The Next Lamb: The Minnesota Timberwolves

Game 33: Minnesota (9-25) at Boston (25-7)
Monday, January 3
7:30 p.m. Eastern
NBA League Pass

You may remember that last year, I wrote a lot about the T-Wolves, and in particular their rookie point guard Jonny Flynn, one of my favorite college players ever and a guy I was convinced could be a terrific NBA player (I still am convinced, by the way). You may also have noticed that I've not written a single thing about Minnesota this season.

Part of it is that Flynn was hurt for the first month-plus, having aggravated over the summer a hip injury that cost him the final game of his rooke campaign. I have very little interest in the Wolves aside from Flynn, particularly with their front office having its collective head up its collective you-know-what and Kurt Rambis, the worst head coach in the NBA, at the helm. I appreciate super-rebounder Kevin Love, I'm interested in seeing what rookie Wesley Johnson has to offer, and Michael Beasley is on my fantasy team, but these are just secondary interests; my real focus is on Flynn.

But TMJF (The Marvelous Jonny Flynn, for those who don't remember) hasn't gotten much burn since he's been back in uniform, relegated to a backup role in favor of offseason acquisition Luke Ridnour. And without Flynn on the court, I just can't get myself to spend two-and-a-half hours three or so times per week watching the Wolves. There's too much good basketball to waste time watching bad basketball. (Though I'd still rather watch bad basketball than football or hockey.)

And yes, the Wolves are bad. Their record speaks for itself, but that 9-25 mark includes wins in three of their last four games. Whether this marks a real improvement in the team or is merely a momentary blip remains to be seen, though my hunch is that it's the latter.

I had planned to write, at some point this season, a post defending Flynn, talking about how he would have averaged a couple more assists per game last season if he had decent teammates on the wing; how Rambis' offense didn't take advantage of Flynn's abilities (or the abilities of any of their best players, for that matter); and how can make a pretty good case that Flynn was just as effective as Brandon Jennings, everyone's favorite rooking point guard, last season. I may still do that; I may not. But the writing seems to be on the wall for Flynn as far as Minnesota goes. Ridnour is ensconced as the starter (though I'd point out that the team is still 9-25) and the Spanish phenom Ricky Rubio is supposedly coming over after the lockout. Flynn's name often pops up in trade rumors, and I expect he'll be moved sooner or later -- though not if Minnesota doesn't give him some run to showcase him and increase his value (again, you're 9-25; what exactly do you have to lose?) When -- and if -- that happens, I'll start writing about Minnesota again regularly.

Anyway, on to the Wolves (who may be without Flynn on Monday, anyway; he missed Saturday's win over the Nets with a sprained ankle). Love is leading the league in rebounding at like 15 per game, including a ridiculous 31/31 game back in November. He's also averaging around 21 points per night, though on offense he's not what you expect from that kind of rebounder. He does his share of scoring inside, but he also hits three-pointers at around 44 percent. He's going to be a very tough cover for Glen Davis, and as will be the case with Boston's next opponent (San Antonio), the Celtics will miss Kevin Garnett quite a bit on Monday night.

Beasley was the biggest offseason addition. He went on a scoring binge earlier in the season and is probably the most dangerous Wolf (that looks and sounds funny, doesn't it?) with the ball in his hands. He still settles for too many long jumpers, and I suspect Boston will be perfectly happy to see him launch to his heart's content.

The infamous Darko Milicic has actually resurrected his career somewhat in Minnesota, though the thing he's really lacked is consistency. His shooting percentage is terrible for a big guy, but he's put up some big games. He's played poorly of late, and it seems like foul trouble has been a big problem. One area he has been fairly consistent in is shot-blocking; he's erased 2.4 shots per game this season, so Boston will want to be aware of that when going to the hole when he's in the game.

As for Ridnour, he's a good shooter and playmaker, a veteran who knows how to run an offense. On the defensive end, to my knowledge, he hasn't improved much since the day he was drafted in 2003, when Jay Bilas said that Ridnour couldn't guard the chair he (Bilas) was sitting on. Hopefully, Rajon Rondo shook off some rust Sunday in his first game back and can be an offensive weapon for the Cs on Monday night.

Boston 93, Toronto 79

[recap] [box score]

Bullets tonight (and lots of 'em):

• Rajon Rondo returned from his ankle injury. He picked up two fouls in the first six minutes, and didn't really have too big of a direct impact on the game. Jose Calderon got the better of him on both ends of the court, but it was good to see number 9 back in action.
• Rondo's return freed Paul Pierce to move out of the facilitator role he's been playing the last several games and into the cold-blooded assassin role he's more accustomed to on offense. Pierce led the way with 30 points, including 20 in a first half in which all of his fellow starters struggled. His second-half buckets included a ferocious dunk on the entire Raptors frontcourt and a breakaway jam inside the final two minutes in which he appeared to tweak his ankle when he landed. We can't afford an injury to another starter, even with Rondo back, so hopefully it's not serious and The Truth will be in uniform Monday night against Minnesota.
• Glen Davis had a fairly miserable first half shooting the ball, which is in line with his last several games, in which (it goes without saying) he's been fairly miserable shooting the ball. He picked it up in the second half, however, and was just two assists shy of logging one of the more unlikely triple doubles in NBA history.
• Shaquille O'Neal had a subpar game, two days after a subpar game against New Orleans, four days after a subpar game against Detroit, five days after a subpar game against Indiana, and eight days after a subpar game against Orlando. Actually, compared to the previous four, Sunday was a pretty good game for Shaq: he had six rebounds, compared to five combined against the Magic, Pacers, Pistons, and Hornets. And yet Joey Dorsey kicked his butt most of the game. I thought at first that O'Neal might have been dogging it, but he challenged shots when they were in his area and even dove for a loose ball at one point. Dorsey is young, athletic, and energetic, the kind of guy who is going to make Shaq look bad, but I wonder if Shaq isn't completely healthy.
• Fortunately, Jermaine O'Neal looks healthy enough to fill in, should he need to. This was Jermaine's fifth game back. He didn't do much against Orlando and I hadn't seen any of the three games previous to Sunday's, but I was encouraged by the way he moved around. I hope he gets a bit stronger on the boards and finishes better on offense as the season progresses, but the good sign is that he's not moving cautiously or with an obvious limp.
• Marquis Daniels was basically a complete no-show, which I could have predicted because he'd had a couple of good games in a row. If Daniels could be consistent, he'd be such a valuable player, but right now, I just don't trust him as much as I would like.
• Von Wafer actually did a couple of nice things in 14 minutes of action. What I liked most was that both of his shot attempts were at the rim, and I remember at least one nice wraparound pass on another drive that I think led to a foul. He's a good three-point shooter and I don't mind it if he takes those shots when he's in the game, but it's good to see flashes of a more complete player. He'll hopefully be mostly irrelevant when Delonte West gets back, but as an insurance policy, any development is good.
• Luke Harangody works hard, hustles, and isn't afraid to bang, but he is just overmatched against other NBA post players right now. Even fellow rookie Ed Davis, who has gotten burn of late with the Raps' frontcourt injuries and is thus slightly less green than Harangody, pushed him around quite a bit. When he was drafted, everyone thought that Harangody, a power forward in college, would need to become a small forward to crack the rotation this year, because Boston had so much depth in the pivot. Now, it seems that he may need to play the wing because he's not big or strong enough to play inside. It will be interesting to see which way his career goes.
• DeMar DeRozan again led the Raptors, this time with 27 points. His explosion (recall that he had 37 Friday night against the Rockets) coincides with Andrea Bargnani's absence from the lineup, and can be attributed to the offense now running through him, and not Il Mago. I assume this is a temporary state of affairs, and things will go back to the way they were when Bargs gets healthy, but DeRozan is showing that he is capable of carrying more of a load offensively. This development surprises me: I saw DeRozan in person a couple of times when he was at USC, and have followed his brief career somewhat closely, and while he's always good for a couple drives and/or jumpers per game, he lacked the aggressive disposition and consistency you need to be a real scorer at this level. Frankly, he just didn't seem good enough to get "hot" and take over a game the way he took over in the second half against Houston and for stretches against Boston. But he apparently is. What's interesting about DeRozan is that he's the rare NBA shooting guard for whom the three-pointer isn't really a weapon; he does almost all of his scoring at the rim, at the line, and with the mid-range jumper. Fortunately, he hits that mid-range J at a good enough rate that his efficiency isn't terrible, and he knows the limit of his range (that is, he doesn't take a bunch of threes even though he can't hit them). Anyway, it will be interesting to keep an eye on DeRozan when Bargnani returns. Can he emerge as a consistent second banana, or is he an all-or-nothing guy who needs to be the first option?

The Next Lamb: The Toronto Raptors

Game 32: Boston (24-7) at Toronto (11-21)
Sunday, January 2
6 p.m. Eastern
NBA League Pass
Last meeting: @Boston 110, Toronto 101 (11/26/2010)

Happy New Year, all. I apologize for not keeping up with the team for the last week; my hard drive crashed and it's been a bit difficult to watch games or blog.

Since the Christmas Day loss to Orlando, the Celtics have played three games, beating Indiana before losing to Detroit and then New Orleans. I was unable to watch any of those games, but it appears the team played pretty poorly in each. Even the win over the Pacers required a big fourth quarter surge. (The bench gave a similar surge in the fourth against the Hornets, going on a 16-0 run to turn a nine-point deficit into a seven-point lead, but the team couldn't hang on.)

The big story coming out of Boston this week is that Kevin Garnett left in the first quarter of the game against the Pistons with what the team is calling a strained right calf. He's expected to miss a couple of weeks, and with Rajon Rondo still nursing his sore ankle (among other assorted injuries), the story heading into Sunday's game with Toronto may be just as much about who isn't playing as who is.

Fortunately for Boston, the Raps have some serious injury issues of their own. Their starting center and best player, Andrea Bargnani, has missed the last three games with a calf injury of his own and won't play on Sunday. Small forward Sonny Weems, who was enjoying something of a breakout year after moving into the starting lineup, hasn't played in six games and remains day-to-day with a back injury. Jose Calderon -- the undisputed starter at point guard now that Jarrett Jack has been traded to New Orelans -- missed Saturday's practice with a foot injury, and his understudy, Jerryd Bayless (acquired from the Hornets in the Jack trade) has an ankle injury that limited him to eight minutes on Friday against the Rockets. Amir Johnson, starting at power forward in place of Reggie Evans, who broke his foot in the last meeting of the Celtics, is also nursing an injury, though he and Calderon probably will play. The point is, though Boston is banged up, there will be no excuses if they lose to a depleted Toronto team that is mediocre, at best, when healthy.

One Raptor who is healthy is DeMar DeRozan, who scored a career-high 37 points against Houston on New Year's Eve. DeRozan is an athletic young shooting guard in his second year out of USC, and does most of his damage going to the basket. He's not a threat from behind the arc, but he loves to put the ball on the floor and spin to the hoop. He's been getting to the line a bunch lately, which has contributed to his improved scoring of late.

Given all the injuries, the most dangerous Raptor, from an offensive standpoint, is probably sixth man Leandro Barbosa. Despite the fact that he plays the same position as DeRozan, he managed 17 points against the Rockets (it appears from the box score that the Raptors went small for much of that game). Controlling those guys should be a priority.

The Raptors are not particularly good defensively or on the glass, and it would be nice to see Boston try to take advantage of their depleted frontcourt by going inside and getting Shaquille O'Neal and Glen Davis involved early. Johnson is foul-prone, and so is Joey Dorsey, the guy starting in Bargnani's place. After those two, the bigs are a couple of rookies: Ed Davis (who has showed flashes in limited minutes this year) and Solomon Alabi, who has played something like ten minutes and three seconds over the course of three appearances this season. Particularly since Rondo's absence has made offense a bit of a chore at times for the Celtics, taking advantage of our size should be a priority.

Orlando 86, Boston 78

Caught the first quarter and second half of this one sandwiched around Christmas dinner.

[recap] [box score]

Saturday's game was an ugly, low-scoring affair, which was a pattern when the Magic and Celtics met last year -- during the regular season, anyway. I could say that the Cs would have won had they made a bunch of shots they usually make, but the same is true of Orlando. It was one of those games where both teams played pretty good defense, and the effort on that end was magnified from some pretty poor shooting from both sides.

From a Boston perspective, we lost this game because we didn't have Rajon Rondo, plain and simple. Nate Robinson had his worst game as Rondo's understudy, making just two of 15 shots, the majority of which were good looks. The Magic basically could leave Robinson alone on offense, the same way opponents do against Rondo -- but Rondo provides much more playmaking and doesn't use as many possessions as Nate does shooting jumpers. And while Robinson did a nice job keeping Jameer Nelson in check for most of the game, he lost him on a screen on a key possession late, as Nelson hit a three that I believe gave the Magic the lead for good.

While the Celtics probably would have won with Rondo, Robinson wasn't the only Celtic who had a bad game. Ray Allen mad just three of 13 shots, and Shaquille O'Neal had just two points and fouled out despite playing fewer than 13 minutes.

Of course, the Magic have some "we would have won easily ifs" of their own, most notably the fact that Dwight Howard scored just six points against a depleted Celtics frontline (Kendrick Perkins is of course out, and Jermaine O'Neal made his first appearance since November 8). More disturbing is the fact that Howard took just four shots. He was in a bit of foul trouble for most of the game, but his teammates weren't looking for him much even when he was on the floor.

This will be something to watch with Orlando's new look. While some of the departed Magic players -- guys like Rashard Lewis and Mickael Pietrus -- weren't exactly shy about hoisting shots, they were mostly spot up guys (or run off of screen guys). On the other hand, the new Magic players -- guys like Hedo Turkoglu and Gilbert Arenas -- tend to pound the ball a bit more and look for their own shot.

Howard is a really important offensive weapon. He's improved his arsenal this year, and because he's a poor free throw shooter, teams send him to the line a ton -- so he gets the opposition into foul trouble and helps put his team in the bonus situation fairly early in the quarter. But he's not so polished as to consistently demand the ball in the post, and the new additions may make it easier, in a sense, to forget about him on offense. That wasn't the case leading up to the Boston game (Howard had big offensive nights in those) but the Celtics have been very good over the past few seasons at taking away one part of your offense and forcing you to rely on another part (usually outside shots). It will be interesting to see if the Magic make Howard a focal point against the Celtics in future meetings (including, potentially, the playoffs). While the Celtics have generally done a decent job on Howard the past couple of seasons, I'm sure they'd rather have Brandon Bass (21 points on Sunday) try to beat them.

The Next Lamb: The Orlando Magic

Game 28: Boston (23-4) at Orlando (17-12)

Saturday, December 25

2:30 p.m. Eastern

ABC

If you are but a casual observer of the NBA, you are probably surprised to see the 17-12 record next to the Orlando Magic. Over the past few seasons, the Magic have emerged as an Eastern Conference rival, reaching the conference finals last season and beating Boston and Cleveland on the way to an NBA Finals loss to the Lakers the season before. When this current season opened, not much had changed, and Orlando was expected to make another deep playoff run. After consecutive wins at Chicago and Detroit in the first three days of December, the Magic were 15-4, and everything seemed hunky-dory.

But Orlando lost its next four games, beat the Clippers, then lost to Denver, and the front office decided to shake things up. They sent Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus, and Marcin Gortat to Phoenix for Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu, and Earl Clark, and shipped Rashard Lewis off to Washington for Gilbert Arenas. They promptly dropped three more -- to Philly (the day of the trades, so they were shorthanded), at Atlanta, and to Dallas -- before snapping San Antonio's ten-game winning streak Thursday night.

More thoughts on this rather shocking attempt to rebuild on the fly in a moment. In terms of the Christmas Day game, it's tough to know what to expect. Sure, the Magic still have Dwight Howard, who has put up gaudy numbers the last four games and looks to have developed a little bit more of an offensive game in the offseason, and they still have Jameer Nelson, their sharpshooting point guard. But Carter and Lewis were starters, and Pietrus and Gortat were rotation players. It's going to take some time for them to jell, and so it's hard to use Saturday's matchup as any sort of measuring stick. They certainly looked impressive in putting up 123 points against San Antonio, but the Spurs were on the second night of a back-to-back and haven't been nearly as good defensively this season as we're accustomed to.

Looking toward the rest of the season and beyond, it's certainly a bold move. Frankly, it seemed to me that the front office panicked a bit: No one likes to lose five out of six, but four of those losses came on the road to possible playoff teams (Milwaukee, Portland, Utah, and Denver) and the fifth was to a solid division rival (Atlanta). Obviously, the goal in Orlando is a championship and you have to be able to beat those types of teams, even on the road, to win a title, but it seems like an over-reaction to turn over so much of the roster in response to a little slide. My hunch is that Orlando perhaps wasn't happy with its roster heading into the season and had been looking to make moves, and that this is the time that a deal to their liking materialized.

From an Xs and Os perspective, one glaring hole this leaves on the Magic roster is backup center, of which Gortat was one of the league's most effective (and highest-paid). It's especially glaring given the makeup of the various title contenders. That is, if the Magic are to win the title, then they have to plan, at least, on beating Boston and the Lakers. That means going through Kendrick Perkins, Shaquille O'Neal, and Jermaine O'Neal (who should return to action Saturday, by the way) in the former case, and Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom in the latter case. The loss of Gortat leaves Howard and the undersized Brandon Bass (a Glen Davis-ish player) as Orlando's only viable bigs, which you have to think isn't going to be sufficient to beat the Celtics or Lakers. The team has said that it will look to add another big via trade before the trade deadline in a couple of months, but one would be justified in wondering where that player will come from and at what price he will come.

As for the other losses and additions, Richardson should fill in reasonably well for Carter. A little more consistent, perhaps, a little less injury prone, but not as dynamic as Vince, and not as a good a passer. He can fill it up, though, and is a threat beyond the arc. Clark is a non-factor for the foreseeable future; Phoenix didn't pick up his contract option for next year and it's hard to see him breaking into the rotation this season. The key to this deal is Turkoglu and Arenas, and how well they make up for the departure of Lewis and Pietrus (plus whatever they have to give up to get a replacement for Gortat).

Turkoglu was a key part of Orlando's Finals run two years ago, then bolted to Toronto for a hefty contract. He was miserable as a Raptor (both in mood and in performance), lobbied for and got a trade in the offseason, and was basically as ineffective in 25 games in Phoenix as he was in Toronto. He's moved into the starting lineup in Lewis' place in three games with the Magic, going 3-for-15 in his first two outings before bouncing back with a respectable 5-for-10 against the Spurs.

When he's at his best, Turkoglu is a catalyst. He would take some of the ballhandling responsibilities away from Nelson the way he did in 2008-09, when Nelson shot a career-best 50.3 percent from the floor and 45.3 percent from three. (Recall, too, that Orlando made its big postseason run that year with Nelson out of the lineup due to late-season shoulder injury). I, for one, am not at all sure that Turkoglu is, or ever will be, close to his best, but it's possible that his decline in effectiveness over the past season-plus was due to unhappiness. Even if his best days are behind him, he won't be much of a downgrade over Lewis, a fairly one-dimensional three-point shooter with similar career percentage behind the arc to Turkoglu.

Arenas is a huge x-factor. With his recent injury history, it's easy enough to think of him as washed up, but he's only 28, and if he regains his form, he's instantly one of the most dangerous men in the NBA with the basketball in his hands. It appears that he's taking on a role with the second unit, and that strategy has to be right: No matter what you think of Nelson, both Turkoglu and Arenas need the ball to be effective, and they cancel each other out a little bit if they have to share it. But if he is playing well, he's a sixth man of the year candidate type player, injury/foul insurance for Richardson and Nelson, and another option late in the game. Of course, who knows how often he'll play well. I've only seen him once this year, when the Celtics pasted the Wizards, and I wrote then that Arenas did nothing but stand around shooting three-pointers all night. Gil was clearly unhappy with his situation in Washington, though, and perhaps his play will change with a change of scenery. Orlando's certainly counting on it.

As for Arenas' much-publicized off-court issues (you know, the gun in the locker room thing), most reports suggest that once the hammer came down, he put that stuff behind him. (Indeed, it may have contributed to his melancholy demeanor this season). Still, Arenas has always been a peculiar, unique character, and a guy like that -- particularly one who likes to shoot as often as he does -- is always capable of disrupting a locker room. I'm not saying that I think Arenas will try to stir things up, but if he does, I'm not sure Orlando has the personalities required to prevent it from becoming a big distraction. I think Stan Van Gundy is a good coach, but he's high-strung; Dwight Howard is an easy-going guy, but he's young and sensitive. No one in that locker room has won anything, and Arenas was brought in as part of a plan to put the team over the top. The ingredients are present for a bit of a meltdown, though I expect Arenas to behave.

I haven't even addressed defense, in part because it's always a little difficult to tell how individual defenders will fit in with specific defensive schemes. I can say with certainty that Turkoglu's a pretty bad on-ball defender and that while Arenas has been a big steals guy throughout his career, he's not a lockdown type of guy. Howard is perhaps the league's premier shotblocker and he can erase a lot of mistakes, but he's also foul-prone, a characteristic that is magnified by the fact that he doesn't have a backup, at least while the team looks for a replacement for Gortat. Pietrus was a pretty good defender, too, and there isn't anyone on the roster that immediately comes to mind as someone to fill that role.

In short, the Magic have taken a big risk here. Once the team gets acclimated with itself, they've probably done no worse than tread water offensively -- with a chance at great improvement on that end -- but they've probably gotten worse defensively, a big deal for a team coached by Van Gundy that has hung its hat on defense. In theory, they're less reliant on jumpshots -- a big criticism I've had with them -- but now they're more reliant on "outscoring" opponents, as opposed to winning games on the defensive ends. They've also taken some risks with their team makeup.

Moreover, it's unclear whether this team will come together fully this season, and, if it does, whether it's even enough to beat the league's elite. The best they can hope for is probably something akin to their 2008-09 team, and that squad needed seven games to beat the Kevin Garnett-less Celtics in the Eastern semis and never really challenged the Lakers in the Finals. With the Celtics certainly better this year and the Lakers, Spurs, and Heat hanging around as well, it's tricky to see this team getting it done -- particularly if it needs to sacrifice a player like J.J. Redick to pick up a backup pivot. While some may applaud the Magic for making this kind of bold move in the middle of the season, it says here that it won't be enough to push them over the top.

Boston 84, Philadelphia 80

To call Boston's 14th consecutive win a struggle would be an understatement.

[recap] [box score]

The Celtics battled two things all game Wednesday night (in addition to the Sixers): poor shooting and the officiating.

To the former point, you could tell from the get-go it was just one of those nights. Several early shots -- particularly off the fingertips of Paul Pierce -- rattled in and out, and after serious foul trouble hitting the starting unit and the bench came out cold*, it was only the excellence of Ray Allen that allowed the Cs to score even the 38 points they did score in the first half. The team got it going for brief stretches in the second half, but shot 38.8 percent from the floor for the game -- which I'm fairly sure is a season low.

To the latter point -- the officiating -- the box score doesn't tell the entire story. Philadelphia had 31 free throw attempts to Boston's 21, but until the late stages of the game, the discrepancy was much larger. In fact, the Celtics shot the game's final 12 free throws, which means that after Tony Battie missed an and-one with 4:48 remaining in the game, the Sixers had taken 31 shots from the line to Boston's nine. Some of that differential was justified, but it's a peculiar circumstance, indeed, where one team deserves 22 more free throw attempts than its opponent.

For their part, the Celtics did a nice job down the stretch of forcing the refs to give Boston the calls they had been giving Philly all night. The officials had been calling it close, and the Celts really looked to create contact in the final five minutes or so. After the aforementioned Battie miss it was 74-70, Sixers; Boston closed on a 14-6 run, getting ten points from the line. (The two lone misses from the line in the waning moments came courtesy of Shaquille O'Neal. I was surprised to see him in the game late for precisely this reason, and even more surprised to see the team use him in the screen-and-roll on a couple of late possessions.)

Boston won this game because of excellent defense and because of a champion's knack for winning close games on its less-than-great nights -- the second time in a couple of weeks Boston's pulled this latter trick on Philadelphia. Of course, so many of these games went the other way last season, and it was around this time that last year's regular season started to become disappointing. I heard tonight that Boston is now 94-14 in pre-Christmas games over the past four seasons. The post-Christmas (well, post-pre-Christmas) portion of the schedule begins Saturday, and it says here that Boston continues its winning ways in January and beyond.

*To be fair to the bench, they actually played pretty well -- other than scoring. Glen Davis shot 2-for-9 but had seven rebounds; Marquis Daniels shot 2-for-7 but had four boards and five assists. Semih Erden grabbed five boards. Von Wafer actually hit a couple of shots, and Avery Bradley had a big steal and basket early in the second quarter. Pressed into a little bit of extra duty as three starters were hit with three fouls apiece in the first half, the second unit held things together -- especially on the defensive end -- to keep the game winnable.

The Next Lamb: The Philadelphia 76ers

Game 27: Philadelphia (11-17) at Boston (22-4)

Wednesday, December 22

7:30 p.m.

TV: NBA League Pass

Last meeting: Boston 102, @Philadelphia 101 (12/9/2010)

I'm writing this just a couple of hours after Philadelphia went into Chicago and lost by 45 -- yeah, 45. Obviously, if that's the Philly team that shows up Wednesday night in Boston, than the Celtics don't have much to worry about.

But I wouldn't expect that. Philly -- despite Tuesday night's loss and despite a mediocre record -- had won eight of 11 before the debacle against the Bulls, looking to turn around a season that they started 3-13. One of the three losses during their recent strong stretch came against Boston, a game that the Celtics stole on their final possession with a wonderfully drawn-up play that resulted in a Kevin Garnett layup off an alley-oop from Rajon Rondo.

I watched that game, but didn't have time to record my thoughts afterwards in a blog post, so I'm left to try and dig anything out of my memory that I can. (I know it was less than two weeks ago, but I've got a lot of stuff moving in and out of my brain during final exams.) Offense wasn't Boston's problem in that game; the Cs shot nearly 56 percent against the Sixers -- who are actually second in the league in opponents' field goal percentage at 43.5 percent (but who surrendered like 64 percent shooting to the Bulls Tuesday). One area of concern, offensively, is that Rondo had one of his bigger offensive outputs that night (19 points, 14 assists) and while his ankle rehabilitation seems ahead of schedule, it's unlikely that he'll be available Wednesday night to carry any sort of offensive load. His absence should be offset somewhat by the presence of Shaquille O'Neal, who missed the Philly game but returned to the lineup on Sunday against the Pacers. Shaq should also help on the boards, where Philly held a 39-33 advantage, including a 15-5 edge on the offensive glass.

Defensively, Boston had real trouble defending the three-point arc in the previous matchup; Philly was nine for 19 from deep, with Jodie Meeks (4-for-4) and Louis Williams (4-for-5) doing most of the damage. Paul Pierce did a nice job on Andre Iguodala last time (though Iggy made a couple of very tough shots that almost won the game down the stretch), but Pierce's job is tougher now that he's taken over ballhandling duties with Rondo out of the lineup.

It's the second half of a back-to-back for the 76ers, but the starters didn't play as much as they usually would against Chicago because of the blowout -- so fatigue shouldn't be as much of a factor, even though the Celtics haven't played since Sunday afternoon. How the 76ers respond to such a dreadful performance is an interesting question. On the one hand, they could come out eager to prove themselves and erase the memory of the previous night's performance. On the other hand, less than 24 hours may not be enough time for a young team to regroup. I'm not sure how Philly will react, but if the Celtics can jump on the Sixers early and get the crowd into the game, it could be another early night for Philly's starters.