JASON "THE JET" TERRY NBA INTERVIEW TODAY

JASON TERRY

GOT TO WATCH PHONE INERTVIEW. HE IS PUMPED! GOING TO WORK OUT WITH KG IN LA IN AUGUST. HAS NEW TATTOO OF LARRY O'BRIAN TROPHY FOR 2012 - 12013. HE IS PUMPED FOR OPENING NIGHT IN MIAMI
FEELS CELTICS ONE PLAYER AWAY OF WINNING IT AND NOW BOSTON HAS THAT PLAYER!!!!!

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Jason Terry, Celtics get their schedule

BOSTON HERALD
Grudge matches with Heat, Mavs

The NBA schedule was released on NBA TV last night in typical game show splendor, and Jason Terry already needed someone to hold him back.

The new Celtics [team stats] guard, asked by the NBA TV crew to look ahead to the Celtics’ season opener in Miami on Oct. 30, immediately went for the matchup everyone is already dissecting.

“Must-see TV — it will be me against Ray (Allen),” the Celtics guard said of the player he is replacing. “The other guys can sit down. It will be a 3-point shooting contest.”


Just as LeBron James had to suffer through the Celtics’ 2008 ring ceremony, which he spent in the visitors’ locker room with the rest of his Cleveland Cavaliers teammates, the Celtics will be on hand for the Heat’s ring ceremony that night.

The NBA schedule also has the Celtics spending another Christmas in New York, but this time against the Brooklyn Nets in a noon game. The game kicks off an odd four-game road trip that continues two nights later in Los Angeles against the Clippers, and continues on to Golden State and Sacramento.

Allen will make his much-anticipated return to the Garden in a Heat uniform on Jan. 27, and Miami will make its final Garden visit relatively early in the season, on March 18. The Celtics will also play in Miami on April 12.

Shaquille O’Neal, asked last night about Allen’s Garden return, said he thought the Garden crowd would give his former C’s teammate “a standing ovation, because he was a big part of the Big 3. But it will be very emotional for him.”

Shaq also sounded a little puzzled by Allen’s decision to leave Boston.

“Ray Allen is a classy guy,” he said. “I don’t know his reason for leaving, but he’ll probably play a lot of golf down there.”

Terry will make his return to his own former team, Dallas, on March 22.

“The Jet will be on the runway flying high in Boston,” he said. “But he can’t wait to go back to Dallas.”

Terry admitted to being upset when Dallas didn’t aggressively pursue him in free agency.

“I was definitely angry,” he said. “The first call I got in free agency was from Doc Rivers, and I was grinning from ear to ear. The Celtics being one game from the Finals last year, I’m the piece that can catapult them into the Finals to win it all this time.”

It helps that the Celtics will once again ease into their schedule with a lot of time at home in November, with nine of their 15 games that month at the Garden. Some heavy hitters will walk through the Garden doors that month, including San Antonio on Nov. 21, Oklahoma City on Nov. 23 and Brooklyn on Nov. 28.

The Lakers make their annual visit on Feb. 7, four days after the Clippers’ Feb. 3 visit.

The longest road trip of the season will once again take place in February, starting with a Feb. 19 game in Denver, and continuing to Los Angeles against the Lakers, Phoenix, Portland and Utah over the next seven days.

Another curious bit of scheduling involves the Knicks, who don’t play their first game in Boston until Jan. 24, and return to the Garden on March 26. The Celtics [team stats] don’t play in Madison Square Garden until Jan. 7, and return on March 31.

The pace will also be easier on the Celtics — it couldn’t help but ease up after last season’s condensed schedule — though they will have 16 back-to-back swings, including three in the first month.

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