POST GAME RAPTORS

NEXT GAME - SUNDAY - AT DETROIT - 7:30 PM - CSNE/NBA LEAGUE PASS

POST GAME RECAP WEEI 850


FAST BREAK: RAJON RONDO, CELTICS TAME RAPTORS
By Ben Rohrbach - WEEI

Rajon Rondo didn’t just reach double-digit assists for his 33rd straight game, he notched 20 dimes for the second time in nine games, and the Celtics rolled to a 107-89 Atlantic Division victory against the Raptors.

Rondo reached that plateau while playing just 32 minutes and sitting the final 10:33 of the C’s first comfortable victory of the season (and, obviously, Gino’s first appearance in the Garden this year).

Jared Sullinger (12 points, 11 rebounds) posted his first career double-double, Jason Terry reached 20 points for the first time this season and the triumvirate of Leandro Barbosa, Chris Wilcox and Jeff Green all scored at least eight points off the bench, giving Paul Pierce (19 points in 25 minutes) and Kevin Garnett (15 points in 17 minutes) the rest they’ll need in Detroit on Sunday.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Early Bird special: Despite the 12:30 p.m. Saturday start, the C’s Big Three awoke early. Garnett started 3-for-3 in his first five-minute stint, Pierce netted eight points in the opening 10 minutes and Rondo showed no ill effects from the sprained right ankle that kept him out of Thursday’s game, finishing the first quarter with seven assists. As a result, the Celtics shot 73.7 percent as a team and established a 30-17 lead through 12 minutes.

Domesticated dinosaurs: Raptors attack in packs, like hyenas. Unless they’re the Toronto kind. Even when the Celtics fell into their usual jump-shooting comfort zone, at least they were open shots. Wide open shots, to be clear. Toronto imports Jose Calderon, Andrea Bargnani and Jonas Valanciunas were particular dreadful defensively. That repeatedly left Wilcox open for lobs, inflating Rondo’s ballooning assist total.

Tapping Sully: In recent games, Celtics coach Doc Rivers has avoided giving Jared Sullinger minutes without Garnett on the floor, but some Brandon Bass foul trouble forced the issue. And Sullinger delivered, grabbing six first-half boards off the bench and establishing a rare rebounding advantage for the C’s.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Second thoughts: After a near flawless first quarter, the Celtics began settling for jump shots. Their points in the paint dropped from 14 in the opening quarter to just four in the second. They finished just 6-of-17 (35.3 FG%) in the frame, and a lead as large as 16 dwindled to 47-42 at halftime.

Free giveaway: The Celtics committed five turnovers in each of the first two quarters. While Rondo amassed 11 assists by halftime, he also handed the Raptors four extra possessions. Likewise, Courtney Lee had as many turnovers as points (2) at the half. The C’s limited their turnovers to three in the final two quarters.

Beyond the arc: The Raptors rank in the NBA’s top 10 for 3-point field goal attempts, and the C’s closed out on the perimeter well in the first quarter, holding Toronto to 0-for-6 shooting in the opening frame. The rest of the way? The Raptors made 8-of-16 triples — part of the reason they were able to hang around as long as they did.

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ESPNBOSTON.COM

Rapid reaction: Celtics 107, Raptors 89

By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com

Rajon Rondo returned to the lineup after a one-game absence.
BOSTON -- Rapid reaction after the Boston Celtics defeated the Toronto Raptors 107-89 on Saturday afternoon at TD Garden:

THE NITTY GRITTY
Rajon Rondo, back after a one-game absence due to a sprained right ankle, dished out 20 assists (the sixth time he's reached that number in his career and second time this season) while adding six points over 32 minutes. Rookie Jared Sullinger registered his first career double-double (12 points, 11 rebounds) to spark a reserve group that helped Boston pull away late in the third quarter. Kevin Garnett added 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting over a mere 17 minutes, while Jason Terry scored a team-high 20 points -- hitting four 3-pointers -- in a starting role.

TURNING POINT
The Celtics, having all but kicked away a 16-point first-half lead, were up only four with under three minutes to play in the third quarter, but closed the frame on a 13-2 run to carry a 79-64 lead into the final frame. Terry hit a pair of 3-pointers, while Chris Wilcox (alley-oop from Rondo), Sullinger (strong drive) and Jeff Green (22-foot jumper) added buckets, feasting on three Toronto turnovers during the stretch.

RONDO'S FEELING JUST FINE
Rondo displayed no ill effects from the sprained right ankle that kept him out of Thursday's game in Brooklyn. During his first shift, Rondo handed out seven assists while making both shots he took as the Celtics opened a 24-12 lead over 9:41. Rondo prolonged his double-digit assist streak when he fed Terry with 2:51 remaining in the first half. Rondo now has 33 games with 10-plus assists and he's chasing John Stockton (37) and Magic Johnson (46).

LOOSE BALLS: COLLINS MISSES GAME
Jason Collins missed the game due to a personal matter (death in the family) and was not with the team. ... Avery Bradley dressed and sat on the bench, but he's still projected to be another month away from his return as he has not been cleared for contact activities while rehabbing from double shoulder surgery.

WHAT IT MEANS
The Celtics (6-4) were overdue for a breezy night and able to lean hard on their reserves after breaking the game open late in the third quarter. That's a nice luxury when you're in the middle of a four-game-in-five-night stretch, including the front end of a back-to-back (Boston travels to Detroit on Sunday night). Pierce (25 minutes) and Garnett (17) enjoyed easy nights, which only got better for Garnett with the return of Gino Time when the Garden's favorite American Bandstand dancer grooved with Boston top 103-83 with 2:52 to play.

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Raptors not Bucks...

even on the boards and we win going away.............

Now let board against the Pistons !

beat

I was talking about Green Bay with a friend while trying to post.

112288

The early game time prevented me from watching or listening to the game, as we arrived home from San Francisco in the late afternoon. I look forward to the replay later this evening. In the meantime, it’s kind of fun to make a few observations—many of them based on stats:

• On the strength of Rondo’s 20 assists, the Celtics assisted on 38 (or 86%) of their 43 made field goals. In the recent past, I can’t recall figures as high as 38 assists or 86% assists-to-field goals. And it wasn’t all Rondo. Seven Celtics had at least two assists.

• Sully’s double-double helped the bench out-rebound the starters by one board (19-18). And only 10 assists separated Sully from a triple double. (He was the only Celtic who played without at least one assist.)

• The Celtics had only one fast break point (???), a modest number of points in the paint (38), and six three-pointers. Their shooting percentage on jumpers must have been pretty high.

• Maybe the starting lineup will vacillate based on matchups. But, as things stand now, it seems pretty much etched in granite: KG, Bass, Pierce, Terry, Rondo. And the bench seems pretty much etched in granite: Green, Sully, Wilcox, Lee, Barbosa. Even with a 20 point lead near the end, Darko couldn’t get into the game.

• Chris Wilcox keeps demonstrating why he’s THE primary backup for KG. Chris scored only 8 points. But, based on what I’ve read, several of them were the kinds of throwdowns that get the team and the home crowd in gear.

• I don’t recall a Celtics game in recent years in which at least 10 Celtics played and the range in minutes played was so narrow: a low of 16 (Barbosa) and a high of 32 (Rondo).

• Nice to see Avery’s name in the box score, even if it was a DNP.

Sam

After a 4 day mini-vacation in Sedona, AZ I'm back and glued to a Celtic game. Life is good. Btw, Sedona was great. The center of town, called "Uptown", is pretty touristy but when you get out of Uptown it's pretty nice. The landscape there is unearthly. I hiked down into Haleakala on Maui once and it was like that. It was like being on the surface of Mars. Red rock, amazing mesas, breath-taking sunsets (they're not the Himalayas, so I didn't feel as compelled to get up for the sunrises). Definitely worth the trip, especially if you're into looking at impressive horizons and/or have kids that would enjoy climbing a hill. Here's google's images, to give you an idea. If there's interest, I'll post some of my pics. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&cp=9&gs_id=4t&xhr=t&q=sedona+az&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bpcl=38625945&biw=1366&bih=638&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=7NunULHBLaOiiQKhwYHgDg

A real head-scratcher game for me here. Sure, I loved the win, but it irked me that we let them back in. This should have never gone from a 16 point game down to 2 points, not against this team who was playing without starting point guard Kyle Lowry. All's well that ends well, but we all know we're not going to get away with that against good teams.

Playing Toronto was like playing those pre-season games in Europe. Bargnani, Valanciunas, Calderon are the heart of their starting team and they play like Euros. Which helps to explain why they're not a very good team. Gotta give credit to Don Casey, though, he has them working hard.

1. Welcome back Rajon Rondo. 20 assists, only 5 TOs, in 32 minutes is an efficient dissection of the opposition. We didn't have one single fast break basket, though. If there's a lining of coal in this cloud, that's it. Hard to argue about 107 points, with 43fgm on 37 assists. I'm not sure I've ever heard of an assist-fgm ratio that high for a game, maybe Sam has, but it's ridiculously good.

2. It doesn't hurt that assist-fgm ratio when you're playing a team where neither baseline defender (Bargnani and Valanciunas) have ever seen a pick-and-roll before. Everybody in the building saw the Rondo-Wilcox connection before either of those players did. It was SO obvious. Another solid game by Wilcox. 25 minutes shows he's getting back (or is back) from his heart surgery. We just got stronger.

3. Kevin Garnett used Valanciunas like a chew toy. KG's numbers weren't that awesome, in aggregate, but he only played 17 minutes. Every time he was in there with Valanciunas, he wanted the ball and abused the crap out of the kid. Valanciunas had this look on his face like "what the hell do I have to do out here to survive?". He fouled out in 19 non-memorable minutes. KG plays 17 minutes and scores 15 points, V plays 19 minutes and fouls out. Coincidence? Not.

4. The good news is that Jason Terry is finally starting live up to his rep. The bad news is that he's doing it as a starter and that's not what we got him for. Once again, it's hard to complain too loudly about a 20 point on 7-10 (4-7 from 3), 2 assist, 0 TOs outing by the Jet. 29 minutes is about what he has been averaging the past couple of years, so that's in line. If Toronto hadn't closed the gap to two, he would have sat more.

5. Monster board game by Sully. He's the only Celtic NOT to rack up an assist, but I can live with that easily if he gives us 11 boards and 12 points in 26 minutes. Sometimes rebound stats are padded by free throw misses and other gimmes. There were damn few, if any, of Sully's boards that were easy. A lot of rugged rebounds yesterday. He also ran the floor a few times and scarfed up some missed break attempts. The kid is tough. Jeff Green had a cardiac procedure, too bad they didn't give him Sully's...

6. The Blur's numbers don't look that great, but I liked his game. 3 assists and no TOs in 16 minutes show he's becoming more comfortable in Doc's system. I would have liked, and expected, more fastbreaks with Barbosa playing point (Hell, I would have loved even one fast break, by anybody in green) but he played a nice patient, safe pass game. His defense was spotty, getting behind his man at one point and getting TOO up in his man's face another time, but considering his defense is not his strong point I can live with a mixed-bag from him there (especially the time when he was TOO aggressive. I'd love to see Barbosa feel the joy that comes from shutting his man down). The offensive spark and energy he gives the 2nd unit is noticeable. Is a back court of Barbosa and Bradley too short? Talk about speed, offensive energy and defensive excellence! They're both only 6'3", but they also both have ape-hanging arms (Bradley's wingspan is 6'7"+ and Barbosa's is a mind-boggling 6'10").

7. Terrence Ross is going to be good. I can already see he's a helluva shooter. Expect Demar DeRozan to be made available for a trade sometime this year. JET struggled playing D against DeRozan but Pierce did a good job of shutting the young guard down. A relatively quiet night for DeRozan, who can light the lamps like nobody's business. There are lots of good shooters in the NBA, but nobody streakier. He reminds me a little of John Starks, of the Knicks. He could, and would, shoot you into a game or shoot you out of it. This game, DeRozan only took 10 fga, so he was just quiet. Other nights, he's never seen a shot he didn't like (and take).

8. Linas Kleiza, who has been largely invisible in every previous game against the Celtics, came in and abused Jeff Green in the 2nd quarter like he was an altar boy. He's about Green's size at 6'8" 235#, but not as quick. He was still able to muscle Green around. The Raptor bench brought them back in the 2nd quarter, outscoring the Celtic bench 16-0. In the 2nd half, though, Linas Kleiza went back to being, well, Linas Kleiza and the Celts pulled away. The boxscore shows Jeff Green with a +15, but I don't give him much credit for it. Yeah, he hit some outside J's in the 4th, but in down-and-dirty time in the 2nd, he looked soft as a grape. Another head-scratching game for Green, IMO.

9. Nice game by Lee. Didn't score much, but he had 4 assists and 3 steals in 19 minutes. He also helped to shut DeRozan down. That is not to be minimized since, as I said, DeRozan can single-handedly kill you if you take your eyes off him for a few minutes and let him get into a good shooting rhythm.

10. We only had 13 TOs for the game and shot 57%. You're going to win a lot of games putting up numbers like those. We had 10 TOs at halftime, so ending up with only 13 shows HUGE improvement in taking care of the rock in the 2nd half. Credit to Rondo. He had 4 TOs in the 1st half and only 1 in the 2nd half.

11. Andrea Bargnani, hypothetically the superstar of this team, reminds me of a pathetically pale combination of Dirk and Pau. He can shoot (of course! He's a Euro!), but not as well as Dirk, and can play the post, but not with the court vision of Pau and can't rebound as well as either of them and neither of them are known for their rebounding. Defense doesn't even achieve the minimal level of an afterthought (of course! He's a Euro!). A TERRIBLE baseline and pick-and-roll defender, as seen by how good he made Chris Wilcox look. I HATE (as in despise, loathe, detest and abhor) the whole transition of the NBA into a league of "stretch 4s". "Stretch 4s" is a nice way of saying "big guys who are allergic to paint and contact". Gimme Sully, a player who can shoot from outside but who knows his bread is buttered on the inside, anyday.

With about 2 minutes left in the 3rd, we were up by 9. We played some championship D and ended up going into the 4th up by 15. THAT'S how you close out quarters! Let them play their hearts out for 10 minutes and then break them in 2. We outscored them 32-22 in the 3rd quarter. Solid offense, solid defense. After 3, we had 29 assists on 32 fgm. Wow. Basketball is a game of runs, and we blew this game WIDE-OPEN by going on a final 44-28 run until the final whistle. We shot 57% while only giving up 43%. We outrebounded them 37-35, courtesy of FrankenSully. We out-assisted them a whopping 37-22 thanks to Rondo's 20 assists (although if he had a more normal game for him we still won here).

Let's settle down here, let's settle down. This was, after all, just the Toronto Raptors, but we looked good on both ends.


bob



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I missed the game.

I knew it was coming on Saturday but I never looked at the time.

Anyways I did check out the highlights and the box score.

I was surprised that Boston scored 107 pts but only had 1 fast break point. So I will ask this question. Did the Celtics points come from their methodical use up the clock half court offense?

dboss

According to several people's Twitter, Avery Bradley sat on the Celtics bench yesterday in uniform. That should remind us how close he is to coming back.

To answer your question, dboss, the Celtics offense came on a lot of jumpshots by JET and others like Green and Pierce. Wilcox's offense came off of lobs and give-and-gos from Rondo. Yep, Rondo ran the half court offense and we hit our shots when he fed them the ball.


bob


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Pierce, with the sneaky stutter step, finishes with the left hand.








KG's man was in such a rush to beat KG to his spot, he forgot KG's spot is at the front of the rim. Easy 2, poor D.







One of 3 Rondo-to-Wilcox alley-oops. It's called the pick-and-roll, Raptors, and you see them a lot in this game.








I think 7 of Rondo's 20 were to JET.







Pierce, with the headfake, and then being anything but sneaky. Plus the foul...







Rondo, head up, looking up court.








KG, abusing Jonas Valanciunas








Um, this is NOT considered good D, Amir Johnson. The arms have to go up, over your head, not in front of your face.







Nothing like crouching to give KG a great view of the floor.







Wilcox, making his presence known.







DeRozan, in one of his few effective drives








Linas Kleiza. Look at how far away Jeff Green is. Must be the 2nd quarter.









Despite being swallowed up by the defense on the baseline, Rondo was able to find Chris Wilcox, furthest left, for a lob jam on this play.







The JET was flying yesterday







The ONLY time you'll see KG smiling during a game? It's GINO TIME!!







bob



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