed with his basketball IQ. Well, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, nobody is more happy to admit I was wrong than me. He has fit in quite well and very quickly. He plays hardnosed defense, hits his shots (and doesn't take many that aren't "his shots") and has a feistiness that must make KG smile. My prediction is that the league will rescind that stupid flagrant foul he was assessed with last night. One of a number of bogus calls. As far as the "taunting" T goes, I wonder what was being said to him that made Pietrus hook his finger at the Pacer? Regardless, I love that Pietrus didn't back down. He fits right in here like that.

5. Bradley's shot isn't dropping (no surprise there) but he is moving without the ball well and is getting layups to show for it. Once again, he made the Indiana offense start out very high with 16 seconds left on the shot clock because of his relentless pressure. I also loved how he contested for offensive reboounds against bigger players. Doc said, in the pre-game with Mike Gorman, that Indiana hurt us in transition last game. Well, you can't run a fast break if you don't have the ball and Avery's fighting for those boards disrupted Indiana's breaks. Moore played a nice game, not like the one in Orlando, hitting 2-4 and playing solid defense. Steamer is getting hit with every rookie foul. Not just his, but Avery and E'tuan's too. It's ridiculous. He can't even look at someone hard without the whistle blowing. I'd like to blame it on the ref crew last night (I don't think ANYBODY, from either team, liked them) but the refs have been blowing phantom calls on Steamer for a few games now. You can see his frustration too. He looks like he's getting hit in the back of the head with a 2x4 everytime the whistle blows. He doesn't understand what's going on. Doc needs to remind him to stay aggressive and remember "his name is Greg Stiemsma and he's a shooter". His one fga last night was a shot-clock buzzer beater and cannot be held against him. Just keep your hands up and make them shoot over you and you'll be fine.

6. Great game by Wilcox. Finally. A dynamite pre-season, an underwhelming early season start and then the injury but this game shows us what he can do. Very active, live body. He was even 2-3 from outside the paint. If he can do that reliably it will really open up opportunities for him inside.

7. Sasha has found a little game. A guy whom everybody expected would get banished to a knothole at the end of the bench when Pierce came back from his heel bruise and Pietrus got signed, has figured out how to provide value to this team. He is playing good, solid defense (especially at 2, where at 6'7" he has an advantage), has made some great blocks and is moving well on offense. Not a lights out shooter by any means, but take your eye off him and he's cutting to the hoop. It's obvious his confidence level is up. That's probably true for everybody on this team, except for Steamer and JJJ.

7. Daniels makes the offense look coherent. If he doesn't score a point, that alone brings stability to the second unit.

8. Hansbrough had no offensive rebounds. That's good awareness by his man.

9. We outscored Indiana in every quarter except for the 4th, where they outscored us 23-20, but there was some sloppiness towards the end and they got some points. If the game was closer, we wouldn't have been that sloppy. That's nice solid offensive effort by the Celtics for 4 straight quarters last night.

10. Our perimeter defense has become very good. Not that many penetrations, not in this game nor in the Orlando games. That makes a BIG difference in the other team's fg%. We finally found religion.

We're 9-9 now and Rondo and Ray and JON are coming back. Onward and Upwards!

bob

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