Cleveland 98, Boston 83

Hopefully, this is rock-bottom.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]*

The Xs and Os of basketball are what I find most interesting about the game, but the Celtics' recent struggles are as much about what is going on inside their heads as what is happening out on the court. So today, after an embarrassing loss to our chief Eastern Conference rivals dropping us to 2-7 over our last nine games, we're talking about psychology.

Not that I'm terribly qualified to do so. I only know what I know about the psyches of professional athletes from watching and reading about sports. Also, you should know my own mindset. While I've had some hysterical moments during this stretch, the more I think about it, the less concerned I am. If we were favored to win the East or the NBA this year at all, it wasn't by much, and I ultimately don't think that's changed much -- we're certainly not favored now, but I think the true odds really haven't moved, other than Cleveland being a bit better than expected. In other words, I don't think this game has revealed a fatal flaw in the team. We're just not playing well right now.

It is uncontroversial to say that professional athletes are some of the most confident -- and probably over-confident -- people in the world. No one is successful every time out, and athletes' failures are broadcast across the globe, their missteps and disappointments broadcast for millions to see. In order to succeed as a professional athlete, you cannot think you will fail. Every time out, you need to think you'll win.

A natural consequence of this, then, is that it sometimes takes athletes a long time to acknowledge when something is wrong. Because a drop in confidence can be so devastating, pro athletes are often reticent to admit when things aren't going well. On those ubiquitous NBA ads with snippets from many of Kevin Garnett's press conferences last year, you do hear KG talking a lot about the Celtics' imperfections: "We're not a flawless team, we're a team in progress." Easy to say when you're on your way to 66-16 and a championship. It may appear to be a paradox, but you'll hear that sort of self-evaluation from teams far more often when things are going well than when things are going poorly. It's a guard against over-confidence, just as stubbornly pushing aside concerns with "We'll be fine" when the chips are down is a guard against, well, under-confidence.

Keeping that in mind, it's a bit easier to understand the team's recent struggles and not panic. After the Christmas Day loss to the Lakers, I'm sure there were many who thought that the Celtics would come out the next night against Golden State and take their frustrations out on the Warriors. If Boston was a college or high-school team, that might well have been the case; the coach would have lit a fire under the kids on the practice floor the next day, and they would have come out ready to pulverize the other team.

Alas, the Celtics are in the NBA, and in the NBA, you follow up a Christmas Day loss in LA with a short evening flight to Oakland, away from home for the holidays, and you don't get a chance to practice before the next day's game. And maybe you come out and the other team gets hot and you give away a late lead and now, after winning 19 in a row, you've lost two straight.

At that point, you might get concerned, except that you go out two nights later and beat Sacramento by 45 on their home court. Sure, it's Sacramento, but still, it's 45 points. Everything seems back to normal. Sure, it's concerning when you drop the next game at Portland, but another blowout win, this one vs. Washington by 25 points, gets rid of those concerns, at least temporarily.

Losses at the Knicks and Bobcats are puzzling, but those teams are pests, annoyances not worth worrying about. You won't have to worry about them down the road. Besides, none of these losses have come at home.

Then, the very next night, you're out there on your home floor, playing a good Houston team, and you have a lead heading into the fourth quarter, and even though you can't throw it in the ocean during that period, you have a one-point lead and the ball late, but you don't score, and then someone named Von Wafer his a three, and you don't score again, and you lose.

Hmmm.

And then last night. Outworked and outplayed for 48 minutes (save a short stretch at the start of the third quarter) by the team that took you to seven games in last year's Eastern Conference finals and is your likely opponent in that series again this season.

The point I'm trying to make -- and I'm not sure I'm doing it well -- is that while a lot of observers have spotted that something was lacking in the team's effort and intensity earlier (perhaps prematurely), it makes sense that the team might not have recognized it as quickly. It's easy to explain away losses to New York and Charlotte in the middle of an 82-game season; no one is perfect every night, and anyway, the wins over Sacto and Washington prove that everything's fine. It's harder to write off the home loss to Houston and the blowout loss to Cleveland.

To wrap this up, then, perhaps now is the time that the team acknowledges that something's a little bit off. Something clearly is off; we aren't playing with the swagger we used to have, nor the energy and intensity. The swagger probably won't come until the wins come again, which won't come until we get our energy and intensity back (and start making a few shots). Our next game is Sunday, at Toronto, and that the Raptors are playing well, having won four of their last five, is probably a good thing. We'll have to play well to beat them, and we know that. A close, hard-fought win would be better than a blowout win, in my opinion. We need to come out and win a game in the way we should have won against Houston, I think, in order to get back on track.

And now for something completely different...me bitching about one officiating thing (which had no effect on the outcome of the game), because I didn't get it out of my system yesterday:

LeBron James goes 6'8" and a listed 250 pounds (he's probably heavier, and it's all muscle). He moves like a guard. He can put it on the deck, and he can shoot the jumper. He has a combination of power and quickness that is unparalleled, not just in today's NBA, but in league history.

He's as unguardable a guy as I have ever seen or ever anticipate seeing. But he will really be unguardable if officials keep letting him get away with carrying the basketball the way he does.

NBA rules have evolved -- or devolved, as the case may be -- over the years. It's no secret that the traveling rules, for example, aren't enforced nearly as strongly as they are written.

I remember carrying -- or palming -- being controversial back when guys like Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson were young. The way those two violate this rule is different than the way LeBron violates it, though. They use a hesitation dribble -- Marbury's is the best I've ever seen -- and in doing so, they let the ball stop on one hand while they shimmy their bodies to fake out the defender, then explode forward once they have the defender leaning. That's an unfair advantage, but they aren't advancing the ball while they do it.

LeBron, on the other hand, carries the ball on his crossover dribble. The risk of a crossover is, of course, that you have to put the ball out in front of the defender, where he might poke it away. LeBron gets away with not having to do that, putting his hand under the ball and bringing it all the way across his body before dropping it to the floor again. (I'm sure other players do this, too, but they aren't as difficult to guard as LeBron is). I have a friend whose crossover looks like this, and it's a good thing he can't finish, because you can't call palming in a pickup game, but you can't really stop this move, either.

I haven't noticed the hesitation stuff as much lately, which suggests to me that the league has made the necessary moves to eliminate it. This is the next step.

*I've been using ESPN.com links for recaps and boxscores. I've switched to Yahoo!, because ESPN recaps have a highlight reel that 1) may surprise people who are reading Rhymes With Hondo at work with the volume on their computer up and 2) being ESPN, has an advertisement at the beginning. However, the highlight reel has value, so I've decided to make a third link to the ESPN.com game story a regular part of my recap postings from this point forward. If you want the highlights, click that one (you can get to the box score easily from there); if you want to avoid the sound and the ads (or ESPN.com in general on principle, a defensible position), use the other two links.