Celts drop two to conference rivals

Orlando 96, Boston 94 [recap] [box score]

Atlanta 100, Boston 91 [recap] [box score]

Frankly, this admittedly brutal back-to-back went about as badly as it could have gone.

Boston led by as many as 15 at the Magic on Thursday, and held a three-point lead with less than a minute left, but blew the game late. It was the team's first loss after leading by double digits in the fourth quarter during the Kevin Garnett/Ray Allen era. And it was a soul-crushing defeat for a team that entered the game with already shaken confidence.

Friday night in Atlanta went exactly the way you wouldn't want the second game of a very tough three-in-four-nights stretch to go: A very physical, exhausting game; an early deficit followed by a big third quarter rally; and then a fourth quarter in which the Hawks made all the big shots. The result has negative psychological consequences, too: It completed the first regular season sweep by Atlanta in eleven years, and Boston has now ceded second place in the East to the Hawks.

There are reasons for optimism. Orlando shot 40 free throws to Boston's 18 and yet still didn't lead until fewer than five minutes remained; Boston was still in the driver's seat in the last minute and easily could have won despite the free throw discrepancy. Against Atlanta, the Celtics played terribly all night and still were within one possession of the lead as the fourth quarter dawned. But there are too many negatives right now to dwell on the positives without being a typical fan blogger, a role I'm desperately trying to fight off after being told that lately I've been viewing the officiating, Tommy Heinsohn-style, through green-shaded glasses.

The biggest concern may be Kevin Garnett's health. A recap of The Big Ticket's last 11 months: Boston's title defense is apparently temporarily derailed when he injures his knee in Utah on 2/19/09; after sitting 13 games, he returns for four games under a strict minutes cap; he's held out of the next several games as his return gets pushed back over and over;fans are told he'll definitely be back for the championship run; on the eve of the playoffs, we learn that he won't be back for the postseason; he has surgery in the offseason; he returns in time to start 2009-10, only with a noticeable hitch in his gait and diminished explosiveness; he gradually shakes the rust off, looking more or less like a slightly elderly version of his old self; he hyperextends the knee after Christmas; what was supposed to be a few-game absence stretches to ten games as his return is again pushed back; and he shows few ill effects in wins over the Blazers and Clippers in his first two contests back.

Here's what's worrisome: Against Orlando, KG was back to being the player he was at the beginning of the season -- which is to say, not KG. Twice he failed to get high enough to convert one of his signature alley-oops, and he was outjumped for rebounds on a number of occasions. Against Atlanta, he looked a bit better, throwing down a couple of ferocious dunks, but he again lost out on a couple of boards he would have easily snared two years ago. It's debatable if Boston is a legitimate title contender even with a healthy-as-he's-gonna-be KG; if he's not even that, we have no shot. (Celtics Blog ran this excerpt from John Hollinger regarding KG that more or less sums up my feelings on the situation.)

Speaking of, now is as good a time as any to address the question of whether Boston has realistic championship hopes at this stage. The Celtics are not, I don't think, a full tier below the Lakers, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Orlando. They may well be a player short, however, of being better than those squads. Rasheed Wallace was supposed to be that player, but his inconsistent scoring and tiresome act vis-a-vis the officials have minimized his impact.

It could be that that player is Marquis Daniels. Boston misses Daniels' play on both ends of the floor; he's a strong defender on the wing and he organizes the second team offensively, subordinating his own offense for the benefit of others. That latter quality is lacking in most of the bench guys. We need him around to get better looks for Eddie House, to coax the most out of Glen Davis, to get Wallace into the post. If it's not Daniels, then Danny Ainge will have to make a move, though it's not clear to me who that trade would be for or even who might be included in such a deal.

Sunday we host the Lakers (12:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC). LA's on the seventh game of an eight-game roadtrip. Even though I know Doc won't do it (and rightly so), part of me wants Boston to treat this one like a post-season game and go all out. We need the confidence, we need the swagger, we need to re-establish our home floor as a nearly impossible place to win.

Viewing Alert

The Celtics are in Florida to battle Orlando at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

It's really hard to write anything interesting about Boston right now, as they just aren't playing very inspired basketball. Mondays win over the Clipppers was the definition of uninspired, particularly offensively. Everything just seems out of synch on that end of the floor:

• Ray Allen, though he shot a bit better against L.A. than he did in the previous two games, has temporarily lost his rhythm. The plays we run for Ray require a kind of cadence: Come off a screen, catch, left foot, right foot, turn, and up. Lately, Ray's been traveling basically every time; though he hasn't been called for it, he's shuffling his feet as he comes off the screen. Until he gets that rhythm back, you can expect him to continue to struggle from the field.
• We're going to Kendrick Perkins too much for my liking. It's not about number of shots; Perk doesn't take too many, he generally takes good ones, and he shoots a high percentage. It's just that he's the one guy in the starting lineup who doesn't put pressure on the defense. Rajon Rondo's penetration results in easy shots for others; Paul Pierce commands the attention of extra defenders; Allen coming off of screens forces switches; and Kevin Garnett's singular passing ability quite often gets Rondo and Perk easy buckets.
• The bench offense is tough to watch right now. Its putative leader, Rasheed Wallace, refuses to go inside and kills many possessions with ill-advised threes. There's no one around to get Eddie House, our sparkplug, a decent look. Glen Davis has been a disappointment all year, failing to live up to even the low standards I have for him. This crew needs Marquis Daniels back in a major way.
• I think Paul Pierce is still feeling the effects of his minor knee injury that forced him to miss a few games last month. He just doesn't look the same.

The two previous matchups with Orlando have been defensive struggles, which, in this case, is a nice way of saying they've featured some horrific offense. Boston has actually defended fairly well recently, although in the two games since Garnett's been back, their opponents have been missing one or more of their top scorers (Brandon Roy and Greg Oden for Portland, Eric Gordon for the Clippers -- who, by the way, lost last night to 4-40 New Jersey). That defensive effort combined with the dynamic of the last two matchups with Orlando may be enough to get by the struggling Magic, but Boston will need to find its offensive footing fast. Tonight's game kicks off a brutal three-in-four that continues with a trip to Atlanta Friday night and ends with a home date with the Lakers on Sunday (3:30 pm Eastern on ABC).

Boston 98, Portland 95 (Overtime)

We'll take it.

[recap] [box score]

Friday's win was not the kind of win after which you'd say that things were back to normal. Not against a Blazers team that was without it's two best players: Brandon Roy (out for four games with a hamstring injury) and Greg Oden (gone for at least the regular season with a busted kneecap). Not when Portland lost Roy's replacement in the starting lineup, dynamic second-year guard Jerryd Bayless, to a sprained ankle in the third quarter. Given those injuries, a three-point win, in overtime, at home, doesn't seem all that impressive. But there are sayings like "you make your own luck," and if you believe in them, and you're a Celtics fan, the way the final few possessions of the extra period unfolded portend well for the team's fortunes:

• With a minute remaining in overtime and the Blazers leading by two, Juwan Howard corralled his team's 15th offensive rebound of the game. Portland had a fresh shotclock and a chance to all but ice the game with a bucket. But Howard subsequently made a play NBA players don't generally make; triple-teamed in the corner, he weakly tried to kick the ball out to the perimeter. The pass went into the arms of Kendrick Perkins. (I haven't seen a replay to confirm, but watching live, it appeared to me that Rajon Rondo dislodged the ball from behind as Howard started to pass.)
• On the ensuing Celtics possession, Ray Allen -- who to that point had made just two of 12 shots and missed several looks that are usually automatic for him -- knocked down a three-pointer. It was a good time for Ray, who shot just 3-for-10 on Wednesday against Detroit -- to break out of his slump.
• After Allen's three, 41 seconds remained, plenty of time for a two for one. After advancing the ball with a timeout, Portland isolated LaMarcus Aldridge in the post, working against Kendrick Perkins. Just as Aldridge made his move, Perkins swatted the ball away. He was whistled for a foul, and while Perk was upset about it, Boston had one to give. The subsequent time it took to inbound the ball again probably cost the Blazers the opportunity for the two for one.
• The Blazers managed only a long jumper by Aldridge as the shot clock ran down, but after a scramble, it looked as though Portland would grab yet another offensive rebound -- and with it, another shot to win the game. Aldridge and Tony Allen raced after the ball on the far sideline near midcourt, and Aldridge looked like he was going to reach it first. But Tony closed very quickly, and his presence spooked Aldridge, who did the worst thing he could do -- blindly flip the ball over his shoulder. It went directly to Ray Allen, who found Tony streaking toward the bucket on the other end. Tony caught the pass in stride, and despite my fears, managed to lay the ball in without traveling or kicking it out of bounds.
• Portland got two very difficult looks from deep from Rudy Fernandez (on the first of which he may have been fouled by Ray Allen). Both missed, and Boston survived.

Far from a perfect victory. But a win nonetheless. Even better, Kevin Garnett returned and showed no real ill effects from the knee injury that kept him out for ten games. KG turned in a modest stat line (13 points, four rebounds, three assists in 30 foul-plagued minutes) but he ran the floor well and went up for a couple of dunks without any problem. He looked much better than he did during the season's first few games, returning from the injury to the same knee that kept him out of last spring's playoffs. I feel confident in saying that it appears that the team was telling us the truth this time; this most recent injury was just a minor setback.

More good injury news, courtesy of Greg Dickerson: Marquis Daniels got his cast off and may return to action before the All-Star break.

Detroit 92, Boston 86

[recap] [box score]


More of the same. Another strong start, another mystifying, meek finish. Another disappointing loss.


I wish I had an explanation for what's going on, but I don't. In the second half, as the team was falling apart, I commented to a friend that we looked like a basketball team without any confidence. And yet we started the game very confidently, the same way we did against Dallas on Monday. You could make the excuse that our team isn't built to win without Kevin Garnett and Marquis Daniels, but with Paul Pierce (even though he's banged up), Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, and Rasheed Wallace, we should be able to beat a team that was without it's best scorer (Ben Gordon sat this one out) and started Ben Wallace, Chris Wilcox, and a Swedish rookie named Jonas Jerebko on their front line.

By no means is it time to panic. Unless we know for a fact that Garnett and/or Daniels won't be back, we're still the same team that started the season by winning in Cleveland and that won 11 straight games in November and December. When healthy, we've got the best starting five in the league and a bench that should be strong enough for a title run.

Most signs point to a Friday return for KG against Portland. I'm not expecting him to be 100%, but hopefully his presence will be enough of an emotional lift to keep the team focused for a full 48 minutes.

Dallas 99, Boston 90

[recap] [box score]

Boston just fell apart in this one.

Up 50-41 at the break, the Celtics imploded during a 34-18 third quarter and never recovered. Return of the bullets:

• As I feared would happen, Boston had no answer for Dirk Nowitzki. Rasheed Wallace did a decent enough job on him, but once 'sheed had to go to the bench with foul trouble, Action Dirk ran wild over Brian Scalabrine and Glen Davis. Final line for the big German: 14-22, 37 points.
• Defense was the real culprit in the loss -- the Mavs shot better than 57 percent for the game -- but it's hard to say much more than we stopped getting back.
• Offensively, while I love the fact that Rajon Rondo's jumper is getting better and Kendrick Perkins is becoming a viable post option, I feel we're relying on them a little too heavily. Especially when we need to regain some momentum, I see dumping the ball in to Perk as a fourth or fifth option. And there have been a couple of times in recent weeks where Rondo has taken the first jumper the defense has given him, which I'm generally okay with as long as he picks his moments; the middle of an opponent's run is not necessarily one of those moments.
• Mostly, I just want to see Ray Allen get more than 15 shots on a night he was making three out of every five he put up.

We're at Detroit on Wednesday. Still no KG, but supposedly he practiced today and will be back on Friday against Portland.

TMJF: Wolves 108, Sixers 103, Overtime

Stat Line: 43 minutes, 9-16 FG, 2-2 3FG, 9-10 FT, 29 pts, 4 rebs, 9 assts, 2 stls, 3 TOs.


It'd been a while since I got to watch a full Wolves game, and I picked a good one. Jonny Flynn had struggled in several games in January, but played one of his two best games as a professional here on MLK Day. After falling behind by as many as 20 points, Minnesota rallied with a huge third quarter and won for the home crowd in overtime.

What I liked most about Flynn's game was not the way he kept his team alive with 13 first-half points or the way he scored the first four points of the extra period, but the way he managed the game, in the second half in particular. Earlier in the year, I criticized him (forgive me, Jonny) for not settling his teammates down and getting the ball inside to Al Jefferson. Minnesota has some young players that need to be reined in when the team is struggling offensively, and that ultimately falls on Flynn, as the point guard and therefore the man with the ball in his hands.

Against Philly, however, the story was different. When Ryan Gomes got hot in the third quarter, Flynn fed him the ball. In the fourth, the Wolves rode Jefferson to victory. Everyone on the team deserves credit for that, but as the point guard and Minnesota's second-best offensive weapon (especially with Kevin Love out due to the flu), Flynn deserves special recognition in that regard.

Viewing Alert

Dallas comes to town, at 8 pm Eastern on TNT, as part of the network's MLK Day tripleheader (Phoenix and Memphis kick it off at 5:30 Eastern, and Dallas at Boston is followed by Orlando at the Lakers at 10:30 Eastern).

The Celtics will be attempting to bounce back from Thursday's disappointing 96-83 loss to the Bulls. I only watched part of the game, and that part was from a seat at the Wynn sportsbook. My attention thus divided between a blackjack table and the sportsbetting atmosphere, it's a bit hard to analyze the game. TNT's Doug Collins noted that the Celtics looked tired, and I had to agree with him. It was their fourth game in five days, and they were again without Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett. Still, Doc had limited everyone's minutes the night before in the blowout over the Nets -- no one played more than Rondo's 29 -- and I had hoped that the team would be fresh against Chicago. But it certainly looked like that wasn't the case.

The Mavericks may be a little beat for Monday's contest, as they are coming off a 22-point loss to the Raptors in Toronto on Sunday. And speaking of Wallace, which I was earlier, he's supposedly going to play against the Mavs, which is a good thing, since the prospect of facing Dirk Nowitzki without either of our long, mobile power forwards isn't a pleasant one. KG, by the way, may play Friday against Portland.

Viewing Alert

Thursday night, 8 pm Eastern, in Boston, versus Chicago, on TNT.

After last season's epic playoff series, the two matchups between these two clubs have been blowouts in favor of the green and white. The Bulls lost three in a row last week, but have bounced back with wins over the lowly Wolves and Pistons, and are 6-3 after Christmas.

Oh, yeah, we beat New Jersey tonight. 38-22 after one; 71-35 after two. What more do you need, other than a sick Tony Allen jam on an alley-oop feed from Paul Pierce?

(Answer: A sick jam by Billy Sky, resulting in an elaborate shimmy from Brian Scalabrine on the bench. I'm working on finding it.)

Atlanta 102, Boston 96

I try not to get too worked up about specific regular season games, but goddamn, did I want to win this one.

[recap] [box score]

After Sunday's 114-107 win over the Raptors in Toronto, the Celtics returned home on Monday for a rematch with the the Hawks. Atlanta had Sunday off, but on Saturday had buoyed my theory that they save something extra for the Cs; fresh off the win over Boston on Friday, they went down to Orlando and got clobbered by the Vince Carter-less Magic. Despite the back-to-back and despite being without Kevin Garnett and his backup, Rasheed Wallace -- who apparently hurt his foot on his way to a season-high 29 points against the Raps -- everything was going smoothly for the Celtics in the middle of the third quarter. Rajon Rondo was attacking, Atlanta's post players were struggling, and Boston had put the clamps on Friday's foil, Jamal Crawford. The Cs were up 67-57 and shooting an ungodly percentage.

And then, with one questionable -- but not unprecedently bad -- flagrant foul call, everyone with leadership responsibilities lost their cool to varying degrees, and the tenor of the game changed.

The call in question came on a Marvin Williams breakaway. Glen Davis chased Williams down. I'm pretty sure all the contact came from Davis' body, but he did get his left arm up in Williams' neck/head area, although, like I said, I'm pretty sure it merely appeared as though Davis collared Williams. Two officials whistled a foul, huddled for a few seconds, then called Big Baby for a Flagrant 1.

Doc Rivers blew his top and was almost instantly hit with two technical fouls and an ejection. (It seemed like a quick trigger on the part of the official, but then again, I don't know what Doc said.) As Doc was leaving the floor, assistant coach Armond Hill was also given a tech. Crawford and Williams combined to make four of five free throws, and it was a brand new ballgame.

It may be that I'm overstating the effect of the call (no doubt because Tommy Heinsohn kept mentioning it). Boston didn't crumble immediately; in fact, it looked like they may have been sparked by the turn of events. Atlanta got the ball back after all the free throws, but Kendrick Perkins swatted Crawford's layup attempt off the backboard, sparking a Rondo drive that resulted in his 21st and 22nd points of the game. The Hawks went on a 14-6 run to tie the score, but the Celtics scored nine of the next 11 points to regain a seven-point advantage early in the fourth quarter.

So the call and the technicals and the ejection didn't cost us the game in the sense that they changed the momentum or anything like that. But -- ironically, since I'm always giving him a hard time -- losing Doc Rivers very well might have.

With Doc in the locker room, head coaching duties for the evening fell to Tom Thibodeau. The defensive guru has been an invaluable asset during the last two-plus seasons for Boston, and he's high on the list of NBA assistants who will be getting offers for head positions in short order. But if Monday night was an audition, Thibodeau bombed.

Doc was tossed right around the midway point of the third quarter. From that point forward, for the final 18 minutes, 16 seconds of the game, Thibodeau did not make a single substitution. Never mind that it was the second night of a back-to-back; that Rondo and Ray Allen had played 44 and 42 minutes, respectively, the previous day; that Glen Davis is still getting into playing "shape," if you can call it that; that Pierce was playing in his fourth game after missing five with an injury; that (gasp!) Tony Allen played fairly well in Pierce's absence; or that Brian Scalabrine -- starting in place of Garnett and Wallace -- nailed three triples in the first half while basically shutting down Josh Smith. Rondo, Ray, Pierce, Davis, and Kendrick Perkins were the five on the floor when Thibodeau took over, and they never left. We were gassed.

Thibodeau doesn't deserve all the blame. Rondo made a couple of poor decisions trying to force things, then basically stopped being aggressive after having so much success going to the bucket in the first two-and-a-half quarters. Davis provided some big baskets offensively, but his defense predictably left a lot to be desired. Late in the game, the team seemed preoccupied with dumping the ball into Kendrick Perkins in the post -- a curious decision, especially given all the mismatches on the court. Perk's been traveling a lot these days, it seems, and Monday was no exception. Additionally, Atlanta was doubling Perk a lot, and the big fella sprinkled in a number of bad passes due to holding on to the ball too long.

We get one more shot at the Hawks in the regular season, on the 29th in Atlanta, one night after a battle in Orlando with the Magic.

Atlanta 93, Boston 85

[recap] [box score]


For whatever reason, the Celtics completely disappeared in the third quarter of this game, and it cost them. After a solid first half, after which Boston held a 45-39 lead, the team just didn't show up for the next 11 minutes. A late 7-0 run to end the third cut what had by that time become a 15 point-lead to eight at the end of the quarter, and Boston (perhaps sparked by a very hard foul on Paul Pierce by Zaza Pachulia) eventually cut the lead to two, but the terrible third quarter proved a little too much to overcome.

Although the Cs gave up 29 points in the third, it was on the offensive end where they really struggled. Rajon Rondo, while he orchestrated the offense fairly well all evening (ten assists), completely stopped attacking. With Pierce unable to get going until the fourth, Boston kept feeding Rasheed Wallace, who finished 5-for-15 from the floor and 1-for-8 from three-point range. I was disappointed that Rondo didn't play an aggressive second half.

I'm not too upset at the loss, as the Hawks -- Jamal Crawford in particular -- made a number of big shots and plays in the second half. And it was good to see a little of the championship swagger come back when Pachulia hit Pierce. But if we don't come out and whip them on Monday, I'm going to be disappointed.

Viewing alert

After Wednesday's thrilling, improbable win over the Heat -- I knew the final score before I watched the game in the League Pass Broadband archives and still couldn't believe we won - the Celtics travel to Atlanta to play the Hawks. The game starts at 8 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on ESPN.

After an excellent start to the season -- which included a convincing 97-86 win in Boston -- the Hawks recently lost four in a row, getting well only in their last outing, against the Nets (and everyone gets well against 3-32 New Jersey). The first two of those losses came against Cleveland, and the second of those is, as far as I know, still under protest. It's possible that Atlanta's subsequent losses to the Knicks and Heat were due to the residual effects of those disappointing defeats.

When these teams met in November, the Hawks just out-worked Boston on the Cs' home floor, grabbing scads of offensive rebounds and playing with the confidence they seem to reserve specifically for the Celtics. Only Paul Pierce was assertive offensively, and at the time, I called out Rajon Rondo for only taking four shots. Rondo's become much more aggressive as the season's gone on -- particularly in the absence of Pierce and Garnett, the latter of whom isn't expected to play Friday -- and I hope that continues even though Pierce is back; Mike Bibby just can't guard the young Boston point guard.

This is actually the first of three January matchups between these clubs; we see the Hawks again in Boston on Monday, and then we're back in Atlanta on the 29th. When they were going good at the start of the season, Atlanta was threatening to make the East -- presumed to be up for grabs among Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando -- a four-horse race. (With the Cavs struggling at the time, some even suggested the Hawks might be the third-best team in the conference.) How Atlanta plays Boston this month -- not just Friday night, but in the three games overall -- will be a good litmus test for Atlanta. (They've also got the Magic in Orlando on Saturday, which may be the toughest three-games-in-four-days stretch we see in the NBA this year).

No KG for Wednesday, Longer

So, in my last post I mentioned that I thought-slant-hoped that Kevin Garnett would be back in the Celtics' lineup against the Heat on Wednesday. I then hopped over to ESPN.com and read this article, which says Garnett is likely to miss at least the next ten days.

"There is some history with hyperextended knees that we kind of know that it takes at least two weeks, sometimes three. We know it won't be longer than that, but we don't know how quickly," says Doc Rivers, according to the article.

Celtics fans will be forgiven if they are skeptical. How often we were told last year that KG was coming back?

I, for one, believe Doc this time around. Fool me once, and I'll give you a second chance, because I'll give you credit for not having the audacity to pull the same trick again. (It helps that there's no indication that KG's injury is anything more than they say it is -- a hyperextension of his surgically-repaired knee caused by a couple of kicks to it.)

Updating other injures, the same article reports that Rivers said Rajon Rondo is likely to play on Wednesday, while Paul Pierce is basically a coin flip at this point.

Boston 103, Toronto 96

No Pierce. No KG. No Rondo.

No problem?

No kidding.

[recap] [box score]

After Wednesday's 116-98 loss at Phoenix -- a game I couldn't watch because it was on NBATV and which I didn't bother writing about because the outcome was pretty much determined once Doc Rivers decided that Pierce and Garnett wouldn't play -- the Celtics returned home and avoided a four-game losing streak by beating the Raptors. This despite the fact that the injured list this time also included Rondo, who hurt himself last Sunday against the Clippers but had been trying to fight through the injury. Reportedly, after watching his point guard struggle against the Suns, Rivers realized how much Rondo was hurting and sat him tonight. The team is off until Wednesday, and the long rest should get the team back to full strength, minus Marquis Daniels.

Tonight's starting lineup was Tony Allen, Ray Allen, J.R. Giddens, Rasheed Wallace, and Kendrick Perkins. Credit Doc for starting Giddens in place of, say, Glen Davis. Although Giddens was basically a complete non-factor in 20 minutes, the move saved some of the team's precious firepower for the second unit. Led by Glen Davis (15 points, five rebounds) and Eddie House (12/4 with four assists), the Celtics bench outscored Toronto's reserves 34-21, despite the fact that a couple of key guys who are normally bench players ended up starting the game.

The Raptor bench is one reason why Toronto was a fortunate opponent for a depleted Boston club; it's not very good, so it was ill-equipped to take advantage of Boston's lack of depth. (In fairness, it should be noted that point guard Jarrett Jack, Toronto's best bench player, tallied 14 points and seven assists in a starting role, filling in for the injured Jose Calderon.) The other reason is -- as noted last time we played them -- the Raptors, for all their offensive firepower, are a terrible defensive team. Boston's offense hardly ran smoothly, but there was no shortage of looks coming off screens for Ray and House; Wallace hit a couple of threes and paired them with a couple of nice bankers out of the post; and the Celtics went to the line 31 times, making 25. Boston also enjoyed an 8-5 margin on the offensive glass.

Hopefully everyone is back for Wednesday. Next TV game is Friday, against Atlanta (8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN).