Total Control - Orlando Post Game

Hi,
As I said to my wife at the beginning of 4th quarter, even if the Celtics loose today they imposed and held complete control on the game (so far).
Oh well... They did it from the middle of the 1st quarter till about 3-4 minutes before the end. Obviously, it didn't come cheap: by that point of the game they were running on fumes. And Orl has a lot of power to get it going at any time. Speaking of which: I wouldn't be dancing, bumping each other in playoff style celebration if I were Magic. They should be very, very concerned. Celtics didn't have RR nor his back-up, both O'Neals played less than a half game combined, one of them is as rusty as 100 year old anchor, and Nate playing 42+ min was 2-15.
Have to give Magic credit: they played tough. But as everybody pointed out it's not the end of the trading game for Magic. And if it is, they are not a real contender.
Once again, very good game, guys in green!

AK

Tough loss, if Nat was shooting better and JON has some more practices under his belt he would of converted some easy baskets that he missed, we win. Wait until March, this team will begin to hum and take off. Remember, a lot of teams are making moves now that will prevent them from tweaking at trading deadline. Don't be surprised if Danny has a ace up his sleeve at the trade date.

All in all I love starting new win streaks! No one in the league can beat us in a 7 game series. This is a great team!

LA is never going to three peat. They bailey won game 7. If Perk did not go done, we win in 6 games. I really think LA is finished in their run as powerhouse of the West.

As far as the 3 Stooges on ABC calling the game, VG said LBJ is the best defensive small forward in the league........I mean the guy had to be hitting the egg nog pretty hard during half time to same something stupid like that. He makes himself out to be a real jack wagon! Did he ever hear of Paul Pierce????

Any way, going to get ready to hunker down....blizzard warnings from Long Island, NY all the way up the coast to northern Maine starting tomorrow!
15-20" expected with 50 mile per hour winds

112288

Well certainly not a pleasent game to watch. After we clawed back into it quite quickly we got to 10 up at the half. Even late up 6, we had chance after chance to extend the small lead but missed. Howard making 3 of 4 from the line was huge for them but as mentioned we had guys that played a lot on minutes. Poor Nate could not hit nothing. Would have like to see Luke for 5-6 to spell someone. Maybe he could have hit a key shot too.

As 112288 says to those along the coast......hunker down for the next 48. Up here on the snowy Tug it's cold but really no measurable snow in over a week now. Can baseball be that far off? And here I was complaining last summer at Marcus's games when it was over 100 degrees out.

beat

PS

I Checked the LA/Miami score a couple of times ( between trying to find my floss) but didn't listen to the trio. I'm sure they were wetting their pants every time Bron touched the ball, and soiling them when he scored. Clowns is all they are.



beat

In a way the loss was good for the team. After a while you start believing your own press. With Orlando winning with a new look and the press hyping them up, this will make the Celtics dig in and come up with a defensive gem next time. look for the Celtics to bury them by 15-20 next time around....just to send a little message to them.

Oh, and if anyone says their guys like Arenas and Howard were kept from scoring and had a bad day shooting...........I say it was par for the coarse with good old Celtic Defense.........that showed up Christmas Day!

112288

I am in total agreement with you, this loss serves them right. The have been
toying around with teams for weeks now, coming up the winner at the end of the game. I

I just got a new computer and have not gotten used to it yet!

Anyway, that game yesterday was painful to watch at times. The offense
was stagnant, and everyone was just playing hero ball, trying to be the one
who won the game. That is everyone except Garnett. I read where Nate wants to take total responsibility for the loss, but, much as I hate to admit it, Ray should be right there with him, along with Davis and Pierce. I don't care how many points PP had, he drove me crazy at times. It was a very
how many points PP had, he drove me crazy at times. It was a very un-celtic like game. I am sorry, but Orlando can be beat, we just handed them
the game.

I want Rondo to rest and get completly well, but, boy do they miss him!
Having West back will be big also. So February looks like a target month for a complete team. I won't take this game to heart, but......let's not let it carry on.

All good things come to an end, and so it is with this winning streak. Time to start a new one. 13-1 is still pretty freaking good.

1. We shot 34.6% for the game, and it was still close until the last minute or so when we had to put them on the line. This says pretty good things about our defense. This is the second straight game where our highly efficient offense didn't score over 40% from the field. We are really missing Rondo and West, because these games have bared the already known truth: Nate is a 2 in a 1's body. Don't get me wrong, I love what he's doing for us now, but Nate is Nate and he's not a ball-distributing point guard and our offense is starting to show it. It's stagnating.

2. Our entire backcourt shot 6-31 (since Q was guarding Redick most of the time, he was a guard in this game) while our entire center corps shot 2-7 and picked up a total of 10 fouls and 3 rebounds in a total of 23 minutes. This was, by far, the worst game Shaq has played in green. Doc played 9 players, five of them were offensively useless and the game was still close until the final minute and a half.

3. Bass and Redick had a helluva Christmas. Bass was the most productive player on the floor for the Magic and Redick hit some VERY clutch baskets and didn't let himself get too abused on the defensive end by Q. Bass showed versatility by hitting from mid-range and also inside. He attacked the basket.

4. Doc went almost totally to matchups this game. The lack of a good distributor, coupled the inability of anybody not named KG or Pierce to do anything with the ball, forced him to move away from a team offense strategy to a ME-ball offensive strategy. This was not a "Celtic basketball" game, but "Celtic basketball" just wasn't making an appearance yesterday, so you do what you have to, I suppose. If I had a real beef with this it was that they kept trying to work Q on Redick and it wasn't working. Redick was doing a surprisingly good job defending and the lurking presence of D12 makes posting up hard for guards anyway. KG, on the other hand, worked well against D12, even inside.

5. JON is rusty. It'll be interesting to see what we got when the rust comes off. I wonder when that'll be?

6. Glen Davis didn't have one of his better shooting nights (who did, other than KG?) but he still had 8 boards, 4 of them offensive and 2 steals. Can anybody name another player more deserving of the 6th man award (or Most Improved Player) in the league at this point?

7. I'm assuming Semih must be really hurt if Doc doesn't put him in even though Shaq fouls out in 13 minutes and JON is fresh back from injury and only plays 10. What he did for us, when they were out, was great. That is one tough, tough Turk. If he really is that hurt, what I could see happening is him hanging in there as insurance, in case one of the O'Neal's go down again, until it's clear Perk's back and then getting his surgery and opening the slot for Perk. I mean, assuming Perk's mostly "back", do we really need four centers?

8. I can't stand SVG. He should be hit with a rolled up newspaper across the nose everytime he wets himself over the slightest little thing. He stands there, with his arms crossed (how does he even do that with his girth?) and squints. Does he have vision problems or is he just a twit? Oh, hmm, never mind...Johnny Most would spend half the game roasting him for being a crybaby (the other half would be spent likening Howard to Attila the Hun and Turk to a spineless, falldown ballerina).

9. Our backcourt can't throw the ball in the Atlantic from the pier and Von Wafer doesn't get off the bench. Considering Doc played Von Wafer in situations where his shooting touch was less needed I'm not sure what to make of that.

Orlando was healthy, we are not. Our offense is built on movement and ball distribution and our distributors are out. Their offense is based upon forcing the defense to respond to Howard and then kicking out to the shooters for 3. Howard was healthy and they just stocked up on 3pt shooters. They are integrating a few new players, however, one of those players already knows the playbook, so no integration needed there, and the other two mostly just stand out at the 3pt line and shoots (Richardson and Arenas) so what's there to learn about that? You can shoot an open 3 or you can't. Give us a 7 game series against this team and we're moving on in 5, 6 tops. We're not going to shoot like that for 5 games and the O'Neal boys aren't going to stink it up that bad for an entire series.

I'm never happy about losing, but I'm shrugging this one off as the effect of losing one MAJOR cog (Rondo) and losing his backup (West) too.

bob

.

Bob

Erden had the flu yesterday, not anymore hurt than prior. I'm not even sure if he was on the bench.

beat

These XMas Day games, while they're a good idea as to marketing and showcasing the sport, the effect on the gladiators themselves seems to be overlooked.

Last year, the Lakers treated the thing like it was Game 7 and they were not going to be steamrolled this time. The Celtics played as though most of them had infants at home and couldn't wait to get back on the plane.

That chip on the shoulder, go for broke and do whatever it takes to win attitude that the Lakers adopted, that's somewhat the way the Heat played this year. This year the Lakers played the way the Celtics did last year. They didn't quit, but their minds were elsewhere.

In Orlando, the so-called Magic seemed up for the game when they came out of the tipoff, but the Celtics fought their way into the lead and effectively neutralized the overrated fly swatter without Perk this time.

It really didn't look like the Celtics were making thiis into a playoff game. It looked like their minds were back home and they were on automatic pilot, like they have all these cagy old veterans, they've been kicking ass and taking names, and they knew they were going to put on a show.

Sooo, even though the Celtics (mostly) were mailing in their talents and it was a win the Magic sorely needed, it took Brandon Bass (sorry but that's not a basketball name) playing like Elgin Baylor and JJ Redneck (hope to someday see Delonte in his face) being his usual pain in the ass, for that so-called team to have a chance.

Lastly, the reason for writing all this is to ask, - for both Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to throw up air balls with a minute or so left in a close game, how is it possible that that could even happen? - seriously, it would seem to be a mathematical impossibility.