Cleveland 108, Boston 88

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Let's get one thing clear from jump street: The Cavaliers may very well be too good for the Celtics this year. They have ten guys who would crack the Boston rotation right now, and it will be 11 once they re-sign Zydrunas Ilgauskas. They have the world's best player in Lebron James. Joining him in the frontcourt are two guys who have made a combined 17 All-Star Game appearances -- Shaquille O'Neal (15) and Antawn Jamison (2). They have an underrated lead guard in Mo Williams, himself an All-Star last year, the perfect scoring point for a team that runs its offense through its small forward. Their backup bigs have size, and they do everything backup bigs are supposed to do -- rebound, defend, and scrap for loose balls. As a team, they are excellent both offensively and defensively.

For a half, Boston -- even without Paul Pierce -- looked every bit their equal. The Celtics played the opening 24 minutes the same way they played their entire championship season; dictating the pace, making open shots, protecting the paint and forcing the opposition into jumpers as the shot clock wound down. But the second half, in which the Cavs outscored the home team 60 to 32, told an entirely different story. Cleveland got whatever they wanted offensively, and Boston's scoring dried up.

It's a defensible position to say Boston just doesn't have enough to get through the East this year. For the first time since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen arrived, I'm prepared to assert that a completely healthy Boston team isn't the best one in the conference.

The thing is, though, we can't say that for sure yet. Boston wasn't healthy on Thursday. By the midpoint of the second quarter, Cleveland wasn't, either, but at this point, Pierce means far more to the Celtics than Shaquille O'Neal means to the Cavs. Pierce's absence was a double hit, really; not only was the first team missing his offense, leadership, and defense on James, but the second team was missing its facilitator in Marquis Daniels, who replaced the captain in the starting lineup while battling the flu himself. And you can consider Boston being down yet another body if you think that Nate Robinson is going to improve after a slow start to his Boston career. Robinson was 2-of-6 on Thursday after going just 2-of-7 in his Celtics debut on Tuesday. Although Cleveland had come nearly all the way back from a 13-point deficit by the end of the third quarter, it was at the start of the fourth where this one really got away from Boston. The Cs desperately needed a spark off the bench to stop the bleeding, and it may be that in a week or two, Robinson is comfortable enough in his new surroundings to provide that spark. As it stood, however, Robinson provided little, and Rajon Rondo -- who played the first 45 minutes of the game before sitting the final 2:50, had tired himself out too much to attack the basket the same way he did in the first quarter (when he scored or assisted on each of the team's first 21 points).

Again, there's a distinct chance -- probably even a likelihood -- that the Cavs are just too good for us. We'll know for sure before the regular season is out; we're in Cleveland on March 14 before hosting the Cavs on April 4. As close followers of these pages know, I'm generally pretty optimistic about the team -- and the first half of this one was very encouraging -- but truth be told, I'm not very confident right now.

Boston 110, New York 106

[recap] [box score]

Last night's game against the Knicks lacked the defensive intensity that has been a Boston trademark over the last two-plus seasons, but despite the the fact that is was close throughout the second half, it was also one of those games where I felt we were never in any danger of losing. That seemed to be the team's attitude, too, after scoring 38 points in the first period. Once that happened, the Celtics seemed to believe that they could score at will. Fortunately, they were basically right -- rarely have I seen an NBA game with as many uncontested layups as this one.

Rajon Rondo led the team with 15 points and 16 assists, and Ray Allen had 24 points. He also contributed the game's key play, a blocked layup with under a minute to go that caused a shot-clock violation and preserved a three-point lead.

Boston was without Paul Pierce, who sat because of his injured thumb. There's talk that he'll miss maybe a week, which would keep him out of Thursday's showdown with Cleveland. (The Cavs, by the way, won their first game with Antawn Jamison last night, overcoming 37 points from rookie Marcus Thornton to beat New Orleans.)

The Celtics did, however, have Nate Robinson. Robinson's stat line is unimpressive and his impact on this game was minimal. However, the influence he could have on this team was apparent just from the way he flew around the court. Once he gets settled in and learns the offense and defensive schemes, he'll be a great addition, basketball-wise.

There was a nice moment when Eddie House came into the game in the first period. The Boston crowd gave him a standing ovation and several Celtics came over and clowned around with him for a second. House, of course, was the main price of Robinson. Another inclusion in that deal (along with J.R. Giddens) was Bill Walker, a RwH favorite who never really got much of a chance in Boston. Billy Sky threw down a thunderous dunk and drilled a three in about 13 minutes of playing time, his first floor time with the Knicks.

VIEWING ALERT: The Cleveland game is on TNT at 8 p.m. on Thursday.

RwH on Twitter

I'm a little slow to adapt to new fads and technologies. I'm not exactly a Luddite, nor am I like the elderly relatives you have who don't know how to check their email. But put it this way: I didn't get my first cell phone until 2003, and only then because my roommates didn't want to pay for a land line.

I thought about starting a Rhymes With Hondo Twitter account at the beginning of this season, but I couldn't think of a single thing I would post or a single reason anyone would follow me. I still can't comprehend the latter point, really, but during the week or so leading up to the trade deadline -- when rumor after rumor swirled about Ray Allen -- I thought it might be helpful to have a way of getting the word out without writing a whole new post. The Eddie House-for-Nate Robinson deal, for example, was rumored for a couple of days before the two teams agreed to it; I waited until it was official before posting about it.

Of course, the trade deadline has already passed. So I thought I'd try a different idea out: A RwH Twitter liveblog of a Celtics game. The idea would be that I would watch the game and post allegedly funny and insightful comments from time to time, to which readers, who were also watching the game, would post funnier and more insightful comments. Sounds like a grand old time, doesn't it?

This won't be any fun unless I get a few followers on Twitter who will participate. Our next national broadcast is Thursday against the Cavs, but that's not enough time to drum up interest, and I have class and will have to watch on tape delay anyway. So I'm shooting for Sunday, March 7, against the Wizards (8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN). If I don't get too many followers, I'll scrap the liveblog idea and come up with something else.

I haven't the slightest idea how to link to something that leads you to sign up to follow me on Twitter. Hopefully, if you use it, you know how to do this. My Twitter account name is ... RhymesWithHondo. Obviously.

Denver 114, Boston 105

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I've got mixed emotions about this one. We did lose, after all. We missed 11 friggin' free throws. And we played absolutely terribly defensively in the first quarter, and not that much better in the fourth.

But this game came at the end of a stretch of three road games in four days against some very tough teams. Maybe I'm still basking in the afterglow of beating LA (it lasts a bit longer out here), but I'm feeling okay about yesterday.

Most importantly, we showed fight, something we hadn't done much leading up to the All-Star break. This has been mentioned a lot in recent broadcasts, but just in case you haven't heard, the Celtics have lost ten games this year in which they held a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter. In most of those, Boston has just rolled over when the opposition got it going late.

That hasn't been the case in four post-break games, and it wasn't the case on Sunday. Trailing 37-19 after one period, Boston rallied to tie the score at 66 a little more than midway through the third. Unfortunately, as so often happens when you have to come back from a big deficit, it looked like we ran out of gas -- understandable, especially given our recent schedule. That, coupled with J.R. Smith's red-hot fourth quarter, resulted in a fairly comfortable win for the Nuggets.

It's hard to explain if you didn't watch or hadn't seen the Cs much before the All-Star break, but the team just has a better personality on the court right now. Fresher, more focused, more intense, more confident. Kevin Garnett looked great; Ray Allen spent a lot of time with the second unit and got us back in the game in the second quarter; and Marquis Daniels and Rasheed Wallace had effective games off the bench. Once Paul Pierce gets healthy and as long as Nate Robinson isn't a disaster, we'll start looking a lot like the team that started the season so hot.

A note on Pierce: The sprained thumb he suffered against Los Angeles on Thursday is apparently causing significant problems with his shooting. In some ways, it's encouraging news; it offers at least a partial explanation for the captain's 9-for-28 performance in the last three games. But the thumb can't take all of the blame. Pierce was barely any better (14-for-38) in the three games prior to the injury (before which he sat two games with a foot injury). Hopefully, he gets it all worked out soon.

Lightish week for Boston, with the important exception of the game against Cleveland on Thursday (TNT, 8 p.m. Eastern). Boston won in Cleveland on opening night, but the teams were different then: the Celtics' key guys were healthier, the Cavs were finding their feet (recall that they lost three of their first six games), and the Cavs didn't have Antawn Jamison, the power forward who arrived from Washington in a deadline deal. Jamison bombed in his Cleveland debut, going 0-for-12 in a loss to Charlotte -- and the team hasn't won since he arrived -- but it's safe to say he improves their team.

The Cs will warm up for that showdown with a game on Tuesday against the Knicks, which would be fairly un-exciting except that it's likely to be Nate Robinson's first game with the Celtics -- against his old team, no less. It also will mark Eddie House's return to Boston, which will be emotional, for sure. House, by the way, had 24 points off the bench in his first game with New York (an overtime loss to Oklahoma City).

Boston 96, Portland 76

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In one of the more surprising results of the season, a should-have-been-worn-down Celtics team went into Portland and ran a should-have-been-fresh Blazers team out of their own building. Portland was complicit in the whole thing, not really putting up a fight until the end of the third quarter, but it certainly a nice change of pace to sit through a Boston game in which the good guys put forth a consistent effort and won comfortably.

Things got a little dicey at the start of the fourth quarter, as the Blazers cut what had been a 21-point lead to just nine. But Glen Davis drew charges on Rudy Fernandez on consecutive possessions, Ray Allen scored eight straight points, and Boston was never threatened again.

Allen was the hero of the evening, leading all scorers with 21 points. As important, he remained in the game with the second team to start the fourth quarter and led that unit as it salted the game away. As a result, Boston's four other starters didn't have to get off the bench in the final period. That meant a lot to Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce, who played more than 44 and 41 minutes, respectively, in Thursday's win over Los Angeles. With a tough game coming up at Denver on Sunday, that rest is invaluable. Of course, playing 75 minutes over the course of a back-to-back isn't ideal for the 34-year-old Allen, but hopefully, second-team steward will be a role he no longer has to play once Nate Robinson -- who isn't expected to play until Tuesday as he battles a stomach virus -- makes his debut in green.

The Denver game in on national TV, at a time that should be palatable for East Coast viewers: 3:30 p.m. Eastern.

Boston 87, Los Angeles Lakers 86

Finally!

[recap] [box score]

After a string of frustrating losses against the NBA's best teams in which Boston held -- and then gave up -- comfortable second half leads, the Celtics finally hung on for a W -- in the defending champions' barn, no less.

Boston played three good-to-very-good quarters and then one wretched one. Leading 76-69 after three periods, Boston extended their edge to 80-71 before giving up the next 13 points. But the Cs then dug in on the defensive end, holding the Lakers to just two points over the final 7:13, and won despite their own offensive struggles.

As I was leaving the pizza joint near USC's campus where I watched the game, a Lakers fan spotted my "Beat LA" shirt and pointed out to me that Boston won by just a single point despite the fact that Los Angeles was without Kobe Bryant, who sat out his fifth straight game with a left ankle injury. This is something I talked about extensively with a Laker fan friend of mine before the game, and I want to address it here, too.

The point I want to make is somewhat subtle, and so I'm going to use a little bit of a dialectical method to make it. Here are the points I'm not trying to make: The Lakers are as good without Kobe as they are with him; the Lakers are better off without Kobe on the floor; the Celtics would have won Thursday night even if Kobe had played.

The point I do want to make is that the Lakers are still a very good team without Kobe. They are a different team, to be sure, but they are still very good. Without Bryant dominating the ball, the focus shifts to Pau Gasol, perhaps the most skilled big man in the game today, and Lamar Odom, an extraordinarily talented point forward, who, at 6-10, has the skill set of a guard. Pair those two with young Andrew Bynum, an at-times dominant seven-footer, and Ron Artest, and you've got an almost impossible team to defend that controls the boards and guards very well, too.

Bryant famously doesn't sit out very often, so empirical evidence of this point is rather thin, but consider the Lakers' four games prior to tonight's, all without Kobe: a 17-point win at Portland; a 12-point win over San Antonio; a 15-point win at Utah; and a 10-point win over Golden State. It's even more impressive than that brief treatment makes it sound. Utah currently has the third-best record in the West; San Antonio has the fifth-best record; and Portland owns the eighth-best -- although just three-and-a-half games separate the Jazz and Blazers in the standings. Moreover, Bynum played just ten minutes against Portland before injuring his hip, and didn't play at all in the wins over San Antonio and Utah.

My point is that removing Bryant from the Lakers is not the same as, say, taking LeBron James off of the Cavaliers. Sure, if you take Bryant away completely, LA probably isn't leading Denver by six games for the top spot in the West, but aside from those Nuggets, there isn't a Western team you can point to that is clearly better than a Kobe-less Lakers team. It's fallacious to unilaterally say that if Bryant played Thursday night, the Lakers would have won comfortably. Remember, Bryant played 45 minutes the last time these two teams met, when the Lakers eked out a one-point victory.

With that said, it'd also be fallacious to ignore Los Angeles' major offensive struggles in the last half of the fourth quarter. I can't imagine that there have been very many times over the years where the Lakers have managed just two points in more than seven minutes with Bryant on the floor. And given Bryant's prowess for scoring in such situations, it's not a stretch to say that with him in the lineup, they'd be a favorite to get a bucket on at least one of their final four possessions, rather than the 0-fer they ended up with. And that illustrates best what I mean when I say that the Lakers are a different team without Bryant: At least in a single-game situation, they are capable of being as good without him as with him for the first 45 minutes or so. But down the stretch, when nerves tighten, the defense intensifies, and the officials tend to put the whistles away, they sorely miss the services of the best assassin in the game today.

The upshot of this whole sidebar is that, just as it's almost always wrong to draw any conclusions from a single regular-season basketball game, it's wrong for Lakers fans to take solace in comments like the one made to me after the game tonight. The Lakers who did play Thursday night played well, and Boston won -- despite a 25-13 free throw discrepancy, despite a terrible night from Rasheed Wallace, despite the fact that the bench was a non-factor, and despite the fact that the Celtics were without both the recently-deposed Eddie House and the newly-acquired-but-not-yet-in-uniform Nate Robinson. The Lakers would still be the favorite in a seven-game series, but the Celtics wouldn't be too long of a shot. We're right there.

Cs Lose House, Acquire Robinson

The Celtics have traded Eddie House, Bill Walker, and J.R. Giddens to New York Knicks for Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry.

This deal has been talked about for a few weeks, enough time me to formulate my thoughts on it -- and I've been bouncing back and forth. From a purely basketball standpoint, it makes sense: Robinson is a far more dynamic scorer than House. He's not as automatic from three-point land, though at 35 percent for his career and 38 percent for the year, he's no slouch. But you can give him the ball and let him take his guy off the dribble, something the second team has lacked in the KG-Ray Allen era. On the other end of the court, Robinson is small -- okay, he's really small -- but so is Eddie and, let's face it, we're not going to miss House's defense.

What we'll miss is Eddie's presence on the bench and in the locker room, his consistent effort, and his general leadership. What has some Celtics fans worried about this, I think, is that these are Robinson's weakest points. Eddie played 17 minutes a game and did his job without a complaint; Nate wasn't happy with 24 minutes per game in New York and will receive fewer than that in Boston. Eddie was Boston's biggest cheerleader on the bench; Nate sulked when he was benched basically for the month of December. Eddie's a likable guy; Nate's kind of a punk.

Here's the thing, though. As I just mentioned, Robinson played just 10 minutes, 33 seconds in December, before being benched by D'Antoni for the rest of the month. In his first game back on the court, Robinson hung a 41/6/8 in an overtime win over Atlanta, shooting 18-for-24 in the process.

Hard to argue with that.

Boston 95, Sacramento 92

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A close win against the 18-35 Kings, even in Sacramento, is nothing for an elite team to get excited about, but this game is a positive for the Celts, and not just because of the win. Boston reversed a recent trend of blowing decent-sized leads in the fourth quarter. Sort of. The Celtics led by 10 points in the first half and held an 82-75 lead in the fourth before giving up 12 of the next 16 points to go down one with 2:42 remaining. But they got a big stop after a Ray Allen miss, and then Paul Pierce -- the league's newest three-point champion -- nailed a triple from the top of the key to grab a lead they wouldn't relinquish. Sacramento helped Boston out by missing, I believe, eight fourth quarter free throws, but given our team's fourth quarter struggles over the past month and a half, we'll take the win.

Full marks to the bench in this one, which picked up a sluggish starting unit. Led by Rasheed Wallace's 17 points and Eddie House's 12, the second unit contributed 44 points, nearly half the team's total.

This was a chippy, physical game in which the two teams combined for 18 blocked shots, most of them around the basket. It's a tough way to start what will be a challenging week. Boston's got three more road tests this week, against some very difficult Western Conference opponents: In Los Angeles to face the Lakers on Thursday, at Portland on Friday, and at Denver on Sunday. Looking ahead to Thursday's contest with the defending champs, Kobe Bryant has missed the last four games, as well as the All-Star game, with a sore left ankle. Bryant, who is also battling a finger injury and possibly a bad back, didn't play in Tuesday's game against Golden State, but knowing him, he'll play Thursday.

VIEWING ALERT: Probably the only positive thing about playing three elite teams in four days is the opportunity for fans without League Pass to see the team -- if they're willing to stay up to do it. All three of the Cs' remaining games this week will be on national television: Thursday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on TNT (Lakers); Friday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN (Blazers); and Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC (Nuggets). Be sure to tune in!

New Orleans 93, Boston 85

Thank God for all the All-Star break.

[recap] [box score]

Wednesday's game was more of the same; double-digit lead, putrid third quarter, disappointing loss. The Celtics continued to have turnovers problems (22 for the game) and added poor free throw shooting in this one, going 16-for-27 from the stripe, including eight consecutive misses at one point.

Anyway, I'm happy the break is here -- for my own sanity. It's taxing to follow a team this closely and have them inexplicably fall apart the way the Celtics have lately, and frustrating to see no one do anything to change it. None of Boston's leaders stepped up against the Hornets; Marquis Daniels and Rasheed Wallace, off the bench, were our best players throughout the evening.

There are a million trade rumors floating around right now, most of them centering around Ray Allen. I'm not going to report on them unless something actually happens -- as I said, I need a break. You can catch Rajon Rondo in the All-Star H-O-R-S-E game on Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on TNT; Paul Pierce in the three-point contest on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on TNT; and Rondo, Pierce, and Kevin Garnett (the latter two hopefully playing only cursory minutes) in the All-Star Game on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

Orlando 96, Boston 89

Another mystifying second-half collapse gave Orlando its third win over Boston in four games this season.

[recap] [box score]

Up 11 points at the half in front of the home crowd on Super Bowl Sunday, Boston was outscored 36-11 in a decisive third period. Should the teams finish the regular season with identical records, the Magic would have the tiebreaker for home court advantage.

There are, of course, more important considerations. Namely, what the hell is going on with the Celtics? Sunday's game followed a familiar pattern: The good guys getting out to a comfortable lead, then giving it away with disturbing alacrity, as though it were their intention to do so. This recent trend is getting old, it's getting frustrating, and it's getting worrisome.

Here's something I do like, though: Doc Rivers' post-game acknowledgement that "we played like crap" and that Boston is not, at least now, better than Orlando -- or Atlanta or Los Angeles, for that matter. In both this season and last, the team has experienced serious post-Christmas struggles, and has -- Rivers included -- been very slow -- very slow -- to admit same. And while the cocksuredness that came with rolling to the 2008 championship has its benefits, it may also explain some of the terrible second-half performances we've seen recently. I don't know that "complacency" is the right word, but something approaching it is really the only logical explanation for why this team so often goes from Jekyll to Hyde in the same game. Acknowledging this shortcoming rather than sweeping it under the rug and saying "everything will be fine" is the first step towards rectifying it.

On the bright side, Marquis Daniels returned to action after a lengthly layoff and looked like he hadn't missed a beat, scoring at will in the second quarter against the over-matched J.J. Redick. His return should help solidify the bench, which got good performances Sunday from Glen Davis and Eddie House, and a very bad one from Rasheed Wallace.

Boston 96, New Jersey 87

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Ideally, we'd beat the Nets -- now 4-45 -- by more than nine, especially at home. But New Jersey fought hard all night, and on the bright side, we saw Boston come through with a second consecutive decisive fourth quarter.

Eddie House's ten-point fourth quarter probably saved us. Other bright spots included Ray Allen's second-half shooting and 13 points off the bench for Glen Davis, just his fourth double-digit scoring game in 20 contests this year.

VIEWING ALERT: Orlando comes to Boston tomorrow for the teams' final matchup of the regular season (ABC, 2:30 p.m. Eastern). Paul Pierce, who has missed the last two games with a foot injury suffered Monday in Washington, practiced on Saturday, which makes it seem like he's more likely to play than not. We beat Orlando on Christmas Day without Pierce, but we'd obviously rather have him in the lineup. On the other hand, though a strained foot doesn't seem like the type of injury that will get worse, it's also not the kind of thing we want bothering him the rest of the year. If he needs to rest to get healthy for the second half of the season, I don't mind being shorthanded against the Magic.

TMJF: Happy 21st birthday, Jonny Flynn! The rookie point guard celebrated an hour or two early last night, scoring 19 points in Minnesota's surprising 117-108 win in Dallas over the Mavericks. Flynn, who will return to Dallas next weekend as part of the NBA All-Star rookie-sophomore game, also handed out seven assists against just one turnover.

A New Handle for the Point Guard

Paul Pierce is The Truth. Kevin Garnett is The Big Ticket. Ray Allen is Jesus Shuttlesworth. Time for Boston's newest All-Star to get a nickname of his own.

I started thinking about a nickname for Rajon Rondo this summer, when I -- a general fan of wordplay -- noticed that the letters in his last name could be arranged to spell "donor," a particularly apt anagram for a man who plays his position. But that lacks pop, and I couldn't do anything interesting with it.

In the preseason, I toyed with the idea of taking the last three letters in his first name and calling him "Jonny Rondo." I still like this one; if you were choosing up sides in a pickup basketball game and had no other information other than a list of names, you'd pick Jonny Rondo well before you took Rajon Rondo. Urban youths hear tale of Jonny Rondo, the playground legend; meanwhile, we can't seem to come to a consensus on how to even pronounce "Rajon." I'm the commissioner of a fantasy basketball league with some friends at law school, and I even named the league "Jonny Rondo's Roundball Revue" (taking the league's namesake near the top of the third round).

But I ultimately decided that this wasn't quite suitable, at least not for me and for this blog. For one, I didn't want to make it appear that I was "whitening" his given name. For two, there's already a Jonny I write quite a bit about on here (Flynn, Minnesota's rookie point guard).

But I've got it. It's a nickname I've had stored up for a while now, and in light of Rondo's recent performances (38 assists in the last three games), he's earned it.

The Apothecary.

I've run this nickname by three people, two of whom didn't understand it, and all of whom said that I was putting too much faith in the average NBA fan, so some explanation may be in order. An apothecary is what they used to call pharmacists (I think they still might in places like the UK). And what do Rajon Rondo and an apothecary have in common?

They both distribute the pill.

(For sake of completeness, perhaps I should explain that "pill" is my favorite slang term for the basketball.)

Why "The Apothecary" instead of "The Pharmacist?"

Again, there are a couple of reasons. (There are always a couple of reasons.) First, "The Pharmacist" is a nickname you might expect to hear in connection with baseball's steroids scandal. That's not an association we're going for here. Second, to my mind at least, an apothecary isn't your typical druggist. An apothecary wears a white coat, has wild hair, and works late into the night. An apothecary has a mad scientist feel. Rondo's quirky personality and assortment of moves and options to choose from make the name a perfect it.

Tell your friends.

Boston 107, Miami 102

Great stuff from the Cs last night.

[recap] [box score]

In the absence of Paul Pierce, who is out until at least the weekend with the strained foot he suffered on Monday against the Wizards, many Celtics stepped up. Rajon Rondo was masterful all night, finishing with 22 points, 14 assists, and six rebounds. Kevin Garnett had one of his best games of the year, with 14 points, six boards, and nine assists of his own. Ray Allen had one of his best shooting nights in a while, hitting 7 of 15 from the field on the way to a team-high 23 points. Tony Allen struggled replacing Pierce in the starting lineup, but was vital down the stretch, forcing Dwyane Wade into a very difficult jumper with just over a minute to go and then picking Wade on the next Heat possession, nailing two free throws on the other end to give Boston a five point lead with 36 seconds left. (Give Doc Rivers credit for making offense-defense substitutions down the stretch to keep Allen on Wade.) Eddie House chipped in 16 big points off the bench, and Rasheed Wallace (7 points) and Glen Davis (6 points) came up with big contributions for the second unit.

Most notably, Boston pulled away in the fourth quarter, taking control of a tie game and outscoring Miami 33-28 in the decisive period. I'm not at all saying that the team is better without Pierce on the floor, but his absence forced them to actually run offense down the stretch, and they were undoubtedly better off for it. Hopefully, this serves as a nice lesson for crunch-time offense when Pierce does come back.

Boston's next game is Friday, against New Jersey. Pierce may be back for the game on Super Bowl Sunday against Orlando (2:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC), though if they decide to sit him until after the All-Star break, I won't be upset. The Celtics beat the Magic on Christmas without Pierce, and moreover, while a game like this is important, it's not as important as making sure the captain is healthy for the second half of the season.

Strained Foot It Is

Pierce is day-to-day. Big sigh of relief.

Viewing Alert: The game against Miami is on ESPN tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Celtics Await Word on Pierce's Injury

Looks like the foot injury Paul Pierce suffered last night is worse than it may have appeared. Pierce, who injured the foot when Washington's Caron Butler essentially jumped on Pierce's planted leg while diving for a loose ball, came back to play parts of the second and third quarters before Doc Rivers sat him down for the fourth.

The rumors started flying this afternoon, thanks to an NBA.com report that a league source said "it looked" like Pierce had a busted foot. That, combined with a Shelden Williams tweet -- "Man when it rains it pours!!! Yall find out what I mean soon!!!!!"* -- sure made it seem like the news was bad. But the team was quick to caution that they don't yet know the extent of the injury. Yahoo! Sports says that team officials told them the injury would keep Pierce out for the next couple of weeks (which probably means the foot isn't broken). Around 9 p.m. Eastern on Monday, Rich Levine of CSNNE.com wrote on his Twitter account that the team said that Pierce is suffering from a strained foot, and is day-to-day; this could easily be something the team released in order to buy some time. All afternoon, the line has been that the team would announce something Tuesday.

And so we wait, trying not to think about the consequences of the worst-case scenario; i.e., Pierce being out for the season. Such a diagnosis would surely end any realistic talk of Boston as title contenders for this season, and it could mean the premature breakup of the Big Three.

Gonna be a restless night.

* I ran out of [sic]s to use on that Shelden tweet. To the extent that a blogger can, I hate social media.

UPDATE: Yahoo! Sports has jumped on Levine's story and says team sources told them that Pierce would be back Sunday at the latest. I'm still waiting for something official. I've got this from the team site, which confirms the strain and the day-to-day status, but I don't know when that went up. The news seems better than worse, though. -- 6:57 p.m. Pacific, 2/2/10

Boston 99, Washington 88

[recap] [box score]

Boston was relatively flat for most of the night, but one look at the box score reveals good news for Boston fans: a 25-10 fourth quarter (on the road) and an 11-point win (going away).

The last period had been something of a bugaboo for the team during its recent three-game losing streak. Boston blew double-digit fourth quarter leads in Orlando on Thursday and against Los Angeles on Sunday, and let Atlanta pull away from them over the final 12 minutes on Friday. So holding a team to two made field goals against 16 misses -- even the lowly Wizards -- in the final period is a nice thing to see.

It's even more encouraging, depending on how you look at it, when you consider that the Celtics played the whole quarter without Paul Pierce, who injured his foot in the first quarter. Pierce returned to play parts of the second and third, but apparently Doc wanted to be careful. Hopefully he'll be back for Wednesday night in Miami.

Time for a mini-rant about officiating:

You're playing against the Boston Celtics, so you're not going to get a lot of calls. KG's going to set illegal screens; they're not going to be called. That's just part of the game. -- Brendan Haywood, via the Daily Dime

My timing might be a little unfair to Haywood, as I thought last night's officiating, if it favored anyone, favored the Celtics. But the moving screen comment addresses something that's been on my mind for a while, but which I didn't want to bring up because I didn't want anyone to think I was blaming refereeing for our struggles.

In this day and age, moving screens are a way of life in the NBA. Everyone sets them. You can probably spot one, and perhaps several, on every offensive set run by any team in any game on any night. What motivates officials to whistle one while letting dozens of others go remains something of a mystery to me. The obviously violent ones tend to get called; other than those, you're kind of rolling the dice.

Without hard statistics to back it up, this may seem a lot like whining (and maybe it is), but I maintain that we get called for more moving screens than any other team in the league. I know we play physically and that all of our barking at officials makes us less popular with them, but I think it's a bit dubious to think that we set meaningfully more illegal picks than our opponents. I'm not complaining about the ones where Glen Davis goes up and hits the guy (rather than stopping and letting the defender run into him), like he did so often last year. I'm talking the garden variety high screens that you see on every play. Those calls should be distributed evenly across both teams.

I'm going to try and keep track the rest of the season to see if I'm right or if it's just selective memory. I will say that I think it's a little ironic that Haywood is complaining, because his teammate, Antawn Jamison, got away with a handful of the most egregious bad screens you'll ever see last night.

Los Angeles Lakers 90, Boston 89

The frustration grows.

[recap] [box score]

I'm going to start by trying to put things in perspective, because if I don't, I'm going to start ranting about negative stuff and never get to the less-negative stuff. So here goes: We're not as far off the pace as our recent results have made it seem. We're too good and too experienced for moral victories, but isn't about moral victories, it's about reality. And the reality is that we weren't 100% healthy on Sunday; we got above-average performances from Rajon Rondo and Tony Allen, an average day from Eddie House, and below-average afternoons from everyone else; and we still were within one possession of taking down the defending champs. Granted, the Lakers aren't exactly healthy (Kobe Bryant's apparently playing through all sorts of injuries), nor did we get their best shot, but it was a much more even performance by the visitors. The point is that though we're not even the favorites in the East anymore, we're still a contender as constructed, provided we're healthy (a big if, but there's not much we can do right now to change that).

Really, I have just one general complaint about this game, and it's the way we played the final few minutes. Yes, we turned the ball over 18 times and gave Andrew Bynum five offensive rebounds, but we would have won had we executed on a few more possessions down the stretch. Our failure to do was due, I feel, to our insistence on slowing the pace of the game way down and relying on isolating Paul Pierce for offense late in the shot clock. To casual observers, this strategy may appear to be that of a team with shaken confidence, a team trying desperately to hang on rather than proactively trying to win the game. Of course, those who follow this team closely know better: This is our default strategy in the fourth quarter of tight contests. I'm generally not a fan of this tactic, but I grudgingly accept it on occasions where Pierce is going well. Sunday was not one of those games. Pierce picked up two fouls within the first three minutes and had to sit; as a result, he never found his rhythm. He made four field goals for the entire game -- a trio of second-quarter three-pointers (wide open looks from Rondo assists) and a fastbreak layup in the third quarter. Not once on Sunday did he take his man into the high post, face up, and hit a midrange jumper, his standard move in those spots. On days like that, at least, we need to go with what's working. Rondo entered the fourth quarter with 21 points and 11 assists; he finished with 21 and 12 despite playing the final eight minutes.

It'll be interesting to see where the team goes from here. They're back at it Monday night, against a dreadful Washington team. The next real challenge comes Wednesday night against Miami on ESPN (8 p.m. Eastern).