So, we won Game 1 against the Heat, a strange contest which saw us down 14 points five minutes in to the third quarter, then close the game on a 38-15 run -- yes, we held them to 15 points over the final 19 minutes. I was a little distracted during the game and so I can't say for sure if the Heat's extended cold-spell was a product of 2008-style defense from the Cs or just poor shooting. It's probably a bit of both, to be honest. I will point out two things, however. First, in at least one of my recaps of a regular season game against the Heat this year, I noted that Miami missed a bunch of open looks, so there's some precedent there when these two teams get together. Second, back when we were really locking people down during the championship run, the whole defense was basically predicated on making teams take jump shots, including relatively good looks for the right guys. So while Miami may have been a touch uncharacteristically cold, there are signs that our defense played a big part in that.
Boston tries to do it again tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT. Unfortunately, they'll be without Kevin Garnett, who had 15 points and nine rebounds on Saturday night before getting ejected with 40 seconds left.
Of all the reports I've read and heard of the skirmish that led to KG being assessed two techs and being shown the door, they haven't been terribly consistent, so let me try to sum up the incident the way I saw it, with the unnecessary disclaimer that I tend to view things through green-tinted glasses: Paul Pierce went down with a shoulder injury on the Miami sideline; Quentin Richardson (with whom Pierce has a very testy history) came over to the sideline; KG nudged him with an elbow; the two started jawing (or perhaps continued jawing); Udonis Haslem and Glen Davis got involved; someone (I think Jamaal Magloire) grabbed KG from behind; Garnett, with his back to Richardson, swung his arms to break free of Magloire and hit Q with the elbow that earned him a seat on the bench (or in the locker room, since KG famously hates sitting on the bench when he can't play) for tonight's game.
Truthfully, I don't have any quarrel with the suspension. I expected it, although I thought it was possible the NBA would give him a reprieve since it really didn't look to me that Garnett actively sought out Richardson with the elbow. I agree, however, that you can't swing those 'bows and then complain about the consequences when one of them lands. (And for the record, KG hasn't complained; he's seemed resigned to this fate since after Saturday's game.) I do have a little bit of beef with Magloire, mainly because wrapping up the other guy is the dumbest way to break up a fight. You want to go after a guy to calm him down, you grab the guy who is wearing the same color jersey as you are.
Garnett's getting absolutely ripped for all of this. The Bulls Joakim Noah accused him of being a dirty player. Ball Don't Lie's Kelly Dwyer all but called him a coward. It seems that Garnett's intensity, confidence, constant yapping, and refusal to back down -- traits almost everyone loved when KG was toiling in Minnesota and transforming Boston back into a championship contender --have grown tiresome now that his knees have let him down a bit and he can't always back up that talk. Frankly, this doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever. I don't really care to get into a debate at this point about Garnett. I still like him, but you don't have to like him to cheer for his team -- and if you're not cheering for his team, then I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn about what you think of him.
I'm going to sort of take the high road here and not go off on what a punk I think Q is. Whoops. Okay, maybe I won't. Q's a punk. Always has been. If we are down on Garnett for not adjusting his swagger to fit his declining game, why don't we hate on Richardson for always talking a much bigger game than he was capable of playing? Relative to other NBA players, he's accomplished basically nothing, but he still thinks it's cool to walk over and taunt an apparently-injured player? (I am soooooo tired of talking about the accusations that Pierce embellishes injuries -- a hot topic here in LA -- that I'm not going to address it here.) Maybe we don't say anything about Q precisely because he's not one of the game's stars, but that doesn't change the bottom line, which is that, on the court at least, he's a punk.
Anyway, the bottom line is that if we're going to preserve our home-court advantage, we'll have to do it without KG. There is some precedent here, as Boston's win in Miami in January came when Garnett was out with an injury. Rasheed Wallace started in that one, but -- at least according to Kendrick Perkins -- Davis is getting the nod tonight, probably due to a combination of his inspired play in Game 1 and Wallace's general ineffectiveness. Boston has played 13 games with Garnett this year (and, of course, they didn't have him at all in the playoffs last year) so they're used to coping without him. At the same time, this edition of the team went 6-7 without him in the lineup, so there's reason for concern. Hopefully Rajon Rondo has sufficiently recovered from whatever sickness he was battling on Saturday to bring a little bit of extra spark that we'l be missing.
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