New York 100, Boston 88

I only caught bits and pieces of this one, but I didn't like too much of what I saw.

[recap] [box score]

I didn't like to see Kevin Garnett tweak his calf (although the pass he threw on that play was gorgeous, and I challenge anyone to name another 7-footer in history who throws that pass).

I didn't like to see Ray Allen going 0-for-9 from deep.

I didn't like to see Rajon Rondo playing only 26 minutes. Eddie House came in for Rondo with 3:26 remaining in the third quarter and the Celtics down 70-62; Rondo didn't re-enter the game until 2:54 was left in the game, with Boston down 93-86. I know Rondo wasn't very effective last night, but along with Paul Pierce (who played well), he's the only guy we have who can get the offense going when jumpers aren't falling. Eddie wasn't really hitting last night. It was clear we needed an offensive spark, and when we need an offensive spark, Rondo shouldn't be on the bench. (This is an argument, by the way, for why Stephon Marbury wouldn't be such a bad fit for us. His ability to create for himself and others is unmatched on our second team, with the possible exception of Tony Allen, who I'm trusting less and less these days.)

It wasn't all bad. I thought Scalabrine played as well as he's played this year, though we could have used a couple of the open jumpers he missed (he certainly wasn't alone in missing open jumpers last night, though). He was quite effective defensively.

Really, this one wasn't as bad as it looked. I don't want to make excuses and I'm sick of doing so, but if we hit a couple of jumpers -- open jumpers -- it's a different ballgame. The Knicks didn't play that well defensively -- they played well, for them, but that doesn't mean a whole lot, given that they allow a league-worst 48 percent shooting from opponents. We had open looks, but with the exception of Pierce, simply couldn't get anything to go down. And the Knicks caught a couple of breaks in the fourth quarter, getting easy buckets on possession where we played good D only to have the loose ball fall directly to them.

Cleveland lost to Washington on Sunday, so we're still percentage points ahead of them in the early stages of the race for homecourt advantage (although the five-loss Lakers now have the best record in the NBA). The next couple of weeks are going to be a good test for us, as we have a Tuesday-Wednesday back-to-back at Charlotte and home vs. Houston ahead of the big matchup in Cleveland on Friday. We have road games at playoff contenders Toronto, New Jersey, Miami, Orlando, and Detroit later this month. I think we'll know the true state of our team much better then.