Celtics Drop Two to Western Opponents

There have been a couple of games since my last post. Sunday's blowout loss in Boston to Tony Parker-less San Antonio is hardly with writing about, another of the inexplicable (though increasingly explicable as their frequency grows) all-out debacles that have plagued us this season, particularly at home.

Wednesday was an exceedingly entertaining, narrow home loss to the up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder. Boston lost this one despite shooting nearly 60 percent for the game, for two reasons:

1) They had no answer for Kevin Durant. That hardly makes them unique among NBA teams, of course, but it doesn't change the result of the game. The Praying Durantis had 37 points on the evening, upping his scoring average to 29.7 per game, tying him with LeBron James. And even when Durant wasn't the one doing the actual scoring, he played a major role. On the first of two late Jeff Green three-pointers, Durant's presence on the strong side led Green's defender, Kevin Garnett, to cheat off of Green, in order to be in a better position to help should Durant drive. As we are too aware, post-knee surgery KG doesn't recover quite as quickly as pre-knee surgery KG, and he couldn't recover in time to disrupt Green's shot once the ball swung to the weak side.

2) Oklahoma City shot 34 free throws to Boston's 17, with Durant nearly matching Boston's total, shooting (and making) 15 from the charity stripe. This wasn't lost on Garnett, who after the game colorfully commented that Durant was getting calls that only the game's greatest player would get. I wasn't paying close attention the entire game, and save one really bad foul that Pierce got called for stripping Durant late, I wasn't terribly upset with the fouls that Boston got called for, but upset because I felt that Boston was getting hit for stuff that OKC wasn't. In terms of averages, the Thunder shot about eight more free throws than Boston usually gives up, and the Celtics took about eight fewer than they usually do. (Hat tip, Boston Globe.) In my view, I think it's accurate to say that Oklahoma City was not 33 percent more aggressive than most opponents last night, nor was Boston 33 percent less aggressive. Clearly, the officiating had some effect on the game.

With that said, Boston still gave up better than 50 percent shooting, and themselves missed two very open looks in the final seconds. Rasheed Wallace couldn't convert a wide-open three from the top of the arc that would have cut the Thunder lead to one with 1:09 to play. Not to blame Wallace -- that shot was his only miss of the night and his 18 points were the most he's scored since January 10 -- but that was a big one. And Ray Allen missed a very good look without about eight seconds left that similarly would have made things interesting.

The Hawks, by the way, soundly beat the Lakers in Atlanta, and now are a game up on the Celtics for the third seed in the playoffs with eight games left. Frankly, I don't care -- the only way we're not going through Cleveland anyway is in the unlikely event Atlanta beats them, and while I suppose playing the Hawks is better than playing the Cavs, our results against them this year don't suggest that this would be a much easier proposition. However, some people do care, and for those that do, I'll remind you that Boston needs only to finish the regular season with the same record as the Hawks to earn the third seed, thanks to a rule that everyone hates and expects to change (the first tiebreaker is not head-to-head record, but whether one team won their division and the other didn't).

Upcoming games: Houston on Friday, Cleveland on Sunday (1 p.m. Eastern, ABC).