Toronto 86, Boston 74

[recap] [box score]

It would be shocking if it wasn't so easy to see coming: Grueling game the night before; a disappointing overtime loss to a hated rival; didn't get to the hotel 'til 3 a.m.; embarrassed the opponent by 36 last time they played. Throw in the usual spate of injuries -- no Jermaine O'Neal, Keyon Dooling, or Sasha Pavlovic, and a very limited Avery Bradley -- and it doesn't seem all that hard to explain.

The Celtics were just awful on Friday. Awful. A 12-point deficit doesn't look like much, but trust me, that's just an indication of how much Toronto struggles without Andrea Bargnani. The Celtics lost to the Lakers on Thursday because of stagnant, uninspired offense and poor defensive rebounding, and then went out and did the exact same thing against Toronto. At one point in the first quarter, Doc Rivers was so frustrated with the team's inability to run a play that he called a timeout while storming onto the floor cursing a blue streak -- six seconds after calling a timeout to set up a play. I have never, ever, seen an NBA coach do that to send a message to his team.

It was a college move. Indeed, if it had been a college game, it would have been one of those times where the coach grabs the walk-ons by the jersey and rushes them to scorers' table, lets the starters sit on their asses at the end of the bench for a few minutes, then puts them back in. The way that story usually ends is with the crowd and coaching staff reacting to the walk-ons coming off the floor as though they'd just sewn up a national championship, and the invigorated/scared starters blowing the other team off the court.

This isn't college, though. There are no walk-ons, and while Doc did put in Bradley in the hopes of getting a little defensive spark, it ultimately wasn't worth risking further injury to him. Boston finally woke up in the second half and had the lead down to seven or so, but couldn't get a couple key calls and stayed in a 2-3 zone just long enough to let Linas Kleiza lock up this game for the Raps from outside.

Word is that the players had a meeting after the game, not a finger-pointing session, but just a meeting to work stuff out. That's good, that's the way a veteran team like the Celtics should handle it.

Let's hope it translates to the court on Sunday when Derrick Rose and the big, bad
Chicago Bulls come to town. Chicago has been steamrolling people; they have the best record in the league. What's frightening about the Bull is that even without Rose, last year's MVP, they're nasty; he's missed all or parts of eight games with injuries this year, and they are 7-1 in those games. Not only are they 7-1, but it's a convincing 7-1: 95-84 at Charlotte; 90-67 at New Orleans; 108-87 at New Jersey; 114-75 at Cleveland; 95-89 vs. Charlotte; 118-97 vs. Phoenix; 78-64 vs. Washington. That's an average margin of victory of nearly 20 points in seven wins largely without their point guard and leader and the league's MVP. Ridiculous. Rose is having some back problems that have limited him or kept him out of the last three games, but knowing the guy, I expect him to play in Boston.

He was on the floor in mid-January in Boston when the Bulls beat the Celtics, jumping out to a 20-point lead before Boston battled back and nearly won it. Tune in to see if Boston will get its revenge Sunday at 3:30 Eastern on ABC.