Post-game thread: Celts 98 vs. Blazers 95, 1/22/10

[Sam]

At last, the Celtics and KG were reunited against a Portland team that’s the only bunch worse off than the
Celtics with respect to injuries (more than 200 player games lost to injury so far this season). There was much
conjecture as to what would occur when the Celtics were finally only a Daniels away from being at full strength.

That expectation never really came to full fruition. True, KG played 30 minutes and was remarkably active. Despite limping near the end (he claims it was just the temporary result of a bump), he scored 13 (mostly in the first half) and was his usual anchor for a generally tighter defense than they’ve been exhibiting.

But other factors served to disrupt the full strength concept in various ways. Fortunately, there were silver linings in each case as the Celtics won in overtime, 98-95:

• Perk played little of the first half due to foul trouble. But he ultimately played 28 minutes and was a major factor in defusing a very hot Aldridge on great inside defense late in the game.

• Pierce fouled out and was not available when the game went into overtime. This pressed Tony Allen into service, and he performed admirably in replacing Pierce in overtime after having served a long stint in place of Ray Allen to cool off Andre Miller to some extent late in the game. (Tony also scored 9, made some key defensive disruptions, and scored the clincher on a breakaway at the end.)

• Ray Allen was the essence of shooting futility for 42 minutes, going 2-for-13 and 0-for-5 from beyond the
arc. He was even responsible for the only TWO free throw misses by the Celtics. However, he had one moment of professional chutzpah, and it was a game-winning three that transformed a final minute two-point deficit into
a one-point lead.

• The plan to return Sheed to the bench was partially subverted by the necessity of his replacing Perk for some of Sheed’s 29 minutes. But he did seem to help return some sense of order in his time with the bench, which outscored the Blazers, 29-11; and every member of the Celtics bench achieved a +/- rating of between +3 and +11.

As usual of late, the Celtics got off to a good start, with KG’s energy spearheading the effort. They led by five at halftime. Second in pre-game conjecture only to the return of KG had been the fear of yet another Celtics third-quarter meltdown. But it didn’t happen, as each team scored 19 in the quarter.

In this one, KG, Pierce and Sheed took turns in pulling the Celtics up by the bootstraps in the early going. Whenever Portland threatened to make a run, KG would go to the hoop (including one memorable slam on a fast break pass from Rondo) or Pierce would alternately slash or score from outside. Sheed contributed a
number of scores from down low. Later in the game, Rondo was the most prominent safety valve, with
timely big plays. Length-of-floor dashes…bursts to the hoop. And, in overtime, Rajon scored the first points for either team (after two scoreless minutes) on a foul line jumper. And finally it was left to Ray to hit the winner and Tony to drive the nail into the coffin.

So it wasn’t an individual who won this game. More than anything else, it was defense that became increasingly intense as the game progressed. Perk and KG really make a difference together, presenting a “last line of defense” that can cover up for occasional deficiencies—unlike the past few games, when every defensive misstep seemed to result in disaster. One could tell that, especially toward the end of this game, the team defense was really cooking. Guys were jumping in and out, switching, anticipating, hustling, and just plain fighting.

This was ultimately a win that was willed to happen. When Ray hit that three-pointer, it was as though the stars were finally starting to come into proper alignment. It won’t surprise me if we all look back on that hoop as a pivotal moment in the season, for a lot of reasons. The best news, in my eyes was that, while rising from one form of chaos only to face new and unexpected sources of disruption, the Celtics hung in there, clawed and scratched,
and persevered like true professionals. I was proud of them, and I hope it is the harbinger of better times to
come.

Sam

[mrkleen09]

Was at this game and the Refs were just awful for both teams...and had players, coaches and fans baffled at what would be called next. The entire flow and feel of the game was ground to a halt with one bad call after another. They didnt even really effect the outcome at all...just made it a long, tedious night.

But hey, a win is a win.

[spike]

Thanks, Sam. Yet another in a Lou Gehrig run of wonderful posts.

They could have run the city on the electricity generated in the new Gahdin last night. Maybe that's why KG looked drained at the end. His CO2 emissions alone are enough raise sea level a few feet.

My favorite moment was when Perk switched off and guarded Miller out by the 3 point line. He was doing that rapid tapping of the toes like a guy half his size. Eventually Miller got spooked and passed off. Perk's steal with about a minute left was extreme - extremely good.

The smiles on Doc's and Ray's faces was the second best moment. Happy days are here again, oh, say what? Who're are we playing in rapid succession next week?

Here's to health!

[spike]

sam, mrkleen, anybody

Do you think it's possible that the referees have been given a mandate by the league to make games these days as competitive as possible? This is something that's been plain and noticeable in non-Celtic games so it isn't hometown griping. Attendance is down in many arenas and making the games close would help generate or at least maintain the interest of fans.

This is the only explanation I can come up with why the officiating seems so funked up.

[sinus007]

Sam,
Thanks for the colorful summary. I wonder if you are a writer/journalist?
My observations:
negatives- Celtics were scraping against a very good but very depleted team, especially in the second half after Bayless exited the game; Perk et al were careless enough to get in foul trouble; occasional careless execution, e.g. layups; rebounding.
positives - even flow of the game all 53 min; defense, despite a few "oops", was good; KG's back and "high" as usual, hopefully will get rid of the rust in the next few games.
I hope Dallas and Detroit were the bottom, now only up and up.

AK

[bigpygme]

wonderful to read this post game summary/analysis, as always.

agree with tyrone about Perk's steal toward the end - a lifesaver for us against a very very depleted team. Rondo had a really good game, finding KG beautifully and other guys as well, plus his confident jumper to start OT scoring. (and his FT shooting seems to gradually be getting better and better ...)

and Ray found the range at the best possible time after a very not-Ray performance all night long.

i would've thought we'd be more impressive in getting a win over this seemingly out-manned team, but they have been playing a LOT of teams tough recently, despite their injuries. they're going to be scary when they get whole !!!!

Michael in Denver

[bigpygme]

mdcelt

LeBron is a hero baller. Those shots fall when it mattered last night but in the playoffs ...deep. Nope.

Everyone on his team stopped playing on o for the last three minutes and watched. He won the game for them Good for him. The hype surrounding this guy as good as he is does not in any way match his accomplishments. I hate the way he plays. 3 years ago I though he was trending bird/magic and celebrated his beautiful floor game and unselfishness. But he is trending waaaayyyy more Kobe than Magic.

Losing Mo williams and Delonte is a major, devastating blow to them and it will play out in their record.

i hope they struggle with injuries as we have had to, and that our team in contrast starts to pull together - starts to show some cohesion, communication and chemistry with KG back.

and the word that Quis might return a little early -- well, it ain't too late for Xmas ...

Michael in Denver

[Sam]

Spike (sorry, I can't get used to "Tyrone"),

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that, on defense, Perk is trying not to move his feet but just can't break the habit.

Sinus,

Thanks. I wish I were those things, but I'm just a hack who is trying his best to shake a lifetime of disliking his own writing style. Long ago, a thesis advisor wrote, "stilted, pedantic and bombastic" on one of my theses. He's still right. But that should never stop a person from trying. The written word can be a beautiful thing, and using it well is worth aspiring to. Pretty much the same as a basketball.

Sam

[LACELTFAN]

Spike (sorry, I can't get used to "Tyrone"),

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that, on defense, Perk is trying not to move his feet but just can't break the habit.

Sinus,

Thanks. I wish I were those things, but I'm just a hack who is trying his best to shake a lifetime of disliking his own writing style. Long ago, a thesis advisor wrote, "stilted, pedantic and bombastic" on one of my theses. He's still right. But that should never stop a person from trying. The written word can be a beautiful thing, and using it well is worth aspiring to. Pretty much the same as a basketball.

Sam

Sam,
I strongly disagree with your advisor!
I don't think your writing is all that stilted.
I'm wondering if someone didn't lace kryptonite in the uniforms of the C's....Do they change uniforms at halftime?
LACELTFAN

[jeb]

byg pyg wonder how doc would do with lebron?

[jeb]

Sam

Thanks. Great breakdown. I have watch about 5 games since I have been in san fran and they have all been very tight.

[gyso]

Here is a bit from another perspective:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2010/01/blazers_boston.html

"There's no moral victories; we let another one slip away," Miller said. "We talked about our execution down the stretch. We had turnovers at the wrong time and that's the game. ... It's a tough loss. We talked about being shorthanded and being able to pull these type of games out when we're in that position. It was there, we just couldn't do it."

gyso

[bigpygme]

Jeb, you got me, about how Doc would handle his playing time, and what sets they'd use with LB ... how would he be brought into the T-E-A-M by the players would be an even bigger question to me. if he came and we (no way any of this is happening) still had KG, PP, Rondo, then there would be a nucleus that would be a powerful force to having him involve himself in team spirit and play.

who knows, maybe, on the Celtics, he's not a hero baller anymore ... maybe he just wants to win.

wondering where that came from? just hypothetical curiosity?

regards,
Michael

[bigpygme]

gyso - nice quote. you actually search around and just find this stuff? amazing !!!!!! love what you bruing here. (you go back to BDC at all?)

Sam - agree with LACelt fan about your thesis advisor. stilted - no. pedantic - no. sharing insights and teaching, yes. i like Larry Brown as my NBA commentator of choice - he's always teaching, pointing out both fundamentals and finer points of the game and flow; you often do some similar things. here's what i see - here, on the other hand, is how the game is supposed to work ! (hope you don't hate L Brown ! <LOL> )

(my thesis advisor simply told me,"I never thought you'd make it ! " he had a point. ah, the old days of a rather dissolute youth. good fortune smiled on me just enough - WHEW!)

best, Michael in Denver

[Sam]

Michael,

I vividly remember running to the dictionary to confirm out what those three words meant. It wasn't good news.

That professor actually turned out to be one of my most valued mentors. I've always appreciated people who laid it on the line and set a very high bar. I never held a grudge and simply tried harder. He and his wife wound up having me over to their apartment periodically, as we became good friends.

My only real problem with the whole thing was logistical. I had only eight months to earn the entire degree (including all course work and the thesis), and there were no computers in 1959. So every draft of roughly 130 pages had to be typed using two carbons and no erasures. Each day, I'd bring a long-carriage manual typewriter home from a bank where I worked afternoons. When I'd get to the end of a page, I'd start typing with one finger, carefully double-checking every letter before hitting it, and then making sure I didn't double-strike or jam the keys or something.

My new wife and I were living in a fourth-floor walkup, and I'd type away every evening on the kitchen table. Promptly at 9 pm, the guy on the floor below would rap on his ceiling with a broom handle or something. So I'd move the typewriter to the couch and would kneel in front of the couch to continue typing.

It took three drafts before that sucker passed muster. "The Hospital Market for Frozen Foods." (That was big news, which reinforces how long ago it was.) Boy, was I glad to bolt the typewriter to the bank desk for the last time.

Sam

[jeb]

I work in the film business and see the consequences of ego driven people who never hear the word no. They turn into monsters. For real.

It's money. It's fame. It's a yes man coach. But whatever it is it's all over him and
has really changed his style of play. He NEEDS to be the man. Not good basketball strategy. Ask Kobe about game 6 in boston. 5 guys playing in unison beat any one guy on earth.

[NYCelt]

To be fair, I think Cleveland has some decent depth and LeBron is about more than hero-ball. Of course he's the Cav's biggest, most dominant weapon and gets the most touches. That would be true were he on our team, or any other for that matter, as well.

Look at their last game for example. Down two point guards they need James to distribute as much as score and he willingly does it.

I don't think you get their record the past couple of years solely riding one guy even though he's by far and away the main guy.

Has he shown some self-centered behavior on the court at times? Yes; but it's not a constant nor is he that one-dimensional.

Regards

[bigpygme]

Great story - better'n mine. and you were WORKING full time while doing that ??? incredible !! i have always admired folks whose stories include working while going to school ... (and eventually i did too.)

and i'm glad you saw the opportunity to acquire a mentor out of that. i didn't, at the Master's level. my major professor then had come out of Harvard to Wesleyan and had written a well-received book, "The Achieving Society", which was a sweet irony considering how under-achieving i was then. i alienated him considerably by running my thesis up to his front door one sunday afternoon, and it was due monday. not good. then discovered there was a page missing !!! - VERY not good. i walked into my defense that week waving the missing page around. they accepted my defense ... WOW !

after that fiasco it was years before i dared return to school again - but i did, after working a few years. that helped grow me up some, desperately needed. by then i was much better equipped to handle the whole process. i was blessed to develop a relationship with a wonderful mentor during that period - she reminded me of my grandmother, who had loved me reliably, and my new mentor was a rock for me in hard times. (thankfully i had learned something from my earlier mistakes.)
my dissertation was DEFINITELY stilted and pedantic - good thing i wasn't an English major, i would never have made the cut !

thanks for sharing your story... i am glad to have heard something of your experience, and you took me way back.

Michael

[Sam]

Michael,

Funny how a person tucks things like that away in memory, hardly ever thinking about them until something like your post prompts a recollection. And yet they had profound impact.

I also went back to a different school after military service, a few years of work, and starting my company. Got one more degree in a different field (sociology) and also completed all my doctoral requirements except my dissertation (which would have been duck soup for me).

I wanted to write on the sociology of friendship (as gleaned through people's through retrospective life histories) and had done much research and presented several well-received papers on the subject. But this time, the advisor experience didn't work out too well (even after I had worked on two two books with him).

The guy was doing his own research on the sociology of life after near-death experiences and insisted that I write my dissertation on that subject—free labor for him in compiling yet another book. What a dead-end topic as far as I was concerned. So I told him I hated failure but the school and he had failed miserably and they could go fry.

But the final irony is that I'm just now starting a new business of writing family histories for people based on their retrospective life histories as I recover them through family focus groups. So I'm without the final degree but with a career supplement that's just the right pace for someone age 72.

Sam

[spike]

bp


I have a little Sam story you might like to hear.

He dragged me along to NY for a playoff party last year and was kind enough to give me a copy of a book he and his wife wrote. It's called Paris Demystified: A Personal Primer for Bonding with the City of Light. It's filled with tips about sightseeing, shopping, food and entertainment, traveling, and, if you get to buy a copy, pay him whatever he asks, it's priceless.

So I tore into it on the train and, after a while, I said something like, 'Hey, your wife has a nice writing style, it's perfect for the subject matter.' Sam embarrassedly told me he did the writing, though many of the words and ideas were his wife's. So I told him I've studied writing and taught writing and the style in the book was so different than the style in his posts it was remarkable and (my favorite word to describe Sam) charming.

What's happened and he may not even know it is that he's reached such a state of proficiency as a writer he can adapt his writing style to his subject matter. He thinks of himself as a businessman first and has a righteous track record, but he's also a master craftsman when it comes to putting words together. Hemingway said you don't start to get good until after your millionth word. You can tell by the number and length of the posts he's written just on this board, well, let me say that if Sam had a penny for every word, he'd be a multi-millionaire by now (lol).

Incidentally, I just got back from a walk on the beach here in Plymouth and the wind is easing in off the water, the temp's in the forties, same temp as the ocean, and the air has that salt sea tang. It's air from the sea, the Mother of all life, and these middle-earthers are trying to tell me that the air out west is cleaner. Answer this: Would you rather breathe gentle nourishing air off the ocean or air that's wafted in off frozen fields of buffalo dung?

sam

I'm still spike, tyrone just let me borrow his name until the next iteration of this forum's software recognizes me again. He can do that. He's a cartoon character.

[jeb]

NYCelt

I have been watchin him quite a bit and I respectfully disagree with you. Specialy in the last 3 minutes.

jeb

[Sam]

Spike or Tyrone. You're a good friend. You just exaggerate a lot. But your prose on the sea has me hearing the gulls. And, in my desk drawer is that little Plymouth Heart Stone that means a lot.

Sam

[bigpygme]

thx for the marvelous background, spike. VERY cool stuff. not at all surprised by your impression of Sam as a gifted, adaptable writer. i know it when i see it - and i've seen enough to know it !

looked for the book, and even shortening the title can't find anything through google or amazon's. ahh, well ...

Sam, congratulations on finding a path leading back to your heart's interest - what better work could we ever ask for than work we love to do !

and i love the ocean enormously, the surf sounds and the scent of the beach breeze, but i'm a little far away these days -- can't get a whiff of it out here in Denver. the air here often forms a brown haze over downtown, but the sky is BIG! love the mountains but i miss the ocean. in my time i've lived in Plymouth, briefly, and Osterville for six years. so most summers i get back to new england for a fix - usually a run through the cape, and a visit to my great aunt's B&B in Maine, just south of old orchard, where the house is full of love and is right on the beach. MMMMMmmmmmmmmm ...

all the best, guys, and thanks for your sharing ...
Michael

[Sam]

Michael,

The book has never been published. I tried to self-publish it, but the company I used messed up the formatting (and my budgeted money) completely. I've had a few rough copies printed by Staples, and it is one of those that Spike has. If you're really interested, I'll see about getting them to print another copy and will mail it to you.

Sam

[bigpygme]

thanks for your genrous offer, Sam. very gracious (as always). i have been to Paris once, and was not very well prepared ... doubtless your book would have been a HUGE help !!!

i think i won't put you to the trouble at this point -- if i do get to planning a trip back, i know where i can get what i am sure are excellent tips and insights into the City of Love !

thanks very much,
Michael

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