Derrick Rose Tears ACL

In case you hadn't heard -- which is pretty much only possible if RwH is your exclusive source for basketball news -- Derrick Rose, Chicago's point guard and last season's MVP, tore his left ACL in the waning moments of the Bulls' Game 1 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. The Bulls were the top overall seed in the playoffs, and so this news affects the entire league, but it has a Boston nexus for two reasons.

First, and most importantly, the Celtics were lined up to the play the Bulls in the second round if they can get by the Hawks in the first round. That potential matchup obviously looks a little different now. The Bulls have had plenty of practice playing without Rose -- this is something like his sixth discrete injury of the season -- and they've done extraordinarily well without him: By my count, they went 18-9 in games in which Rose didn't play, including two wins over the Celtics. But there's a difference between winning regular-season games and winning playoff games. And there's a difference between beating a young, fracturing Philadelphia team in the playoffs, something I still fully expect them to do, and beating an experienced, veteran-laden Boston team (that's peaking at the right time) in the playoffs. It can be done, but it would require guys like C.J. Watson and John Lucas to replicate their excellent regular season performances in the first significant postseason action of their careers. And it means that a guy like Luol Deng, who has already stepped up his game this season, to elevate it yet another level or two. It's just a huge ask. The Celtics' road to the Eastern finals is undoubtedly a bit easier than it was when they woke up on Saturday morning -- as long as they get past Atlanta.

The other Boston connection is that Chicago head coach Tom Thibodeau, Doc's defensive right-hand man during the championship season, is coming under a little bit of fire for the fact that Rose was still on the court with under 90 seconds to go in a 12-point game. Personally, I don't think it's fair to blame Thibs. While it's true that Chicago probably wasn't going to lose that game, it's the playoffs, and in the playoffs, you want to be sure -- and that means keeping your starters in until the other team removes theirs. And Rose hasn't been on the court much lately, so it makes some sense to get him some reps in late-game situations.

I've always been critical of Doc for playing the guys for too long, but that's mainly because of their advanced age. Rose, despite all his injuries, can play major minutes at his age, and arguably needed those minutes to get into playing condition. And this wasn't a physical or chippy game, either, which might have counseled getting Rose out earlier than usual. Indeed, Rose's injury came on a play in which there was absolutely no contact; he drove into the lane and came to one of his patented, violent jump stops. His knee buckled on the landing.

Chicago fans are justifiably angry and disappointed at the misfortune that has befallen them. But the odds of getting injured in any given 90-second period of a basketball game are so slim that it makes little sense to worry about them. I'v heard some people opine that, because Rose's injury was non-contact, it was inevitable; that if it didn't happen in the closing seconds of this game, it was bound to happen soon. I'm not sure there's any medical evidence behind that, but the point is right. If Rose had torn his ACL during practice, or at a shootaround or walkthrough, would Thibodeau be getting the same kind of criticism? I doubt it, and that's the point here: the injury had nothing to do with the situation in which it occurred. It was incident to Rose being a professional basketball player. It's unfortunate, but it's one of those things that happens. Bulls fans may need to blame someone, and Thibodeau is going to be that person. But it's not his fault.

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.

Viewing Alert

Friday: Chicago at Boston, 8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN.

At first glance, the last thing a struggling Celtics team needs right now is a tough home game against the class of the East, coached by a defensive wizard (Tom Thibodeau) who, as a former Doc Rivers assistant, is intimately familiar with what the team does. Boston's had trouble putting the ball in the basket as it is; it's going to be even harder against the Bulls.

Derrick Rose, last year's NBA MVP, missed Wednesday's game against the Wizards with a sprained toe, but I've read that the Bulls are optimistic he'll play against the Celtics. That's bad news for those fans whose sole concern is a Boston win or loss, but it's good news for basketball fans: Rose and Rajon R-ndo tend to bring out the best in each other -- remember their battles in that first-round playoff series in 2008-09, when Rose was a rookie? And Chicago, who can be a little boring to watch even with Rose on the court due to their pace, becomes positively excruciating with their best catalyst on the bench.

The key to the game, if I had to pick just one, will probably be rebounding. Boston has struggled on the glass this year and Chicago, with the energetic Joakim Noah, can definitely cause some problems in that regard. The Bulls also have a good-shooting power forward in Carlos Boozer, the kind of player the Celtics have struggled to guard in recent years (because he keeps Kevin Garnett occupied).

Here's to stopping the bleeding...

Shaquille O'Neal Needs to Stop Fouling

On a second-half drive in Saturday night's Bulls-Celtics game, Chicago's Derrick Rose drove left and took off from the left block. He sailed under the basket, actually hovering in midair over the endline, looking for a way to squeeze the ball through a tangle of limbs attached to green jerseys. He was trapped; to score, he would need to pull off an incredible shot (which he is capable of doing, of course, but that's not the point).

Shaquille O'Neal bailed him out by fouling him and sending him to the line for two shots.

I've said it before, but Shaq needs to stop fouling. It's not that we don't have the bodies to replace him; even when we're not completely healthy, it's not like he can handle playing a bunch of minutes per night. But for a team whose (highly effective) defense over the past three-plus seasons has been predicated on forcing the other team to make tough shots, Shaq's attempts to "protect the rim" amount to so much sabotage.

In addition to having an excellent defensive point guard (Rajon Rondo), one of the best team defenders in the game (Kevin Garnett) and an underrated defensive center (Kendrick Perkins), Boston has been successful on the defensive end in recent seasons by deciding, in a sense, which shots they are most happy with the opposition taking, and forcing said opposition to win the game that way. Lebron James wants to shoot long jumpers? Fine; better than him taking the ball to the rim. Kobe Bryant wants to go one-on-one? Great; he'll get his, but it keeps the ball out of Pau Gasol's hands. So on a night when Garnett wasn't around to help on Rose or guard Carlos Boozer, Boston should have been more or less okay with Rose beating them, if he was going to beat them, with circus shots. Instead, he took 19 free throws and had 36 points and the Bulls won by 11.

I don't know if it's laziness on Shaq's part or that he's not able to recognize his diminished athleticism (which seems unlikely; he's been playing at his current weight for several seasons now). Perhaps it's something else. But fouling a guy who is trying to shoot with his back turned to the hoop is just bad basketball. It's okay to clobber a guy to save a sure two points; it's dumb to clobber a guy who has a very slim chance to score.

At his size, it should be very difficult to score over Shaq, and the opposition, generally speaking, isn't all that willing to create contact with the big fella. Thus, while he's no longer a big shotblocking threat, O'Neal should be able to affect his share of shots simply by getting in the way. By fouling, he bails the opposition out (and puts his team in the penalty earlier in the quarter, leading to even more points, potentially).

Chicago 90, Boston 79

The Bulls were missing Joakim Noah. The Celtics were missing Kevin Garnett. The Cs missed Garnett a lot more.

[recap] [box score]

Despite the fact that Chicago was without its young starting center (who hasn't played since December 15 after undergoing thumb surgery), they outrebounded Boston 48-27 and blocked nine shots (including four each by Kurt Thomas and Taj Gibson). Carlos Boozer, the man Garnett would have been guarding, had 22 points on an efficient 9-for-15.

The Bulls' biggest offensive contribution came from point guard Derrick Rose, who scored 36 in part due to 19 trips to the free throw line (where he made 15 shots). Rose is big and quick and too much for any NBA point guard to handle. Without Garnett around for help, Rose wreaked havoc on the Celtics at the rim. Even when Garnett comes back, Chicago is going to be tough for Boston, because KG will have his hands full with Boozer. The return of an effective, if not completely healthy, Kendrick Perkins might be the biggest key to having less trouble with the Bulls in the future.

All in all, it was a pretty awful performance for the Celtics, which I'm willing to forgive against a good team on the second night of a home-road back-to-back. But the Cs are now in a dead, uh, heat with Miami for the best record in the East. With home dates this week against the Rockets, Kings, and Bobcats, it may be a good opportunity to get a little separation, as the Heat finish up a five-game road trip that began with an overtime win in Milwaukee Friday night with dates with Portland, the Clippers, Denver, and Chicago.

The Next Lamb: The Chicago Bulls

Game 19: Chicago (9-7) at Boston (14-4)

Friday, December 3

8 p.m. Eastern

TV: ESPN

Last meeting: @Boston 110, Chicago 105 (OT) (11/6/2010)

Last time we played Chicago, we blew a 16-point lead, sweated out a potential game-winning possession for the Bulls at the end of regulation, and then won in overtime.

The big difference between the Bulls team we'll see Friday night and the one we saw last month is that power forward Carlos Boozer, Chicago's big offseason acquisition from Utah, will be in the lineup. Boozer broke his hand before the season and returned to game action on Wednesday, logging five points in 22 minutes in a 107-78 throttling by Orlando. While Boozer is a good player, it's safe to assume he won't have found his groove by Friday, given that he's just now returning from injury and is playing with a new team. Moreover, Taj Gibson, who started in Boozer's absence, had a very strong game against Boston the first time around, so the Celtics might not be too upset to see Boozer back in the lineup. His return does give a boost to the bench (since Gibson has moved back to the second unit), which was pretty non-existent in the first meeting between the two teams.

Last time out, Boston held Derrick Rose and Luol Deng more or less in check -- each shot 8-for-19 from the field -- but gave up 26 points to center Joakim Noah. Jermaine O'Neal played that night and Shaquille O'Neal didn't, and the reverse will be true on Friday; JON's out, Shaq's in. What effect this will have on Noah's production, I'm not sure. I seem to recall Noah getting a fair number of points with his screwball jumper, and I doubt very much that Shaq is going to bother Noah 15 feet from the basket. Shaq's size, however, should be able to keep Noah off the boards a bit better than Jermaine could. (Odd stat of the day: Noah was held without a rebound in last night's loss to the Magic).

Chicago had been playing well before Wednesday night, and I wouldn't be surprised to see coach Tom Thibodeau pull Boozer early if he's ineffective, delaying Boozer's integration into the team by a game for a chance to beat the defending conference champions (and his old team) in their barn. Chicago always plays us tough, and Thibodeau knows a lot of what we do, so this should be a good game.

The Next Lamb: The Chicago Bulls

Game 6: Chicago (2-2) at Boston (4-1)

Friday, November 5

8 p.m. (Eastern)

ESPN

The Bulls have had an up-and-down start to the season. Indeed, in just four games, they've been down, then up, then down again. It started with a loss to Oklahoma City in the opener, no shame there, but continued well into the next game against Detroit. Chicago gave up 63 first-half points in that game, before turning things around with 34-9 fourth quarter that resulted in a ten-point win. That strong play carried over into their third game, a convincing home win against Portland.

Then came their fourth game, Thursday night in Chicago against the Knicks. Like they did against the Pistons, the Bulls had a terrible first half, allowing 70 points. This time around, however, they didn't improve enough in the second half to overcome the bad start, losing 120-112. The Bulls were down quite a bit more than that, and star point guard Derrick Rose sat the final 9:30 for what his coach said were performance-based reasons.

So, yeah, it's a little hard to tell what we're going to get out of Chicago. However, we do know that there are players to watch and storylines to follow that go beyond Brian Scalabrine's return to the TD Banknorth Garden:

Derrick Rose - Rose's short career has fascinated me. He had a solid, though unspectacular rookie season -- until the playoffs, when he scored 36 points in his postseason debut. He didn't quite keep up that pace during a truly epic seven-game series, but he did boost his scoring average by about three points from the regular season. It appeared that he had done what he did in his lone year in college, at Memphis: Defer to his teammates during the regular season, then turn it on during the postseason.

I expected a huge season from him in 2009-10, and I wasn't alone. My reasoning was that the departure of Ben Gordon would force Rose to take on a more assertive role on offense. "Once Rose figures out how good he is, he'll be unstoppable" I could be heard to say.

Rose did make a statistical jump last year, averaging four more points than he did in his rookie season (not surprising, given Gordon's absence) while improving his shooting percentage (which was already very good for a point guard who takes as many shots as he does). But that jump wasn't the leap I wasn't expecting, and the Bulls -- while they won 41 games and made the playoffs -- were something of a disappointment.

Perhaps this is the year that Rose learns just how good he is, and makes that leap. Through four games, he's averaging 26.8 points, four rebounds, and ten assists. What's particularly interesting is how quickly Rose has adapted to new coach Tom Thibodeau's offense. Rose came out of the starting blocks firing, putting up 31 shots against Oklahoma City in the opener and 27 against Detroit the next time out. He wasn't necessarily playing selfishly -- he had 13 total assists in the two contests -- but it's been suggested that the shots he took in those games were simply the shots that presented themselves. Rose's shot totals have gone down in the last two games, however, and he's set career highs in assists in consecutive games.

Boston will definitely have its hands full with Rose, but Rose will also have to deal with Rajon Rondo -- a matchup that has often gone in Boston's favor. Rondo actually outplayed Rose during the latter's breakout postseason, posting the following lines over the seven games of the series: 29/9/7, 19/12/16, 20/11/6, 25/11/11, 28/8/11, 8/9/19, and 7/5/11. That was all Tom Thibodeau -- Boston's defensive guru in previous seasons -- took over in Chicago, though the Bulls have struggled defensively this year, often with point guards. (More on Thibs below.)

Luol Deng: I've never been much of a Deng fan, but when a guy scores 40 points in a game, as Deng did last Saturday against the Blazers, you have to mention him. Deng's rarely been successful against the Celtics over the last couple of seasons, because he's been exactly the type of player the Boston defense is geared to stop: A slasher, without a great three-point shot, who is willing to take mid-range jumpers (which he hits at about a league-average rate). The Celtics thrive on letting these guys settle for jumpers, confident that they'll eventually miss enough of them to give Boston the game.

Deng's three-point range appears to be improving, however, and this may be the year we really see the fruits of that. In his first two years, Deng shot a bunch of threes and made them at a horrific rate. Over the next three years, Deng all but eliminated the three-point shot from his arsenal, attempting one every four games or so, on average. Last season, however, Deng shot 83 triples in 70 games, making 32 -- one more make than his rookie year, on 34 fewer attempts.

This year, Deng is 7-for-14 from behind the arc. The makes suggest his stroke has improved, but the attempts suggest a change in philosophy, one that can probably be attributed in part to Thibodeau.

Tom Thibodeau: Speaking of Thibodeau, it's going to be very interesting to see him coach against the team he was so intimately involved with over three great seasons. His new team is clearly having problems defensively, and I haven't watched the Bulls, so I can't say whether it's due to his players not having grasped the system, or them simply not being good enough. But Thibodeau knows the Celtics' offensive tendencies as well as anyone, and as far as the Bulls offense goes, he'll esesentially be scheming against himself. Should be interesting to watch.

Viewing Alert

Chicago comes to Boston tonight at 8 pm Eastern to renew last year's incredible first-round playoff series. You can see the game on ESPN.

These Bulls are different than the Bulls the Celtics saw in the playoffs, with the main difference that Ben Gordon has gone to Detroit and Luol Deng has returned from injury. While Chicago will miss Gordon's scoring, I think it's addition by subtraction for Chicago: His presence was stunting the growth of Derrick Rose, the second-year man out of Memphis who might just be the best point guard in the league in a few years.

Rose vs. Rondo was the marquee matchup in the playoffs, and it's the key matchup tonight. Rose is by his nature a pass-first point guard, but he's too good to be passive offensively, and now that Gordon's gone, the Bulls need him to assert himself on that end. Rondo will have his hands full, though it will help that Kevin Garnett is around; KG is one more man Rondo can funnel Rose to. Rose wasn't able to stop Rondo in the spring, so Rondo should be aggressive offensively to make Rose work and possibly get him into foul trouble.

Other things to watch:

• Garnett and the Celtics need to decide whether they want to let Tyrus Thomas shoot 15-footers, something he's more than willing to do. The team is best defensively when Garnett slumps off the opposing team's four, but Thomas showed in the playoffs last year and last night against San Antonio in Chicago's season opener that he can make that shot.
• Both Thomas and Joakim Noah like to go for spectacular blocked shots, so Celtics' weak-side players should be ready to crash the offensive glass.
• Back-to-backs don't get much tougher than vs. San Antonio and at Boston. Chicago's win last night looks impressive, but after watching and thinking about the game, I thought the Spurs looked flat (perhaps feeling the effects of their own back to back). The Bulls should be a good test, but also shouldn't be a match for us.

Chicago 121, Boston 118 (Double Overtime)

That was a lot of fun.

[recap] [box score]

One of the nice things about having won a title last year is that the pressure is off, to a certain extent. I'm not insinuating that the Celtics are playing with less urgency than last year or that a second straight championship banner would be any less special than the first. But having that ring changes the perspective on this year. (There is, of course, another obvious reason why expectations are lower, but I pledged to be positive in these pages and not mention it.)

The upshot of this is that even in defeat, we as fans can enjoy an instant classic like Sunday's loss. Last year at this time, we were tied at 2-2 with Atlanta and so worried about the prospect of not even getting out of the first round that we couldn't appreciate the moxie with which the young Hawks were playing. This time around, it's easier to appreciate the way these Bulls haven't backed down from the defending champs.

There are similarities between the last season's Hawks and this season's Bulls: both teams are young; both have at least one player who seems to relish the role of heels (Atlanta's Zaza Pachulia and Chicago's Joakim Noah); both have crazy-athletic power forwards waiting to fulfill their potential (though Josh Smith is much further along in his development than Tyrus Thomas); and both have flammable shooting guards who are proving very difficult for Boston to check (Joe Johnson last year; Ben Gordon this year). Atlanta was much better defensively -- I can't emphasize enough how bad Chicago is on that end of the floor -- but Chicago has Derrick Rose, whose precocious play in Games 1 and 4 -- though upstaged throughout the series by the brilliance of his Boston counterpart (and RwH namesake) Rajon Rondo -- has really made this series a treat to watch.

Just because this series has been fun, however, does not prevent some things from irriating me, and here I return to a familiar theme: This team relies far too much on Paul Pierce in the fourth quarter.

Trailining 96-93 with 16 seconds left, Doc Rivers drew up a play for Ray Allen, just as he did in Game 2 with the score tied at 115. And Allen, just as he did in Game 2, calmly knocked down the crucial shot.

Allen is one of the top two or three best three-point shooters in the history of the NBA. Having spent the majority of his career as his team's number-one offensive option, he is accustomed to taking big shots. Doc clearly trusts him with the ball with the game -- and as evinced by the isolation play called for Allen in the closing moments of Game 4 of last year's Finals, the season -- on the line. Why, then, can't we call Allen's number when the situation is anything less than urgent? A basket with five minutes left counts for just as many points as a basket with five seconds left.

Instead of looking for Allen, and instead of letting Rondo penetrate and get to the rim like he did over the first three quarters, Boston, throughout the fourth quarter and the bulk of the two overtimes, instead went back to isolating Pierce at the foul line. Four things made this play particularly inadvisable in this situation:

1) As early as the first few minutes of the third quarter, Pierce looked out of gas. He did end up scoring 11 points in that period, but that probably served to tire him out even more. Pierce has logged a ton of minutes this year, and one explanation for his average -- by his standards -- play thus far in the playoffs is that he's just running fumes.

2) Pierce was cold. He finished 9-of-24. I'd call it going to the well one too many times, but the expression doesn't seem apt when you come up empty more often than not.

3) Pierce wasn't getting any calls. In a very oddly officiated game that saw the refs all but swallow the whistles for the two extra periods, the officials seemed loathe to send last year's Finals MVP to the line more than was absolutely necessary. Several Pierce drives resulted in no-calls that you'd expect a player of his caliber to get, playoffs be damned. When Pierce isn't getting to the line, he isn't as effective.

4) Kirk Hinrich really did a phenomenal job making life difficult for Pierce. The play is predicated on setting up a mismatch for Pierce, but the Bulls seemed to have no qualms about leaving the smaller Hinrich on an island against him, and Hinrich responded with some really gritty D.

This loss is frustrating, because much like Game 1, this one was squarely within Boston's reach. The Celtics could have completed the sweep already, and could be sitting at home awaiting the winner of the Philadelphia-Orlando series (which, with three last-second finishes in four games, is giving Chicago-Boston a run for its money as the most compelling series of this playoff season). At the same time, however, Boston could be down 3-1, having needed some late-game heroics to win Game 2.

It's now a best-of-three. The two teams have already treated us to everything we could possibly ask for, but let's see if they have anything left for an encore.

Game 5 is Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

Boston 118, Chicago 115

I'll admit, a little shamefully, that whiile I wasn't ready to give up, I was feeling pretty despondent at halftime of tonight's game.

[recap] [box score]

Boston was only down three, but consider what the Celtics had already lost: Kevin Garnett to a knee injury suffered before the playoffs; home court advantage in the series with Chicago in Game 1; Leon Powe to a knee injury early in the second quarter; and Rajon Rondo for the final five minutes of the first half, to an ankle injury that looked pretty bad. Ray Allen still hadn't broken out of his slump, Boston's already paper-thin front line had been reduced by one, and Rondo, the team's best offensive player through three halves of playoff basketball, wasn't sure to return.

But over the next 24 minutes, in stops and starts, the Celtics showed that if they weren't the same team that won the NBA title last year, they were still the defending champs -- defending champs that weren't going to go down without a fight. Allen caught fire, scoring 28 of his 30 points in the second half, including the game-winning three-pointer with two seconds left. Rondo gamely hobbled around on his bad wheel, a shadow of the player he was in the first quarter (when he helped send both Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich to the bench with foul trouble), finishing with 19 points, 12 rebounds, 16 assists, and five steals. Glen Davis and Kendrick Perkins contributed huge games of 26/9 and 16/12, respectively. And so, despite giving up 42 points to Ben Gordon and having 14 shots blocked on the other end, Boston pulled out a crucial victory.

Where the team goes from here is still up in the air. There's no word yet on Powe, but TNT reporter (and former RwH sports journalism professor) David Aldridge hinted from the sideline that it could be more than just a one-night thing. And while Rondo seemed to gain mobility as the second half wore on, that's not all that uncommon with ankle injuries. It's often easier to play on a sprained ankle the night you sprain it than it is a day or two later, when you've cooled down and it's had time to swell up.

Losing Powe would be a blow to an already thin frontline, but losing Rondo would be the death knell. He's been the team's best player in the first two games of the series, by a fairly wide margin.

A few tactical notes:

-Boston did a much better job of containing Rose tonight on the pick and roll. Rose is a bit easier to stop on this play than he will be a bit later in his career, for two reasons: 1) he'll probably develop a more consistent jumper; and 2) he's still kind of a reluctant scorer, which he'll presumably grow out of. He's not quite as bad as Rondo was his first couple of years, but he still wants to defer to his teammates. So the man hedging the pick and roll needn't necessarily "sell out" the way he might against a player who looks for his own shot. A quick show is often enough to spook Rose into picking up his dribble, or slow down just long enough for his defender to recover. The day will come when this won't work. Hopefully that day is sometime after this series.

-Fourteen blocked shots for Chicago, and 21 offensive rebounds for Boston. These statistics are related. The Bulls' young bigs, Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas, are so eager to register the highlight-reel rejection that they vacate their posts recklessly. Any shot they don't get has a great chance of being rebounded by Celtics on the weak side.

-Allen had a very tough time guarding Gordon, evoking memories of similar struggles checking Joe Johnson during last year's first-round series with Atlanta. While Gordon is a terrifyingly streaky shooter, in the mold of Vinnie "The Microwave" Johnson, his heating up isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's better, I think, than having Rose play the way he did in Game 1, for the simple reason that Gordon has never met a shot he didn't like, and no matter how hot he is, he can't hit everything. The shot he made to tie the game at 115 came over Allen and Davis, who had committed to the double and left a man open. It was a very tough shot, one Gordon should get all the credit for making, but it's also one I don't think Boston minds him taking.

-Tonight marked the second time in as many games that Bulls had the ball with under three seconds left needing a basket to either tie or win and didn't have a timeout to advance the ball to halfcourt. Rookie head coach Vinny Del Negro has come a long way in his first season on the bench, but in the NBA, unlike college, timeouts have a practical purpose other than resting players or drawing up plays. I'd be surprised if he gets caught without one in his back pocket again.

Game 3 is Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

Chicago 105, Boston 103 (Overtime)

Between his drive past Sasha Vujacic to cap the incredible Game 4 comeback and his seven three-pointers in the Finals clincher a few nights later, it's easy to forget what Ray Allen's postseason legacy last year might have been.

[recap] [box score]

After a decent series against Atlanta, Allen shot 20-for-61 in seven games against Cleveland. Had Paul Pierce not pulled the Celtics through with 41 points in his duel with LeBron James in Game 7 of that series, there might not have been any title, and the talk heading into this postseason would have focused on Allen looking to atone for his dismal shooting last May.

With Kevin Garnett probably out for the entirety of the postseason, Boston simply cannot afford a similarly prolonged slump during these playoffs. If the Celtics want to make it out of even the first round against Chicago, then Allen can't put up anything close to the 1-for-12 he had this afternoon. Allen's shots weren't even close today.

In fact, the only one of his eleven misses that looked good today was the last one, an 18-foot fadeaway from the right baseline that was just a touch long. It would have sent the game into double overtime, and you have to wonder about the play drawn up by the Celtics coaching staff. Inbounding underneath the basket with less than four seconds left, option one was Leon Powe cutting to the basket, and option two was Allen coming off a screen. There was no option three, as far as I could tell. Kendrick Perkins was the safety release, for Rajon Rondo inbounding the ball, and Pierce -- Paul Pierce! -- basically just stood at the top of the key.

The decision to leave Pierce completely out of the play -- he wasn't a "decoy" because in order to be a decoy, you need to at least make the defense respond to you -- is all the more puzzling considering that over the last eight minutes or so of game time, Boston apparently decided that the only way they were winning this game was on Pierce's back, despite Pierce being relatively cold from the field. Without Garnett, defenses can key on Pierce more, and Boston is going to have to get comfortable going to other sources of offense.

Heck, Chicago did it. After rookie point guard Derrick Rose dazzled for much of the game and sharpshooter Ben Gordon awoke for the fourth quarter, it was Tyrus Thomas who ultimately provided the biggest baskets. Thomas hit three jumpers of at least 14 feet in the overtime, missing a fourth that would have put the game away with about ten seconds left.

The Celtics had options besides Pierce, even with Allen struggling. Rondo was nearly as good as Rose all afternoon, and even Kendrick Perkins was 7-for-11, overpowering Joakim Noah inside. Is it easy to call Perk's number down the stretch? Does his name easily come to mind as the guy to get the ball to? No and no. But Boston is not long for these playoffs if Pierce has to win every game on his own.

Despite all of this, Boston had a real shot to win this game, if any one of a number of little things had gone their way:

-After Rondo put Boston up by one with 22 seconds left, Boston forced Gordon into an incredibly difficult shot. Rondo had a bead on the loose ball rebound, but couldn't corral it, and Chicago eventually scored on the possession. Coming up with that ball -- on a play that reminded me of Pierce's diving recovery and timeout against Cleveland in the closing seconds of Game 7 last year -- would have put Boston in a commanding position.

-On the next trip down, Pierce dribbled right off of a screen and went up for the game-winner from about 17 feet, only to have Noah clobber him, an incredibly silly and aggressive foul at that stage. Pierce drained the first free throw to tie it, but got unlucky on the second, the ball going in and out. There were 2.6 seconds left and the Bulls had no timeouts remaining and therefore couldn't have advanced the ball to midcourt. A make would have almost certainly equaled victory.

-After Glen Davis put Boston up two to start the overtime, Gordon came up well short on a jumper, and Perkins fired a long pass to Allen breaking toward the basket. Instead of a layup or at least a trip to the free throw line, Allen lost the ball out of bounds. There was plenty of time left, but a two-possession lead in overtime is huge, both psychologically and on the scoreboard.

-Thomas hit a jumper after that turnover, and then Rose picked up his fifth foul on the next Boston possession. After a Pierce miss and a John Salmons bucket that gave Chicago the lead, Pierce ran a pick-and-roll with Rondo, leaving Rose matched up with Pierce. Pierce worked his way into the lane and pumpfaked, getting Rose in the air. This is a classic Pierce move, and all he needed to do was go up for the shot, leaning in ever so slightly, and Rose would have clobbered him, his sixth and disqualifying foul. Instead, Pierce passed to Perkins. Perk made the layup, but it might have been a different outcome if Rose had had to sit. Rose didn't go crazy in the last few minutes, but Thomas was able to get open for his jumpers in large part because the Celtics' defense was so focused on Rose.

-Rose eventually did foul out, on Boston's last possession. He got whistled for grabbing Rondo on a nifty misdirection play that Doc drew up. Chicago had one to give (Pierce would later drive and have it knocked out of bounds, leading to the Allen miss on the inbounds play), but Rose wasn't trying to give it, it was kind of a ticky-tack call, and Rondo had an open layup. Would have rather had the bucket there.

Anyway, Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern on TNT becomes a must-win. Objectives: Find a way to slow Rose; get Ray going; and play Powe more and Davis less (wishful thinking).