Boston 116, Los Angeles Lakers 95

Well, that was fun. In case you missed it, the Celtics ran away with this one in the third quarter. The lead had been double digits for most of the second period, but it got out of hand during a 49-second stretch during which Boston scored eight straight points. The spurt was highlighted by a Jeff Green dunk, followed by a Green block on the other hand that led to a fast break and a Paul Pierce three. I believe that put Boston up 21. They'd lead by at least 30 before coasting the rest of the way.

As comfortable a win as this turned out to be, it certainly didn't start the way. The Celtics were whistled for five fouls in the first two minutes, twenty-two seconds -- the fastest any team has found itself in the penalty since the Phoenix Suns on Halloween in 2000, according to the TNT broadcast. Two of those fouls were on Kevin Garnett, and by the end of the first quarter, his backups -- Jason Collins and Chris Wilcox, had five fouls between them.

This game affirmed for me, though, that Boston's recent hot streak is due not to some improved chemistry or ball movement in the absence of Rajon Rondo, but rather to an increased intensity and focus on the part of the entire team. Paul Pierce, in particular, came out sharper than he's been in weeks, draining a handful of pull-up jumpers in the first quarter.

However, with the exception of the third quarter -- when Boston shook off a few minutes of halftime-induced torpor to make 16 of 21 shots to blow the game open -- the Celtics didn't play well enough to enjoy such an easy evening. Indeed, this game said more about the Lakers' struggles than anything else. They couldn't take advantage of Boston's early foul trouble, they shot terribly, and their defense was nonexistent most of the night. The biggest indictment was the lack of ball movement. Steve Kerr harped on it quite a bit and so I won't rehash it here, but there was far too much one-on-one for a team quarterbacked by one of the league's all-time great point guards. The third quarter actually reminded me a bit of Game 5 of the 2010 Finals. Kobe Bryant -- who had been assisting at a career-high rate recently, which coincidentally has been L.A.'s best stretch of the season -- decided to try to take over offensively. And even as he hit a dazzling array of shots, each seemingly more difficult than the last, Boston's lead remained steady -- then blew up once Bryant's shots stopped falling.

Not that this is a novel opinion, but I think you can safely stick a fork in the Lakers this year. They don't appear to be anywhere close to figuring out how to play together, Dwight Howard is ailing, and Pau Gasol is going to be out at least 6 to 8 weeks. They aren't as far out of the playoffs as you'd think, but it's hard to imagine them turning it around any time soon.

Los Angeles Lakers 88, Boston 87 (Overtime)

[recap] [box score]

Losing to the Lakers always sucks. Losing to the Lakers at home is worse. Losing to the Lakers at home because we couldn't grab a couple loose balls is sleep-deprivingly frustrating.

Actually, we didn't lose because we couldn't grab a couple loose balls. We lost because we couldn't shoot -- just over 39 percent for the game -- and didn't attack the basket to try to get to the line. Particularly in the second half, with the Lakers sagging off of Rajon R-ndo as they have the last several seasons, the Celtics relied exclusively on jumpers, and paid the price.

The Lakers shot horribly, too, which is why we even had a chance to win the game. They missed a ton of open looks, as we did, and both tams played well enough defensively to win the game. But the Lakers got the loose balls when it mattered:

* After Boston had retaken the lead late in the fourth, the Celtics forced Pau Gasol into a long three from the right corner, which he missed. But Andrew Bynum was there for the putback and the foul, converting the free throw to put the visitors up one.

* Ray Allen gave Boston the lead with a three-pointer with 1:07 left, and after an exchange of empty possessions -- a missed jumper by Kevin Garnett and a horrific three-pointer from Metta World Peace (where was that in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals when we needed it?) -- LA had the ball with 30 seconds to go. Steve Blake drove, stopped at the foul line, passed up a shot, before throwing a terrible pass into the post. It was knocked away, and anyone of three Celtics could have grabbed it. They didn't, though, and Blake, following up on his pass, snatched it.

* Blake got the ball to Kobe Bryant, who missed a jumper, but Gasol was there for the tip and the tie. Overtime.

* The Lakers got the first four points of overtime, holding the Celtics scoreless for the first half of the extra period. Pierce brought us back, hitting a foul-line jumper and then a three with 90 seconds to go. Kobe again missed a jumper, but Bynum was there for the tip-in. The Lakers would go scoreless on their final two possessions, but Boston came up empty in its last three, and the Lakers won.

Boston had plenty of chances on the offensive end to win the game. At the end of regulation, Doc drew up the predictable 2-3 pick-and-roll with Pierce and Allen. Allen was free, but Pierce hesitated on the pass and the ball ended up in the hands of Mickael Pietrus, who had no choice but to throw up a 35-footer.

* On the final possession of the game, Doc iso'd Pierce against World Peace, who has guarded Pierce well since he was known as Ron Artest. Pierce got off a decent look at a mid-range jumper, but it missed by a hair, bouncing softly of the front of the rim and the backboard into the waiting hands of Allen, who had pushed aside Blake as the shot went up. The Lakers' length would save them one last time, however, as Gasol came over and blocked Allen's putback as time expired.

The Celtics haven't beaten the Lakers in Boston in the regular season since 2007, with three of those four losses coming by a single point. The last time the Celtics beat LA on the parquet was, of course, June 13, 2010, Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Boston led the series three games to two and headed west brimming with confidence, a win away from yet another banner.

Things sure have changed since then. Kendrick Perkins, whose knee injury probably cost us the 2010 title, is gone, shipped to Oklahoma City at last year's trade deadline. Boston went down fighting to Miami in the second round of last year's playoffs, a five-game series that signaled a changing of the guard in the East. The Lakers, for their part, embarrassed themselves in getting swept by the Mavs last year, then lost key bench players in the offseason and didn't replace them. Neither team has been very impressive this season.

Yes, things are different. In past years, games like this really bugged me, not only because I hate the Lakers, but because I always had it in my mind that we might see them down the road. I'd worry for days afterward about what we'd do if they ever made Bynum and Gasol the focal point of their offense, or why R-ndo attacks their sagging defense some nights and disappears on others.

Now, there are no such worries. Neither team looks to be championship-caliber; the playoffs, for both, are not even a sure thing. And yet the loss still eats at me, and not just because I live among Lakers fans. There are a lot of games in an NBA season, but this one always means a little bit more. So the way we lost Thursday night eats at me. The fact that the offense slogged down in the second half eats at me. It gnaws at me that Doc sat Ray for so long, and that he didn't at least try Pierce on Kobe when Bryant got hot in the third quarter. (Though Ray did pretty well, all things considered; Kobe just hit some very tough shots.)

But we soldier on, across to the border to Toronto to face the Raptors in the second half of the back-to-back. Should be an easy win, under normal circumstances. But after all the minutes tonight and the letdown of letting this one slip away, it's going to take a particularly focused effort.

Viewing Alert (and this is a big one)

TNT, 8 p.m. Eastern, Lakers at Celtics

The Lakers are in Boston tonight for the first of two matchups between the two storied franchises this year. In recent years, we've become accustomed to seeing the Celtics and Lakers at the top of the standings, but both are in seventh place in their respective conferences right now, and both with the benefit of a comparatively easy early-season schedule. LA is in worse shape than we are -- the Lakers are a half-game away from being out of the playoffs, while the Celtics have a comfy four-game cushion on ninth-place New York.

Boston's on a roll, too, having won five in a row and nine of ten, though not all of those wins have come against difficult competition. LA's halfway through a six-game road trip and are just 3-9 as the visiting team this season.

If you haven't seen the Lakers yet this year, the big change is on the bench. Phil Jackson is gone, and in his place is Mike Brown, late of the Cavaliers, a well-regarded defensive mind whose teams have struggled offensively. Lamar Odom plays for the Mavs now. And Ron Artest now goes by the name "Metta World Peace."

Other than that, they're pretty much the same Lakers. Kobe is still Kobe, remarkably prolific as a scorer in his 16th season, having just passed Shaquille O'Neal for fifth-place on the NBA's all-time scoring list. In mid-January, he had a string of four consecutive 40-point games, a stretch made even more remarkable by the fact thta he did it with a torn wrist ligament (which has reportedly healed). But he's struggled lately, shooting just 35.4% (23 of 65) in the last three games. Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol are both having excellent years, but with Kobe averaging 24 shots per game (the second-highest total of his career) they aren't being used as much as they probably should be.

The bench is nothing special, but keep an eye on rookie Andrew Goudelock, their second-round pick. I was big on him coming out of College of Charleston (very disappointed that he went to the Lakers) and after a slow start, he's come on of late. He's a terrific shooter with almost unlimited range.

Anyway, should be an intense one.

Thoughts in Between the Lakers and the Heat

First of all, congratulations to Ray Allen on becoming the all-time three-point king. Prior to his arrival in Boston, my exposure to Ray was more or less limited to his days at UConn. It wasn't until he came over from Seattle in 2007-08 that I truly appreciated what a beautiful shooter he is. Despite that, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little emotional watching the Boston crowd salute him during the break after the first quarter. He helped us win at least one championship. He's one of us now.

Anyway, moving on, the Celtics lost to the Lakers on Thursday. Give credit to LA for playing a smart game, especially Kobe Bryant. In essence, they played the way I and so many others have repeatedly said they need to play in order to beat the Celtics: focus on their advantage in the post. What was especially impressive was how patient the Lakers were, not panicking as Boston built a 15-point lead. Bryant didn't try to do too much; he had faith in his teammates as they closed to within striking distance at halftime. Kobe came alive in the third quarter as the Lakers took the lead (and retook it after Boston briefly surged back ahead). But LA was able to extend the lead in the fourth quarter even with Kobe on the bench.

More than anything, I see Thursday's loss as making Danny Ainge think even harder about going out and getting another small forward before the trade deadline, with Marquis Daniels' return this season uncertain. Scott Foster hit Allen with his fourth foul on a dubious call midway through the third, and Doc Rivers' only real option on the bench was Von Wafer. Wafer's offense has really come around lately and he's worked harder on defense than I previously thought him capable of, but he's not going to be able to hang with Kobe. And while Delonte West may be able to help with that specific matchup, he won't be able to help with, say, LeBron James. And someone other than Paul Pierce is going to have to guard James for stretches should the Celtics meet the Heat in the playoffs.

What that move might be, I don't know. I don't know who's available, and I don't know what we're willing to offer. We don't have many attractive expiring contracts, and our rookies don't make enough money to bring in any significant salary. But both Doc and Danny suggested in the days after Daniels' injury that a move might need to be made, and Thursday night couldn't have done anything but strengthen that opinion.

The temptation, by the way, is to blame injuries on Thursday's loss. Boston started the game with just ten men in uniform, and in the second quarter, Nate Robinson joined West, Daniels, Jermaine O'Neal, Shaquille O'Neal, and Semih Erden on the list of unavailable players, victim of a bruised knee. But as a Celtics fan pointed out on a Laker message board after the game, Boston's starters played plenty of minutes, substantially the amount of minutes you might expect with a full complement of bench players. And the second unit actually did alright -- the game was lost with our starters on the floor.

I do think that simplifies things a bit, and not having a real backup for Allen is a problem that would be solved in this instance if either Daniels or West was healthy. But Boston's starters didn't play well enough for fans to complain that a healthy bench would have made a difference. It might on any one particular night, but it won't for a whole playoff series. If I was going to make an excuse, I'd point to the illness that kept Pierce out of practice on Wednesday. He didn't look to be close to 100% in the game.

As Sports Illustrated's Zach Lowe (a former Celtics Hub writer) pointed out, the Lakers were successful defensively by sagging Kobe off of Rajon Rondo, daring Rondo to beat them with jumpers while Kobe disrupted passing and driving lanes. (Read that Lowe article if you're interested in the Xs and Os.) LA has defended Boston like this for several years now, with varying degrees of success. (A flashback to the 07-08 Finals provides a good example. The Lakers used it to jump out to their huge lead in Game 4; Boston's historic comeback came with Eddie House on the floor. Rondo was similarly in effective in Boston's Game 5 loss, playing just 14:32, but was masterful in the Game 6 clincher in Boston.)

Clearly, there are offensive adjustments that can be made (and have been made in the past). For starters, Rondo can be more aggressive. Boston can bring its offense out higher, leaving more room underneath for Rondo to maneuver on penetration. Rondo can attack the defense from somewhere other than the top of the key, forcing the Lakers to pay more attention to him (if, say, he starts closer to the basket). And I'm sure Doc has plenty of other ideas.

But I'm not sure we'll see such adjustments any time soon, even if another team picks up this strategy. The lack of adjustment in the Lakers game suggests to me that perhaps Doc doesn't want to tip his hand. The Lakers' defensive strategy isn't new. Surely, he has a plan for it. But I can see how he wouldn't want to reveal that plan until necessary -- until the games count, in May and June.

Lowe also mentions the possibility that Miami, Boston's opponent on Sunday, also has the personnel to employ such a strategy, while a team like Orlando does not. Thinking about the Heat though, I'm not so sure. Matching up position-by-position across the perimeter, it would be Rondo-Mario Chalmers, Allen-Dwyane Wade, Pierce-James. Los Angeles executes the strategy by switching Derek Fisher -- a strong, crafty veteran -- on Allen, with Kobe playing free agent. While I think Wade can be effective in the Kobe role, I'm skeptical that Chalmers (or Carlos Arroyo) can handle Ray the way Fisher can.

The other option, and the think the one Lowe had in mind, is to have James sag off Rondo with Mike Miller checking Pierce (and Wade staying on Allen). Miller was unavailable during the teams' first two meetings, but with James and Wade, the Heat don't need a true point guard. I'm honestly not sure of Miller's defensive abilities, but thing that weighs in Boston's favor here is that unlike Allen, whose game is largely based on running off a maze of screens, Pierce is plenty comfortable with the ball in his hands. Therefore, Boston could iso Pierce on any part of the floor that it wanted, keeping the extra defender as far away from him as possible. Pierce excels at the pull-up jumper, too, which is perfect for this kind of situation, because he can get off a good shot before the help gets there. The one thing he needs to be careful of is his tendency to turn his back; that's just asking for James to swoop in for a steal and dunk.

Something to watch for, anyway. And you better be watching. Sunday, 1 p.m. Eastern, ABC. First place in the East is on the line.

Boston 109, Los Angeles Lakers 96

Revenge? Hardly. But a satisfying win nonetheless.

[recap] [box score]

For one game, at least, the Celtics solved all the problems that doomed them in the second half of Game Seven last June. Rather than getting stagnant in the second half, the offense ran smoothly and effectively, first through Paul Pierce (32 points), then through Rajon Rondo (16 assists, including 15 in the second half). Instead of getting killed on the boards, Boston came away with a with a decisive 43-30 rebounding advantage. Sure, Kobe Bryant had a relatively efficient 41 points on 29 shots, but he wasn't what beat Boston last season. And while looking ahead to a possible Boston-LA rematch in this year's Finals is putting the cart well before the horse (not to mention the Heat, Magic, and Spurs), should the teams meet again in June, Kobe won't beat Boston himself, either.

My power went out, of all things, during the second quarter, and I retired to a local cantina with my girlfriend, Liz, for the remainder of the contest. We joined a growing group of similarly situated folks in our neighborhood, and as the restaurant grew more and more packed, we spotted a couple along one of the walls who hadn't found a seat. She was wearing a Celtics jacket, he a Pearl Jam sweatshirt, and figuring that people so attired couldn't be that bad, I invited them to join us at our table. Amanda and Colby were two of only a handful of Boston fans at the bar, a group which included a young black woman in green-and-white striped socks who got off her bar stool to kick up her heels after literally every Celtics bucket. I generally try to avoid bars for important games, because I don't like to be distracted, but it was a fun way to watch.

Anyway, back to the basketball, with some bullets:

• Pierce was just outstanding today. Historically, Ron Artest has guarded him fairly well, but The Truth got off early, then tore the Lakers apart in the third quarter, scoring 14 points in the first seven minutes of the period. His hot hand forced the Lakers to switch Kobe on to him, which meant taking him off Rondo. The Lakers are one of the few teams that guard Rondo by sagging way off of him, a strategy that seems to perplex Boston's young point guard more on the road than at home. When Bryant guards Rondo, he's available to help and clog the lane, while his length counteracts some of the head start Rondo gets on penetration. With Bryant on Pierce, Rondo penetrated freely, finding the open man and an occasional layup for himself.
• Ray Allen fought off early foul trouble to score 21 points. Ray was 8-for-11 from the field and 3-for-7 from beyond the arc; the Celtics shot better than 60 percent from the floor and 52 percent from three for the game.
• Kendrick Perkins came off the bench for the fourth straight game. Many think he was the missing link -- that his torn ACL in Game 6 last year cost Boston the title -- but the big difference inside, from a Boston perspective, was Kevin Garnett. KG had 18 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists, but looking long-term, the major point is the one we've been making all year -- he's back to something close to his pre-injury form.
• Nate Robinson had his first decent game in a while. He still took one or two questionable shots ("A heat check," I explained to Liz when she objected to one of his hoists, to which Colby added: "Every shot Nate takes is a heat check") but he scored 11 valuable points.
• The only other bench player who did much of anything was Glen Davis. Big Baby has something of a reputation on showing up in big games, in part due to his playoff performances in KG's absence two seasons ago. He did seem to play with more focus today than he has in recent games, taking fewer long jumpers and patiently carving out space underneath before going up. By virtue of his extra-wide body, Davis has always had the ability to finish inside, but has often failed in that regard, going up quickly without using his body to protect the ball, seemingly forgetting that he's a lot shorter than most of the defenders who tend to hang around the basket.

After the game, Phil Jackson apparently had this to say: "It's not the playoffs yet. We're still playing regular season games. We'll get there in time."

On the one hand, Jackson's right: It is still the regular season, and Celtics fans should temper their reactions to Sunday because of that. And the Lakers succeeded with the ramp-it-up-in-the-postseason strategy last year on the way to their second title, a tactic that nearly got the Celtics a ring last season, too.

And yet this season has a number of things that last season didn't. The list starts with the San Antonio Spurs, the first team to 40 wins this season and current holders of a seven-and-a-half game lead over the Lakers. I'm still stumped as to how, exactly, the Spurs are doing this, but they are, and there's no reason to think they'll slow down enough to be caught. LA is facing the possibility of a conference finals series without home court advantage, something that really wasn't a concern last year.

The Lakers are also now four games behind the Celtics in the loss column, which could be meaningful should they meet in the Finals. If Perkins' absence in Games 6 and 7 wasn't the X-factor last year, than home court advantage might well have been, and at this pace, Boston would have it. (Again, I know I'm getting ahead of myself talking about a Boston-LA Finals. But I guarantee you the players are thinking about the same thing.)

At any rate, I just don't buy it. If Jackson wasn't concerned about the regular season, why switch Bryant on to Pierce? Why play Bryant, in his 15th NBA season, 40 minutes against the Heat? Why play Pau Gasol, wearied by playoff and international ball the last several years, 40 minutes or more on 15 occasions already?

Even if Jackson is telling the truth and doesn't care, his players do. Kobe, one of the all-time competitors (though perhaps a touch over-rated in that regard) certainly does. And Gasol and Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom looked, to me, more intimidated than disinterested in Sunday's second half.

In the big picture, Sunday's win means little more than my being able to wear a Pierce shirt tomorrow and talk a little trash with my friends here in LA. But for me, each win like this one means a little something. I think last summer had a profound effect on me; the outcome of the Finals shaking the very foundation upon which many of my ideas about basketball are built. Seeing these Celtics in form -- in 2007-08 form -- restores some order to my brain.

Links of the Day (October 17, 2010)

• Interesting article about Phil Jackon's psychological treatment of Pau Gasol. They'd get plenty out of him if they went to him more. If Jackson, the supposed genius, wants more from Gasol, he'll need to get Kobe to give up the rock. LA would not have had to squeak out Game 7 against Boston had they not waited until the fourth quarter to recognize where the biggest mismatch on the floor was.
• Zach Lowe lists 11 duos (well, ten duos and a trio) to pay special attention to as they run the pick-and-roll, RwH's favorite play.
• Canis Hoopus borrows from George Karl in suggesting how to get the most out of Michael Beasley.
• LeBron's new shoe isn't exactly modern-looking. Looks like something Larry Johnson/Grandmama might've hawked 15 years ago.
• Pepperdine's Keion Bell dunks over seven people at Midnight Madness. As impressive as that is, it's actually my third favorite thing in that video. The second is his 360 with the pass between the legs at around the 20 second mark. The first? "Club Can't Handle Me" playing in the background during the first dunk. That's right; RwH is a closet Flo Rida fan.

Boston 87, Los Angeles Lakers 86

Finally!

[recap] [box score]

After a string of frustrating losses against the NBA's best teams in which Boston held -- and then gave up -- comfortable second half leads, the Celtics finally hung on for a W -- in the defending champions' barn, no less.

Boston played three good-to-very-good quarters and then one wretched one. Leading 76-69 after three periods, Boston extended their edge to 80-71 before giving up the next 13 points. But the Cs then dug in on the defensive end, holding the Lakers to just two points over the final 7:13, and won despite their own offensive struggles.

As I was leaving the pizza joint near USC's campus where I watched the game, a Lakers fan spotted my "Beat LA" shirt and pointed out to me that Boston won by just a single point despite the fact that Los Angeles was without Kobe Bryant, who sat out his fifth straight game with a left ankle injury. This is something I talked about extensively with a Laker fan friend of mine before the game, and I want to address it here, too.

The point I want to make is somewhat subtle, and so I'm going to use a little bit of a dialectical method to make it. Here are the points I'm not trying to make: The Lakers are as good without Kobe as they are with him; the Lakers are better off without Kobe on the floor; the Celtics would have won Thursday night even if Kobe had played.

The point I do want to make is that the Lakers are still a very good team without Kobe. They are a different team, to be sure, but they are still very good. Without Bryant dominating the ball, the focus shifts to Pau Gasol, perhaps the most skilled big man in the game today, and Lamar Odom, an extraordinarily talented point forward, who, at 6-10, has the skill set of a guard. Pair those two with young Andrew Bynum, an at-times dominant seven-footer, and Ron Artest, and you've got an almost impossible team to defend that controls the boards and guards very well, too.

Bryant famously doesn't sit out very often, so empirical evidence of this point is rather thin, but consider the Lakers' four games prior to tonight's, all without Kobe: a 17-point win at Portland; a 12-point win over San Antonio; a 15-point win at Utah; and a 10-point win over Golden State. It's even more impressive than that brief treatment makes it sound. Utah currently has the third-best record in the West; San Antonio has the fifth-best record; and Portland owns the eighth-best -- although just three-and-a-half games separate the Jazz and Blazers in the standings. Moreover, Bynum played just ten minutes against Portland before injuring his hip, and didn't play at all in the wins over San Antonio and Utah.

My point is that removing Bryant from the Lakers is not the same as, say, taking LeBron James off of the Cavaliers. Sure, if you take Bryant away completely, LA probably isn't leading Denver by six games for the top spot in the West, but aside from those Nuggets, there isn't a Western team you can point to that is clearly better than a Kobe-less Lakers team. It's fallacious to unilaterally say that if Bryant played Thursday night, the Lakers would have won comfortably. Remember, Bryant played 45 minutes the last time these two teams met, when the Lakers eked out a one-point victory.

With that said, it'd also be fallacious to ignore Los Angeles' major offensive struggles in the last half of the fourth quarter. I can't imagine that there have been very many times over the years where the Lakers have managed just two points in more than seven minutes with Bryant on the floor. And given Bryant's prowess for scoring in such situations, it's not a stretch to say that with him in the lineup, they'd be a favorite to get a bucket on at least one of their final four possessions, rather than the 0-fer they ended up with. And that illustrates best what I mean when I say that the Lakers are a different team without Bryant: At least in a single-game situation, they are capable of being as good without him as with him for the first 45 minutes or so. But down the stretch, when nerves tighten, the defense intensifies, and the officials tend to put the whistles away, they sorely miss the services of the best assassin in the game today.

The upshot of this whole sidebar is that, just as it's almost always wrong to draw any conclusions from a single regular-season basketball game, it's wrong for Lakers fans to take solace in comments like the one made to me after the game tonight. The Lakers who did play Thursday night played well, and Boston won -- despite a 25-13 free throw discrepancy, despite a terrible night from Rasheed Wallace, despite the fact that the bench was a non-factor, and despite the fact that the Celtics were without both the recently-deposed Eddie House and the newly-acquired-but-not-yet-in-uniform Nate Robinson. The Lakers would still be the favorite in a seven-game series, but the Celtics wouldn't be too long of a shot. We're right there.

Boston 100, Philadelphia 99

I picked a bad night to be busy. Ray Allen hits a game-winner and I missed it because I was busy with law school stuff.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

You can look at the box score and highlights yourself. The one thing I want to say is that for those who have followed Paul Pierce's career, it's so refreshing to see him notch the game-winning assist. Not that he's an inherently selfish player; just that there was a time when everyone knew who was taking a last-second shot for Boston.

Nice screen by Glen Davis to free Ray, too. Davis had a double-double starting for Kevin Garnett, who missed his second straight game due to illness. I think I'd better get used to Davis over Powe in the lineup.

As alluded to at the end of the ESPN clip, above, Boston now owns the two longest winning streaks in the NBA this year; the 19-gamer that ended Christmas Day in Los Angeles, and this current 12-gamer. Our next game? Thursday night against those very same Lakers, at 8 p.m. on TNT. Actually, they aren't "those very same Lakers": They are of course without Andrew Bynum, though that didn't matter much against New York on Monday night - Kobe Bryant set the Madison Square Garden single-game scoring record by dropping 61 on the Knicks (highlights). I don't think the Lakers can beat us with Kobe dominating the ball like that - we're much better defensively than the Knicks. There's some speculation that Bryant went out and played the way he did because he felt responsible for Bynum's knee injury (Kobe fell on Bynum's leg, causing the torn MCL). It will be interesting to see if Kobe continues in the "I've gotta do everything" mindset, or reverts back to trusting his teammates like he did so well last year.

Speaking of Bynum, another contender suffered an injury loss that deals a serious blow to their title chances. Orlando Magic PG Jameer Nelson tore the labrum in his right shoulder after being fouled by Dallas' Erick Dampier Monday night. He may miss the rest of the season.

I' m not as high on Nelson as this guy is (scroll down to the comments section to see the friendly back and forth we had about Jameer) but this is obviously a big blow to Orlando, whose backup point guard is journeyman Anthony Johnson, and whose backup to Anthony Johnson is ... nobody. They've got to make a move, but whatever move they make, it won't compensate for the loss of Nelson. They should still win the Southeast (they currently have a nine-game lead on Atlanta), but barring similiar injuries in Cleveland or Boston, they are facing a second-round playoff series on the road. Pretty harsh for a team that's started 36-11.