Celtics Drop Back-to-Back Road Games

Friday: Kings 120, Celtics 95
Saturday: Nuggets 98, Celtics 91

I didn't watch either of these games because of the NCAA tournament, but I was sort of following the Gamecasts.

In Sacramento, the Kings blew open a one-point game at halftime by scoring something like the first 15 points of the third quarter. Marcus Thornton got hot in the third and spent much of the fourth padding his stats against the Boston bench, finishing with 36 points. Ray Allen and Brandon Bass shot well for the Celtics, but giving up 41 points in the third quarter means that it wasn't a good night for everybody.

In Denver, the Nuggets got out to a double-digit lead in the second quarter and maintained it through much of the third. It appeared that Boston made a run in the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to two at one point. But they couldn't get over the hump, seemingly due to some untimely turnovers. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce paced the Celtics with 22 points each, and Rajon R-ndo had 12 to go with 16 assists -- but also six turnovers, at least a couple of which I seem to recall were of the momentum-killing variety.

The loss to Sacramento put the success of the road trip in jeopardy. The Celtics are now 2-3 on the eight-game trip, with games in Atlanta on Monday, Milwaukee on Thursday, and Philadelphia on Friday. All three of these remaining games are huge: Boston is just two games back of Atlanta for the six seed in the East, a coveted spot this year because it means avoiding Chicago or Miami in the first round. At the same time, the Cs are just two and a half games clear of the eighth-place Knicks and the Bucks loom just a half-game back of again resurgent New York. On the bright side, Boston is only a game and a half behind Philly for the Atlantic title, which would give us the four.

If we can get hot, then, we can make some real progress this week. Anything less than two wins, though, and the road trip is a failure.

Boston 115, Golden State 93

We'll get to the game in a minute. First, a few words about Bill Walton.

[recap] [box score]

The former Celtic filled in as color commentator alongside play-by-play man Mike Gorman for Tuesday night's broadcast. (Tommy Heinsohn doesn't often make the West Coast swings these days.)

I've done a complete 360 in my opinion of Walton, the broadcaster. (I've always appreciated Walton, the player, though I've only been able live his career through listening to others talk about him, because I was just a little too young to remember him.) Like many, I grew tired of Walton's boorish exaggerations ("John Stockton is one of the true marvels, not just of basketball, or in America, but in the history of Western Civilization!") and forced catchphrases ("Throw it down, big fella, throw it down!"). Over time, however, I came to appreciate him. He's still over the top, but he knows he's over the top. I don't want to use the term "schtick" because Walton's enthusiasm is genuine, but he certainly has a modus operandi.

One of his tendencies is to poke fun at middling NBA players, either by insulting them outright ("The only way Danny Schayes is getting into the Hall of Fame is if he pays the admission fee") or by so exaggerating their abilities that you know his tongue is planted firmly in his cheek ("If Eric Piatkowski continues playing at this level, he's going to replace Jerry West on the NBA logo.")* Tonight's target? Warriors starting center Andris Biedrins, who has fallen off a cliff -- he went from averaging 12 points and 11 rebounds two seasons ago to five and eight last year -- despite not yet turning 25. In the first quarter alone, Walton dropped the following gems:

• After Biedrins fouled Kevin Garnett: "You don't want fouls on Biedrins, if you're Boston. You want him in the game."
• A few moments later: "What does this Biedrins fellow do?"
• After Biedrins bricked a pair of free throws when Delonte West, who had missed the last 39 games with a broken wrist, entered the game for the first time: "Biedrins is the one who looks like he has a broken wrist."
• And finally, after Biedrins missed a layup: "He's playing scared. He's playing ... like his feet hurt."

No, I don't know what the last one means, either. And yes, it's probably unnecessarily mean to pick on Biedrins. But it's Walton, and we, as Celtics fans, can forgive him. His undying loyalty to the franchise probably colors my opinion of him.

Walton's playing career, of course, was abbreviated due to injury, and it appeared that his broadcasting career would similarly be cut short thanks to a debilitating back condition. Walton has taken a lot of time off from the microphone in recent years. I'm not sure if he's planning on making the rest of the trip with the Celtics or whether this was a one-shot deal because the Cs were in his native California -- and I won't be able to tell (the Celtics play on TNT on Thursday and at the Clippers on Saturday, which means I get the local broadcast here in LA instead of the Boston telecast on League Pass). But it's good to see him healthy enough to put on the headset, even if only for a few hours.

Bullets:

• Walton and the numerous Celtics fans in attendance at Oakland's Oracle arena were treated to a vintage Rajon Rondo performance. 19/6/15 with two steals, and one of those nights where it just feels like he can get wherever he wants, whenever he wants.
• Kendrick Perkins banged knees with someone in the third quarter and didn't return. It doesn't seem serious, and it's the left knee, which is not the one he ripped up in the Finals last year. Something to watch, but probably nothing to worry about long-term. The short term is a different story; Boston has to keep winning to stay ahead of Miami in the race for home-court advantage in the East, so even a brief Perkins absence -- especially with Shaq still out -- could be disproportionately costly.
• This was Boston's first win in Golden State in seven years, which is fairly remarkable considering that the Warriors have made the playoffs once in the previous six seasons and compiled a combined record of 213 wins and 279 losses over that time (they are 26-30 this year).
• One thing that makes playing the Warriors so difficult is that they have some really talented offensive players. After a poor defensive showing in a first half in which they surrendered 60 points, the Celtics held Golden State to just 33 second-half points.
• Another thing that is difficult about playing the Warriors is their style. They have no conscience whatsoever, and opposing players can get caught up in the hoist-the-first-halfway-decent-shot-you-get mentality. Nate Robinson fell victim to this a couple of times, though at this point it might be safe to just assume that Nate will always do the wrong thing.
• Fortunately, Golden State is really quite bad defensively (they are second in the league in steals, but that's due in large part to the pace of the game -- more possessions for the other team means more steals, and they do encourage more risk-taking on the part of the opposition's offense). Their deficiencies on that end allowed Boston to win handily despite a 14-point deficit at the free throw line.

Next game is at Denver on Thursday, at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on TNT. In their first game without Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups** -- and with the quartet of players from the Knicks not yet in uniform -- the Nuggets hung 120 points on Memphis Tuesday night in a comfortable win. It's still too early to say what the new-look Nuggets are going to be like, but my money's on a continued emphasis on running (Ty Lawson is better-suited to an uptempo game than Billups) and the three-point shot. Wilson Chandler, acquired from the Knicks, brings a little bit of a defensive mindset that was lacking in every key Denver player other than Arron Afflalo, so there might be some minor improvements there. But probably not enough to worry about, though I might well be underestimating the "We're out to show everyone that we don't need 'melo" factor.

*All the past Walton quotes come from this Web page, which has a great compilation of his hits.

** Thoughts on the Carmelo Anthony trade:

1) There was a time when I was pretty sick of all the trade talk, but by the time the deal was close to being done, I found the whole thing very interesting. It was really a staring contest between Anthony, the Nuggets, and the Nets, with the Knicks sort of lingering around the outside. The Nets had extended the Nuggets a Godfather offer: Very-good-but-not-great point guard Devin Harris, promising rookie big Derrick Favors, the third overall pick in last summer's draft, and an incredible four first-round picks. It was a better deal than the itself attractive package the Knicks were offering, which was breakout PG Raymond Felton, Chandler, sharpshooter Danilo Gallinari, and bruising Timofey Mozgov, plus a first and two seconds, but it came with a caveat: New Jersey wouldn't pull the trigger unless Anthony signed an extension.

Once the Knicks -- Anthony's preferred destination -- upped their offer to include Gallinari, it was good enough for the Nuggets to take, which effectively gave no teeth to New Jersey's insistence that Anthony sign an extension prior to a deal going through. Anthony could more or less insist he be shipped to New York under those circumstances by refusing to sign a contract extension, which I'm guessing he did (because I believe Denver would rather have taken Jersey's offer).

Of course, the Nets could have called Anthony's bluff. 'Melo didn't have a no-trade clause or something similar that they were trying to get him to waive; he was just using the extension as a tool to get what he wanted. New Jersey could have rolled the dice by doing the deal anyway, forcing 'Melo to decide between signing an extension with a depleted Nets squad and losing tens of millions of dollars in free agency.

Here's the thing. 'Melo signed an extension worth three years and $65 million. Because of rules that allow teams to pay their own free agents more, that's more than he would have made in the first three years of a new contract with the Knicks in free agency (my calculations have it at around $6 million more, but my understanding of this part of the CBA is severely lacking).

But that's the current CBA, which expires this summer. It's a near-certainty that the new agreement will restrict player salaries below what they currently are, and thus the difference between signing an extension and waiting for free agency could easily climb into the tens of millions of dollars. So the Nets could simply have called Anthony's bluff and agreed to the trade, banking on Anthony not wanting to give up that much money. The same holds true for the Nuggets; Anthony said he wouldn't sign an extension, but if Denver wasn't getting value for him, it might have been a good strategy to simply hang on to him and hope he'd stick around for the money. It's a lot of money to give up.

Instead, the Nets and Nuggets blinked and the Knicks and Anthony got what they wanted.

2. Or, at least, what they think they wanted. Anthony has non-basketball reasons for wanting to play in New York, and I can't criticize those. And I can't say that I think it's a bad move, necessarily, for the Knicks. But I do think it's hardly a sure thing that the Knicks will be materially better for it, both now and in the future.

For starters, I think there are serious deficiencies with a Anthony-Amare' Stoudemire core. There's no commitment to defense in either of those players, and head coach Mike D'Antoni is famously focused on offense. Even if we assume that Boston will be out of the picture after this year and that Orlando has irrevocably screwed up its team with its trades this year, the Knicks are still going to have to deal with Miami and Chicago for the next several years. Both are outstanding defensive teams that aren't slouches on the offensive end, either. You can't beat either of them in a seven-game series simply by being very good on offense, and at best, that's all the Knicks will be: very good on offense. Additionally, the pairs and trios of stars that have worked of late have worked because of complementary skill sets: The Big Three in Boston, for example, work because they fit together (Garnett on the inside, Paul Pierce as a slasher, Ray Allen as a shooter), because of Rondo, and because Garnett can affect a game so profoundly without doing much offensively; LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh have worked in Miami because of defense and James' uncanny passing ability. A couple of guys who need the ball a ton -- paired with a point guard, Billups, who isn't a traditional playmaker and might not be a great fit, at his age, for D'Antoni's offense -- don't really fit together all that well.

Secondly, if we think of these teams as engaging in some sort of arms race, the Knicks are already one star behind Miami. The new CBA might even make it all but impossible to build a core consisting of three studs the way the Heat have. But even if it doesn't -- even if, say, Chris Paul or Deron Williams makes it to New York the offseason after this one to take Billups' place -- they'll be a full two years behind in chemistry. And the way things are currently set up, with the draft and various salary cap exceptions, you can add a player or two per year to your core. That is, the Heat, having already assembled their "Big Three," can start adding role players to join Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem this offseason. The Knicks will have to make do with surprising rookie Landry Fields alongside Anthony and Stoudemire, saving their cap room until they can get another stud, and then adding free agents in the seasons following. So they'll be another player behind Miami because of that, too.

This all assumes that the model the Heat have followed is a successful one. Time will tell on that, though it certainly can be argued that competing with James/Wade/Bosh is too tall a task for Anthony/Stoudemire/whomever.

3. Again, I'm not saying it was a bad deal for the Knicks. They'd placated their fan base for two years by explaining that they were clearing cap room for a big move last year, and having missed out on James, they needed to do something. And they might not have wanted Anthony to go to the Nets, who are scheduled to move to Brooklyn in a couple of years. (I think this is overstated, though, as is the argument that Anthony will drum up interest in the team. That's a decent argument for most NBA franchises, but not the Knicks, one of the league's most popular outfits. They've got no problems selling tickets and merch at MSG.) But I don't think it gets tem any closer to contending for a title, this year or beyond.

Links of the Day (November 9, 2010)

(Programming note: Links posts have already slowed down in frequency, and they will continue to do so and may even die out. This is the busy time of the semester for me, and I'm trying to do more with the blog than I ever have before. The links get the short end of the stick because I want to make sure I'm getting enough of my own content up.)

• It was a great night in the NBA, not that I saw any of it. But my man Paul Millsap dropped 46 on the Heat to lead an improbable Jazz comeback in Miami, and Indiana hung 54 points on Denver in the third quarter, making 20 of 21 shots in the process.
• It looks like the Rockets are re-thinking the limitations they placed (no more than 24 minutes per game, no back-to-backs) on Yao at the beginning of the season. I wonder if Houston's tough start -- a 1-5 record and an injury to point guard Aaron Brooks -- has anything to do with it.
• I can't get enough stories like this one about Al Jefferson. Everything I've ever heard suggests that Big Al J is a great teammate and a real easy guy to coach.
• Lamar Odom is suing the IRS. Without doing any research, it seems to me that he at least has a colorable argument.
• The above paragraph is not legal advice.

Boston 113, Denver 99

[recap] [box score]

The Celtics concluded an encouraging four-game stretch with a decisive victory over the Nuggets in Boston.

Boston's 110-97 loss in Utah on Monday threatened to leave Cs fans uneasy after a couple of encouraging games. A loss to Denver at home would largely erase the positive that came out of back-to-back victories in Houston and Dallas.

The Nuggets did their part to make this an easy victory. Their defense was non-existent, and they were perhaps feeling the effects of having played the night before (a relatively stunning loss to the Knicks in New York). Then again, they've really struggled on the road this year; they're just 17-19 away from home, by far the worst mark among division leaders. It was strange to see a relatively listless game after three very intense contests.

Boston clinched a playoff spot with this win, and there is hope that the team is starting to play its best ball at the right time. Everyone is more or less healthy; despite the odd off-game from or another of them, the starters seem to have shaken off injury and are playing well; Michael Finley has been better than anyone realistically thought he could be; and Glen Davis is finally starting to do the things on the court that a man who weighs 290 pounds should do. We still need to figure out what do with Rasheed Wallace, whose refusal and/or inability to get into shape is both obnoxious and curious this late in the season. It's really having an effect on his play, particularly defensively, where he barely challenges any shots and is routinely beaten for rebounds. Whether that's due to his age and fitness or his apparent apathy is unclear, but it's at the point where I don't trust him to get any better and don't feel particularly comfortable when he's in the game.

Plenty of tests remain in the season's final few weeks, although we're really playing to keep our rhythm and go into the playoffs on a high note; we're a long shot to catch Orlando for the second seed in the East and in no real danger of giving up home-court advantage in the first round by falling to the fifth seed. I suppose we'd rather have the three than the four, just so we could avoid Cleveland in the second round, though in all likelihood we'd need to go through the Cavs anyway.

Next game is Friday at home vs. Sacramento. Next TV game is Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN, in Boston, against the Spurs.

Boston 109, New York 97

[recap] [box score]

Boston continued their recent domination of the Knicks with a 12-point victory that wasn't nearly that close. This was the 11th straight home win for the Celtics on St. Patrick's Day, which sounds impressive, and they haven't lost at home on March 17 since 1968, which sounds even more impressive. It's less impressive when you consider how bad New York is, but whatever.

"Whatever" is probably the best work to describe this game, but the Celtics are about to embark on a four-game stretch that is vey much not "whatever." Next up is a road game in Houston on Friday, followed by a road game in Dallas the very next night, followed by a road game in Utah on Monday. They then come home to play Denver on Wednesday. (It only gets slightly easier after that; the next three are home dates against Sacramento, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City).

With the season winding down, this is basically the last chance for the Celtics to establish themselves as a real contender with a prolonged period of excellent play elite competition. A home date with Cleveland is on the schedule for April 4, but a single positive result wouldn't prove nearly as much as a series of strong performances over the next week. Two years ago, if memory serves, the Celtics swept a similar road trip. Another sweep certainly wouldn't guarantee a championship, but it would serve as notice that Boston is back and ready for the playoffs.

That's true in part because the team, finally, appears to be healthy and complete. Kevin Garnett's 22 points on Wednesday was his third straight game in double figures, and he's made 20 of 31 shots over that stretch. Paul Pierce led all Celtics against the Knicks with 29 points, and he's now 28-for-49 over the last four outings, which is hopefully a sign that he's recovered enough from the injuries that have plagued him this year. Nate Robinson has now played around a dozen or so games in a green and white uniform and should be acclimated enough to make a steady contribution. And despite the skepticism voiced by some commentators (ahem!), Michael Finley -- his 1-for-9 performance against New York notwithstanding -- has shown in half a dozen games that he can, at the very least, knock down a few shots (before Wednesday, he was 18-for-28 from the field as a Celtic, including 6-for-11 from behind the three-point line).

Of course, no injuries means no excuses, and so this is kind of a judgment day for the Celtics. Denver and Dallas are making a late charge at the Lakers for the top of the Western Conference, and Utah is in fourth and has been one of the league's hottest teams over the last several weeks. And Houston, while not currently a playoff team, is still very much in the hunt, five games out of the eighth spot pending results of Wednesday's games. They'll be hungry.

Denver 114, Boston 105

[recap] [box score]

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).

Denver 94, Boston 85

All that falling behind and catching up finally caught up with us.

[recap] [box score]

I missed most of the first half -- yay, exam review! -- and so I didn't see Ray Allen's big first quarter or us lose the lead. I did see us dig ourselves into a huge hole and then climb out of it, which has become standard recently.

I'll admit that once we got going in the second half, I thought we had it wrapped up. Eddie was hitting, the crowd was going crazy, and Denver appeared to be coming unglued. But we couldn't score the big bucket that we needed to make it a two-possession lead.

Frankly, I think we just wore out. It's been a long week, starting with the win in Detroit on Sunday., We had to expend tremendous energy to come back from big deficits to beat the Raptors on Monday and the Hawks on Wednesday. Paul Pierce, who played 90 of a possible 96 minutes in those two contests, looked especially beat: Down two with eight minutes to play, Pierce had the ball on the left wing. Denver brought Kenyon Martin over to double, and Pierce just didn't have the energy to protect the ball. Martin swiped it from him, Linas Kleiza converted the three-point play on the other end, and we never got any closer.

Of course, Denver was finishing up a three-games-in-four-days road trip, so all credit to them. They got the job done and we didn't.

I said before the game that I didn't care too much about the outcome of this one, and I still don't. We won the games we needed to this week. Sure, it's discouraging to lose a first-quarter lead and not put the game away when we were in position to do so late. But it's a long NBA season, and nights like this happen.

We're in Milwaukee tonight. The Bucks are terrible, but we've got to be exhausted. This is a game I could easily see us losing if we hadn't lost to Denver Friday night -- a trap or letdown game, if you will. Dropping one to the Nugs may have caught our attention, however, so I expect a stronger effort than one might expect from a team playing it's fifth game in seven days. The bench played very well against Milwaukee in a win earlier this year, but after a strong game in Detroit, has gone pretty much AWOL over the last three (with the exception of House finally finding his stroke last night). House, Leon Powe, Tony Allen, and Glen Davis are going to be important if the Cs are to win tonight.