Celts Win Two, Sign Corpse of Michael Finley

Boston swept a Tuesday-Wednesday back-to-back against two teams not currently among the top eight in the Eastern Conference. First came a shaky win in Detroit, then another comfortable victory over Charlotte in Boston. Two big stories emerged:

1) The return of Paul Pierce. The captain was quiet against Detroit (nine points on just six field goal attempts) but exploded against Charlotte, shooting 9-for-13 (including four-for-six from three-point range). Pierce finished with 27 points in 26:30 of playing time, his first 20-plus-point game since he scored 35 in a losing effort at Atlanta on January 29. Pierce has missed five games since then with injuries and has been banged up the whole time, but still, more than a month without a 20-point game isn't the Truth we know.

2) The emergence of Nate Robinson. Nate broke into double figures for the first time as a Celtic in the loss to New Jersey, but had an impact in a Boston win for the first time against Detroit. He scored 14 points and played well enough that Doc didn't bring Rajon Rondo back in the fourth until the three-minute mark of a tight game. Robinson then scored 16 points against Charlotte. Doc's comment after the Detroit game was spot on: "That's exactly what we need from Nate. We want to wind him up and let him go."

By the way, Kendrick Perkins' return Wednesday from an illness marked the first time all season that the Celtics have had a completely healthy roster. Take notice, NBA: When we're at full strength, we're 1-0 and have an average margin of victory of 24 points!

In other news, we're apparently about to sign Michael Finley. On the face of things, I don't really mind: We're not paying him much of anything, and I don't know of any players who are likely to be bought out so that we can sign them for the stretch run like we have in years past. Even with Finley, we've got an extra roster spot.

What's interesting is that most reports stated that Finley asked for his release from the Spurs do to a lack of playing time. If true, that would suggest that Finley thinks he'll get more playing time in Boston, and that I do mind. Finley can't play worth a damn anymore. I saw him when the Spurs came to L.A. to face the Clippers, and I said to my companions at the game: "Finley should just retire. He doesn't look like he belongs on an NBA court." Any burn that Finley gets that takes playing time away from Robinson and Marquis Daniels and even Tony Allen (who, I must admit, has played well this year) is bad for Boston.

Now, it's also been speculated that Finley was looking for a better shot at a title, as San Antonio has been disappointing this year. If that's the case, fine, although I'm skeptical: I think I read somewhere that the Lakers were interested in Finley, and especially with Boston's recent struggles, if Finley was just ring-hunting, it stands to reason that he would go join the defending champs.

Lastly, I want to point out that Bill Walker has back-to-back 20-plus-point games for the Knicks. Walker was part of the Robinson deal. I was disappointed to see Billy Sky go, but not terribly upset, because it was clear Doc wasn't going to give him much of an opportunity. Whether Walker's recent good stretch will continue and whether it indicates a mistake Doc made I don't know, but I personally feel vindicated that the kid has shown he can play in this league, as I have thought all along.

New Jersey 104, Boston 96

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This game was played on Saturday. I was watching college ball all day and had designs to catch what I figured would be an easy win against the 5-52 Nets on DVR, perhaps zooming through once the game got out of hand. But I saw the score on ESPN's college hoops telecast, and quickly decided I didn't want to watch.

I checked out the box score and couldn't really figure out what went wrong. Twenty-six for Kevin Garnett. Seventeen assists for Rajon Rondo. A 50% to 44% edge in field goal shooting. Eighteen turnovers, but we always turn it over a lot and NJ coughed it up 15 times, too. Nothing out of the ordinary. How'd we lose?

Then I saw the free throw discrepancy. New Jersey made 34 of 41 from the charity stripe. We made nine of 11.

That kind of discrepancy is basically unheard of in the NBA, and I had resolved myself to watch it, expecting to see flagrantly bad officiating. Before I did, though, I checked in with the community over at Celtics Blog to see their reaction. Hardly any of the 300+ comments bitched about the officiating, and the ones that did were swiftly rebuked by comments that Jersey deserved most of that huge advantage. The word was that we didn't show much effort at all. Good enough for me. With plenty of other things to do, I don't need to watch my favorite sports team mail it in in a humiliating loss.

A new low? I dunno. Stuff like this happens in an 82-game NBA season. The 1995-1996 Bulls, on their way to a record 72 regular season wins, stumbled against a Toronto team that finished 21-61. (Granted, these Nets stand to be historically bad, a distinction those Raptors comfortably avoided.) Frankly, had things been going better of late, we're probably shrugging this one off as opposed to being discouraged by it. Indeed, the main effect it has seemed to have is to alert the general basketball-watching public to the Celtics' struggles -- which followers of the team have been aware of for a while.

Anyway, we'll see where it goes from here. I'm sort of sick of declaring certain performances watershed moments for this team, but perhaps losing to maybe the worst team in NBA history will solve some of our mindset problems. Our attitude -- whether it's overconfidence, a locker room thing, or that we're just bored -- is only part of the problem (age, injury, and performance are to blame, too), but it clearly needs fixing.

Boston's back in action Tuesday night against Detroit. Paul Pierce should be back; Kendrick Perkins is likely to miss the game with, I think, some sort of illness.

Cleveland 108, Boston 88

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Let's get one thing clear from jump street: The Cavaliers may very well be too good for the Celtics this year. They have ten guys who would crack the Boston rotation right now, and it will be 11 once they re-sign Zydrunas Ilgauskas. They have the world's best player in Lebron James. Joining him in the frontcourt are two guys who have made a combined 17 All-Star Game appearances -- Shaquille O'Neal (15) and Antawn Jamison (2). They have an underrated lead guard in Mo Williams, himself an All-Star last year, the perfect scoring point for a team that runs its offense through its small forward. Their backup bigs have size, and they do everything backup bigs are supposed to do -- rebound, defend, and scrap for loose balls. As a team, they are excellent both offensively and defensively.

For a half, Boston -- even without Paul Pierce -- looked every bit their equal. The Celtics played the opening 24 minutes the same way they played their entire championship season; dictating the pace, making open shots, protecting the paint and forcing the opposition into jumpers as the shot clock wound down. But the second half, in which the Cavs outscored the home team 60 to 32, told an entirely different story. Cleveland got whatever they wanted offensively, and Boston's scoring dried up.

It's a defensible position to say Boston just doesn't have enough to get through the East this year. For the first time since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen arrived, I'm prepared to assert that a completely healthy Boston team isn't the best one in the conference.

The thing is, though, we can't say that for sure yet. Boston wasn't healthy on Thursday. By the midpoint of the second quarter, Cleveland wasn't, either, but at this point, Pierce means far more to the Celtics than Shaquille O'Neal means to the Cavs. Pierce's absence was a double hit, really; not only was the first team missing his offense, leadership, and defense on James, but the second team was missing its facilitator in Marquis Daniels, who replaced the captain in the starting lineup while battling the flu himself. And you can consider Boston being down yet another body if you think that Nate Robinson is going to improve after a slow start to his Boston career. Robinson was 2-of-6 on Thursday after going just 2-of-7 in his Celtics debut on Tuesday. Although Cleveland had come nearly all the way back from a 13-point deficit by the end of the third quarter, it was at the start of the fourth where this one really got away from Boston. The Cs desperately needed a spark off the bench to stop the bleeding, and it may be that in a week or two, Robinson is comfortable enough in his new surroundings to provide that spark. As it stood, however, Robinson provided little, and Rajon Rondo -- who played the first 45 minutes of the game before sitting the final 2:50, had tired himself out too much to attack the basket the same way he did in the first quarter (when he scored or assisted on each of the team's first 21 points).

Again, there's a distinct chance -- probably even a likelihood -- that the Cavs are just too good for us. We'll know for sure before the regular season is out; we're in Cleveland on March 14 before hosting the Cavs on April 4. As close followers of these pages know, I'm generally pretty optimistic about the team -- and the first half of this one was very encouraging -- but truth be told, I'm not very confident right now.

Boston 110, New York 106

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Last night's game against the Knicks lacked the defensive intensity that has been a Boston trademark over the last two-plus seasons, but despite the the fact that is was close throughout the second half, it was also one of those games where I felt we were never in any danger of losing. That seemed to be the team's attitude, too, after scoring 38 points in the first period. Once that happened, the Celtics seemed to believe that they could score at will. Fortunately, they were basically right -- rarely have I seen an NBA game with as many uncontested layups as this one.

Rajon Rondo led the team with 15 points and 16 assists, and Ray Allen had 24 points. He also contributed the game's key play, a blocked layup with under a minute to go that caused a shot-clock violation and preserved a three-point lead.

Boston was without Paul Pierce, who sat because of his injured thumb. There's talk that he'll miss maybe a week, which would keep him out of Thursday's showdown with Cleveland. (The Cavs, by the way, won their first game with Antawn Jamison last night, overcoming 37 points from rookie Marcus Thornton to beat New Orleans.)

The Celtics did, however, have Nate Robinson. Robinson's stat line is unimpressive and his impact on this game was minimal. However, the influence he could have on this team was apparent just from the way he flew around the court. Once he gets settled in and learns the offense and defensive schemes, he'll be a great addition, basketball-wise.

There was a nice moment when Eddie House came into the game in the first period. The Boston crowd gave him a standing ovation and several Celtics came over and clowned around with him for a second. House, of course, was the main price of Robinson. Another inclusion in that deal (along with J.R. Giddens) was Bill Walker, a RwH favorite who never really got much of a chance in Boston. Billy Sky threw down a thunderous dunk and drilled a three in about 13 minutes of playing time, his first floor time with the Knicks.

VIEWING ALERT: The Cleveland game is on TNT at 8 p.m. on Thursday.

RwH on Twitter

I'm a little slow to adapt to new fads and technologies. I'm not exactly a Luddite, nor am I like the elderly relatives you have who don't know how to check their email. But put it this way: I didn't get my first cell phone until 2003, and only then because my roommates didn't want to pay for a land line.

I thought about starting a Rhymes With Hondo Twitter account at the beginning of this season, but I couldn't think of a single thing I would post or a single reason anyone would follow me. I still can't comprehend the latter point, really, but during the week or so leading up to the trade deadline -- when rumor after rumor swirled about Ray Allen -- I thought it might be helpful to have a way of getting the word out without writing a whole new post. The Eddie House-for-Nate Robinson deal, for example, was rumored for a couple of days before the two teams agreed to it; I waited until it was official before posting about it.

Of course, the trade deadline has already passed. So I thought I'd try a different idea out: A RwH Twitter liveblog of a Celtics game. The idea would be that I would watch the game and post allegedly funny and insightful comments from time to time, to which readers, who were also watching the game, would post funnier and more insightful comments. Sounds like a grand old time, doesn't it?

This won't be any fun unless I get a few followers on Twitter who will participate. Our next national broadcast is Thursday against the Cavs, but that's not enough time to drum up interest, and I have class and will have to watch on tape delay anyway. So I'm shooting for Sunday, March 7, against the Wizards (8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN). If I don't get too many followers, I'll scrap the liveblog idea and come up with something else.

I haven't the slightest idea how to link to something that leads you to sign up to follow me on Twitter. Hopefully, if you use it, you know how to do this. My Twitter account name is ... RhymesWithHondo. Obviously.

Denver 114, Boston 105

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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).

Boston 96, Portland 76

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In one of the more surprising results of the season, a should-have-been-worn-down Celtics team went into Portland and ran a should-have-been-fresh Blazers team out of their own building. Portland was complicit in the whole thing, not really putting up a fight until the end of the third quarter, but it certainly a nice change of pace to sit through a Boston game in which the good guys put forth a consistent effort and won comfortably.

Things got a little dicey at the start of the fourth quarter, as the Blazers cut what had been a 21-point lead to just nine. But Glen Davis drew charges on Rudy Fernandez on consecutive possessions, Ray Allen scored eight straight points, and Boston was never threatened again.

Allen was the hero of the evening, leading all scorers with 21 points. As important, he remained in the game with the second team to start the fourth quarter and led that unit as it salted the game away. As a result, Boston's four other starters didn't have to get off the bench in the final period. That meant a lot to Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce, who played more than 44 and 41 minutes, respectively, in Thursday's win over Los Angeles. With a tough game coming up at Denver on Sunday, that rest is invaluable. Of course, playing 75 minutes over the course of a back-to-back isn't ideal for the 34-year-old Allen, but hopefully, second-team steward will be a role he no longer has to play once Nate Robinson -- who isn't expected to play until Tuesday as he battles a stomach virus -- makes his debut in green.

The Denver game in on national TV, at a time that should be palatable for East Coast viewers: 3:30 p.m. Eastern.