Preseason: Boston 117, Toronto 112

[recap] [box score] [highlights from Red's Army]

From what I understand, Boston had this one in the bag through three quarters before our bench (basically the third-string plus Nate Robinson) gave up most of a 28-point lead to many of Toronto's starters plus, incredibly, Marcus Banks.

The best nugget from the box score is 12-of-15 from the free throw line from Rajon Rondo. I take nothing from the 15 attempts, even though he says he's looking to get to the line more; it's preseason, it's the defensively-challenged Raptors, his career-high is 16 attempts, and he's only reached double-digits in attempts 14 times in his career. The 12 makes raise eyebrows, though. I'm not holding my breath, but if Rondo could become just a decent free throw shooter, it'd be huge for this team.

For what it's worth, Rondo's a 69 percent free throw shooter when he takes ten or more free throws in a game in his career (he hits at 61.6 percent in other games). I don't know if this is common, and, either way, what the explanation is: confidence, rhythm, statistically insignificant sample size are all possibilities. Just something I noticed when I was looking up Rondo's free throw stats.

Now, a few bullets:

• Marquis Daniels has apparently been working on his three-point range, which would be huge for a second unit that already has Nate Robinson and Delonte West as long-distance shooters. The box score shows 2-for-2 from range for Daniels last night, but one of them was a 45-footer just before the halftime horn. That's probably not the shot he's been working on.
• There's some talk that KG went up with two hands and finished an alley-oop from Rondo (see around 25 seconds into that link, although the footage before it is worth watching for a vicious jam from Toronto's DeMar DeRozan). Probably because the Rondo-to-KG alley-oop was kind of a signature play prior to Garnett's knee injury, it's something of a measuring stick for Celtics fans re: Garnett's health, and so this is an encouraging sign. Talk as camp broke was that Garnett was back to pre-injury form, but we haven't seen too much of that yet.
• Shaq and Delonte sat out as they continue to rest nagging injuries, and Pierce missed this one with a stomach bug. Doc Rivers told Stephane Lasme, a Gabon native, to stay home due to some sort of potential issue with his visa. That's kind of a rough thing for a guy who's fighting to make an NBA roster.
• It's especially harsh because his competition, Von Wafer, finally had a good game, or at least a good shooting night (he did have three turnovers and was a -15 on the game). Given Lasme's limited skill set, the team's frontcourt depth, and the need for a backup small forward, there is probably nothing Lasme can do to win the job if Wafer plays merely reasonably well. He hadn't done even that -- until last night, with Lasme sitting at home.