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.

Boston 99, Toronto 95

The Celtics are making it awfully hard to write this season off.

Boston overcame a ten-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter to hold off the Raptors in Toronto. It was the team's fifth win in a row, and they are still undefeated since Rajon Rondo and Jared Sullinger went down with season-ending injuries. Kevin Garnett was the offensive hero for most of the evening, leading the team with 27 points, while Leandro Barbosa sparked the team in the crucial fourth quarter.

On the other end of the court, the Raptors missed a bunch of decent looks at mid-range and perimeter jump shots in the fourth quarter. That isn't particularly unusual for Boston opponents over the past few years. In previous seasons, the Celtic D was good enough that you could automatically give it credit for an opponent's bad shooting quarter, even if it wasn't entirely apparent what we were doing to make it difficult on the opposing team. This year's defense hasn't earned that right yet, though we're undoubtedly getting better at that end of the court. If I have an overall concern right now, it's turnovers. Paul Pierce is being asked to perform too many point guard duties. I get that he needs to be a playmaker, but even without Rondo, we have plenty of guards. Let's have them bring the ball up, at least.

Boston's current surge has them tied with Milwaukee for the seventh seed in the East (the Bucks have the tiebreaker, so as it stands, we're technically eighth). We're only two games back of Atlanta for the six, however, and more importantly, we're four games clear of our closest pursuer -- Philadelphia, who, by the way, still doesn't have Andrew Bynum and just lost Thaddeus Young for three weeks with a leg injury.

Rightly or wrongly, barring some sort of collapse during these last two weeks before the trade deadline, it may be this stretch that allows Pierce and Garnett to retire as Celtics. When Rondo went down, most felt that Boston's playoff chances went down with him, and the Cs were expected to shop their extensive veterans to contenders. But now Boston has a reasonable grip on that playoff stop. Dissembling a playoff team is hard enough, from a public relations perspective -- doing it just to cash in an all-time Celtic, and one of the team's most popular players in recent memory, might cause quite an uproar among Boston's vocal fan base.

Boston is back at it Thursday night, as the Lakers come to town in a game that, due to injuries, won't have quite the same luster it has had in recent seasons. LA, of course, is having a nightmare season of its own. Having added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, the Lakers were expected to contend for a championship. Instead, Nash got hurt, Howard and Gasol struggled to co-exist, and they fired their coach just a couple weeks into the season. Their playoff chances hanging by a thread as Nash returned, Howard injured, then re-injured, his shoulder, and has missed the last several games. To top it all off, the team found out Wednesday that Gasol would be out 4 to 6 weeks with a foot injury.

Still, it's LA-Boston, which means it's worth watching. Thursday night, TNT, 8:00 pm Eastern.

Los Angeles Lakers 97, Boston 94

[recap] [box score]

There were some good things to take from Sunday's game, and some bad things. All in all, this narrow loss to the Lakers emphasized the weaknesses of these Celtics: poor rebounding; an ineffective bench; and an over-reliance on jump shots.

Despite those weaknesses -- and a terrible first quarter, and a lethargic afternoon from Paul Pierce, and injuries to our top two centers -- we had a chance to win this game. Brandon Bass missed a wide-open 15-footer with less than a minute to go that would have put us up. He had hit a handful of similar, more difficult shots in the game, but this one just missed. The Lakers got the ball to Andrew Bynum deep in the post on the ensuing possession, and the young fella dropped in a six-foot hook over Kevin Garnett to put the Lakers up three. Boston got a couple of difficult looks at a game-tying three, but they went begging.

Headed to the Staples Center tomorrow night for the game against the Clippers (thanks Liz!). I'll have a more in-depth discussion of the team after that one, I think -- I've got some NCAA blogging to do tonight.

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.

Phoenix 88, Boston 71

Friday was one of those nights in the NBA.

[recap] [box score]

It was somewhat predictable, really. The second night of a road back-to-back is always tough, and Phoenix' up-tempo style is particularly difficult to deal with. In addition, Boston's got a huge game coming up on Sunday against the Lakers. And the Celtics had struggled in Thursday night's win against Portland.

Some quick bullets:

• Doc Rivers got thrown out in the second quarter after Steve Javie hit him with two quick Ts. The first was probably justified -- the second came awfully quick thereafter.
• The AP wire story linked above focuses quite a bit on an allegedly low blow that Kevin Garnett laid on Channing Frye. It wasn't nearly as bad as the story makes it sound. Earlier in the game, Garnett had closed out on a Frye jumper and gotten a little too close, and Frye landed on KG's foot and tweaked his ankle a bit. Late in the game, the same sort of thing happened, with KG subtly trying to jab Frye in the stomach, a fairly common tactic to distract a shooter. He missed, but the contact to Frye's groin area wasn't what set Frye off. The ensuing melee -- for which Garnett was thrown out merely, it appeared, for talking -- was caused by Frye's belief that KG was purposely getting underneath him and endangering his knee and ankle.
• Boston was actually in the game at that point, having been energized by a flagrant foul on Phoenix's Mickael Pietrus. Pietrus ran through a Garnett screen with his arms up, catching KG in the neck and jaw area. It was a much bigger cheap shot than what Garnett did to Frye, unless you believe that KG was actually trying to hurt Frye by sticking his foot out for Frye to land on. I don't.
• Basketball-wise, there isn't much to talk about. Boston couldn't shoot and couldn't hang on to the ball. No one played well offensively. Defensively, they weren't horrible, but the bigs got pushed around by Robin Lopez and Marcin Gortat, and that kind of set the tone.
• Glen Davis didn't play in the second half after straining his hamstring in the first. I hear it's not serious, but I'm unsure if he'll play Sunday against the Lakers.
• Speaking of the Lakers, as bad as we were on Friday, at least we didn't lose to the Kings at home.

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.

Los Angeles Lakers 90, Boston 89

The frustration grows.

[recap] [box score]

I'm going to start by trying to put things in perspective, because if I don't, I'm going to start ranting about negative stuff and never get to the less-negative stuff. So here goes: We're not as far off the pace as our recent results have made it seem. We're too good and too experienced for moral victories, but isn't about moral victories, it's about reality. And the reality is that we weren't 100% healthy on Sunday; we got above-average performances from Rajon Rondo and Tony Allen, an average day from Eddie House, and below-average afternoons from everyone else; and we still were within one possession of taking down the defending champs. Granted, the Lakers aren't exactly healthy (Kobe Bryant's apparently playing through all sorts of injuries), nor did we get their best shot, but it was a much more even performance by the visitors. The point is that though we're not even the favorites in the East anymore, we're still a contender as constructed, provided we're healthy (a big if, but there's not much we can do right now to change that).

Really, I have just one general complaint about this game, and it's the way we played the final few minutes. Yes, we turned the ball over 18 times and gave Andrew Bynum five offensive rebounds, but we would have won had we executed on a few more possessions down the stretch. Our failure to do was due, I feel, to our insistence on slowing the pace of the game way down and relying on isolating Paul Pierce for offense late in the shot clock. To casual observers, this strategy may appear to be that of a team with shaken confidence, a team trying desperately to hang on rather than proactively trying to win the game. Of course, those who follow this team closely know better: This is our default strategy in the fourth quarter of tight contests. I'm generally not a fan of this tactic, but I grudgingly accept it on occasions where Pierce is going well. Sunday was not one of those games. Pierce picked up two fouls within the first three minutes and had to sit; as a result, he never found his rhythm. He made four field goals for the entire game -- a trio of second-quarter three-pointers (wide open looks from Rondo assists) and a fastbreak layup in the third quarter. Not once on Sunday did he take his man into the high post, face up, and hit a midrange jumper, his standard move in those spots. On days like that, at least, we need to go with what's working. Rondo entered the fourth quarter with 21 points and 11 assists; he finished with 21 and 12 despite playing the final eight minutes.

It'll be interesting to see where the team goes from here. They're back at it Monday night, against a dreadful Washington team. The next real challenge comes Wednesday night against Miami on ESPN (8 p.m. Eastern).

Celts drop two to conference rivals

Orlando 96, Boston 94 [recap] [box score]

Atlanta 100, Boston 91 [recap] [box score]

Frankly, this admittedly brutal back-to-back went about as badly as it could have gone.

Boston led by as many as 15 at the Magic on Thursday, and held a three-point lead with less than a minute left, but blew the game late. It was the team's first loss after leading by double digits in the fourth quarter during the Kevin Garnett/Ray Allen era. And it was a soul-crushing defeat for a team that entered the game with already shaken confidence.

Friday night in Atlanta went exactly the way you wouldn't want the second game of a very tough three-in-four-nights stretch to go: A very physical, exhausting game; an early deficit followed by a big third quarter rally; and then a fourth quarter in which the Hawks made all the big shots. The result has negative psychological consequences, too: It completed the first regular season sweep by Atlanta in eleven years, and Boston has now ceded second place in the East to the Hawks.

There are reasons for optimism. Orlando shot 40 free throws to Boston's 18 and yet still didn't lead until fewer than five minutes remained; Boston was still in the driver's seat in the last minute and easily could have won despite the free throw discrepancy. Against Atlanta, the Celtics played terribly all night and still were within one possession of the lead as the fourth quarter dawned. But there are too many negatives right now to dwell on the positives without being a typical fan blogger, a role I'm desperately trying to fight off after being told that lately I've been viewing the officiating, Tommy Heinsohn-style, through green-shaded glasses.

The biggest concern may be Kevin Garnett's health. A recap of The Big Ticket's last 11 months: Boston's title defense is apparently temporarily derailed when he injures his knee in Utah on 2/19/09; after sitting 13 games, he returns for four games under a strict minutes cap; he's held out of the next several games as his return gets pushed back over and over;fans are told he'll definitely be back for the championship run; on the eve of the playoffs, we learn that he won't be back for the postseason; he has surgery in the offseason; he returns in time to start 2009-10, only with a noticeable hitch in his gait and diminished explosiveness; he gradually shakes the rust off, looking more or less like a slightly elderly version of his old self; he hyperextends the knee after Christmas; what was supposed to be a few-game absence stretches to ten games as his return is again pushed back; and he shows few ill effects in wins over the Blazers and Clippers in his first two contests back.

Here's what's worrisome: Against Orlando, KG was back to being the player he was at the beginning of the season -- which is to say, not KG. Twice he failed to get high enough to convert one of his signature alley-oops, and he was outjumped for rebounds on a number of occasions. Against Atlanta, he looked a bit better, throwing down a couple of ferocious dunks, but he again lost out on a couple of boards he would have easily snared two years ago. It's debatable if Boston is a legitimate title contender even with a healthy-as-he's-gonna-be KG; if he's not even that, we have no shot. (Celtics Blog ran this excerpt from John Hollinger regarding KG that more or less sums up my feelings on the situation.)

Speaking of, now is as good a time as any to address the question of whether Boston has realistic championship hopes at this stage. The Celtics are not, I don't think, a full tier below the Lakers, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Orlando. They may well be a player short, however, of being better than those squads. Rasheed Wallace was supposed to be that player, but his inconsistent scoring and tiresome act vis-a-vis the officials have minimized his impact.

It could be that that player is Marquis Daniels. Boston misses Daniels' play on both ends of the floor; he's a strong defender on the wing and he organizes the second team offensively, subordinating his own offense for the benefit of others. That latter quality is lacking in most of the bench guys. We need him around to get better looks for Eddie House, to coax the most out of Glen Davis, to get Wallace into the post. If it's not Daniels, then Danny Ainge will have to make a move, though it's not clear to me who that trade would be for or even who might be included in such a deal.

Sunday we host the Lakers (12:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC). LA's on the seventh game of an eight-game roadtrip. Even though I know Doc won't do it (and rightly so), part of me wants Boston to treat this one like a post-season game and go all out. We need the confidence, we need the swagger, we need to re-establish our home floor as a nearly impossible place to win.

Boston 105, Miami 98

The Celtics were once again a little shaky in the fourth, but made the necessary plays in the final minutes and won their sixth straight.

[recap] [box score]

Cleveland's win over Philadelphia clinched home court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs (and LA's loss at Portland gives them a leg up on securing homecourt for the Finals, should they get there). However, Boston's win combined with Orlando's surprising loss to New York in the Magic Kingdom gave the Celtics a leg up on the second seed in the East. Boston leads Orlando by two games, and if I understand my tiebreakers correctly, the "magic number" is one: Any Boston win or Orlando loss in the season's final three games gives Boston the #2.

Next game is Sunday, Cleveland, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. I have a feeling that Doc Rivers is going to play this game down, as he has with any "big" matchup all year -- for Doc, all regular season games are worth the same. I think that's probably the smart play, particularly in this case. The Celtics likely won't need the game for seeding purposes. It's best not to over-extend this late in the season, and there's some psychological risk in going all-out in this game and not quite getting there. On the other hand, a victory, on Cleveland's home floor, without Kevin Garnett, could be damaging to the Cavs, especially if the Celtics are treating it like any other game. The Cavs have been nearly invincible at home, losing only to the Lakers so far, and realizing their own basketball mortality might have a negative impact.

Or it might not. I'm grasping at straws a bit. Cleveland's really good this year.

Speaking of Garnett, the word is that he'll play in the season finale on Wednesday.

San Antonio 105, Boston 99

Kind of a surprising game yesterday.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

I'm not used to seeing that kind of intensity, particulary on the defensive end, from San Antonio on the defensive end. I'm not used to the Celtics -- not these Celtics, anyway -- losing games when they're up three and the ball with a minute to play. And I'm certainly not used to seeing Matt Bonner score 23 points.

As always, I'm (reluctantly) impressed with the Spurs. So good defensively when they apply themselves like they did against us, and a seemingly endless roster of unflappable players who step up in big moments. Rookie George Hill, out of IUPUI, had all seven of his points in the fourth quarter. Bonner pulled the Spurs to within one late, after which Roger Mason Jr. - who is making a habit of these things - drained a leaning three-ball to take the lead for good.

The one thing I didn't like too much about this game was that I thought Paul Pierce really forced the offense, particlarly late in the third and early in the fourth when he was playing with the second string. He's obviously the man in that spot and we need scoring from him, but he's gotta recognize that teams are focused on him in those situations, and a good defense team like the Spurs won't let him get in the lane. I also with we'd stop running that set where he posts up on the same latitudinal line as Rajon Rondo, 15 feet from the basket on the opposite elbow, and Rondo loops the ball to him. That's a pass that's just waiting to get stolen in a big moment. It's long, slow, loopy -- and wost of all, easy to see coming.

We lost a chance to pick up a game on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the race for Eastern supremacy (and homecourt advantage through the Eastern Conference finals). The Los Angeles Lakers dealt the Cavs their first home loss of the season, and this is about the only time it's' acceptable to be happy about a Lakers win. LA picked up another win against us for home court should we both make the Finals, but I still think that the loss of Andrew Bynum is enough to keep up with the win pace of the elite Eastern teams.

Two off days now before a New Orleans-Dallas back-to-back in advance of the All-Star Game. It's the start of a six-game road trip. The Mavs game is on TNT on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Eastern.

Los Angeles Lakers 110, Boston 109 (OT)

First, all credit to the Lakers. Third game in four days at the end of a road trip and they played a lot tougher than they did in last year's Finals.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

You could blame the officials for this one. You could put it on Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen being slowed by the flu. I point directly at Doc Rivers.

After Lamar Odom hit a couple of free throws to put the Lakers up by one in overtime with 16 seconds left, Boston called a 20-second timeout. Here's the lineup Doc came up with: Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, Glen Davis, and Kendrick Perkins. To be fair, Davis was in the game because Garnett had fouled out with a few minutes left in regulation.

The first problem I have with this lineup is: NO EDDIE HOUSE!

Never mind the fact that Eddie was the only guy who had his jumper going (4-for-6 from deep), or that he has killed the Lakers the last season and a half, or that the guy he would have replaced, Davis, was having a terrible shooting night. We needed Eddie in to space the floor.

KG was out, and Rondo and Perkins are limited offensively to the point where you don't have to worry too much about them. Davis was having an awful game. The Lakers were able to focus their defensive energy on Pierce and Allen, and neither had room to operate. Eddie would open up the court more, and of course he's very dangerous if the Lakers happened to leave him open.

Secondly, in the absence of House, Doc chose to play Davis instead of Leon Powe. I've been ranting about Doc's choice of Glen Davis over Leon Powe for a while now, and last night it finally came back to bite us. I remember writing a few weeks ago that while Davis might have the potential to produce a little more on a given night, he also has the potential to shoot us out of any game. Last night, though he did make one big jumper, he did almost exactly that, going 1-for-8 from the field. I've said something similar before, but I'll say it again: Glen Davis should never go 1-for-8 in an important game on this team.

What was especially infuriating about watching Davis clang shot after shot down the stretch (while getting abused by Lamar Odom -- an admittedly tough cover for Davis -- on the other end) is that Doc finally let Leon Powe out of purgatory and Powe responded with 10 points and eight rebounds in 16 minutes (on 5-of-7 shooting). And yet it was Davis who played the crunch-time minutes.

Anyway, I'm pretty sick of talking about this game. Very good win for the Lakers. We'll see what implications it has. The one obvious one is that were the two teams to meet in the Finals after posting the exact same overall record during the regular season, the Lakers would get homecourt advantage. That would be very important should it come to pass, but I'm not too worried about it. The odds of two teams ending with the same record aren't great to begin with, and I have to figure that the Lakers are going to lose a couple here and there that they would have won with Andrew Bynum. The other consequence would be confidence on the part of the Lakers, since they've now won in a building they couldn't win in last June.

The Celtics will try to start a new winning streak when they play New York tonight. Next natioanl TV game is San Antonio on Sunday, at 1 pm. Eastern, on ABC.

Boston 109, Minnesota 101

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

So it turns out that I was completely wrong, and that flagrant-twos do not result in an automatic suspension. So while Kendrick Perkins' foul on Jason Maxiell Friday night cost him ten grand, it didn't cost him a game, and he was in action Sunday. That turned out to be a very good thing, indeed, as our frontcourt rotation was nonetheless shortened, as Kevin Garnett missed this game, as he is apparently suffering from the flu -- an illness that may keep him out of Tuesday's matchup with Philly.

(That's a striking example of too many ases - as'? Can't be! - that I'm going to leave intact as a reminder to continue to work on my writing.)

I overslept and missed the first 18 minutes or so of this one, but it appears that after a fast Wolves start, the Cs jumped all over the young visitors with a 33-20 second quarter that resulted in a 62-44 halftime lead. Minnesota came back valiantly, but Boston hung on behind 36/8/6 from Paul Pierce, assisted by 22 points from Ray Allen, 14 points (including a dozen in the first half) from Tony Allen, and 12 points from Glen Davis, who started in Garnett's stead.

Al Jefferson is a monster, by the way, and his 34 points and 11 rebounds kept an overmatched team's faint hopes alive. Anyone who thinks that Celtics GM Danny Ainge ripped off Wolves coach/GM Kevin McHale (a former Celtics teammate) is crazy. KG was the key player to last season and I don't think Boston wins the title with Jefferson in his place, but in locking up a 23-year-old (22 at the time) power forward who is a 20/10 machine, McHale got good value for an aging superstar who was too long in the tooth to be the centerpiece of the franchise. This isn't anywhere close to as bad as the trade the Lakers pulled off with Memphis to bring in Pau Gasol last year.

Speaking of the Lakers, the Gasol deal was in response to the season-ending knee injury suffered by Andrew Bynum last January. In a cruel twist of fate, Bynum was injured Saturday night during a win over Memphis, when Kobe Bryant fell on Bynum's other knee after a drive to the basket. Bynum underwent an MRI on Sunday, and the results should be known some time on Monday.

I think ESPN's Stephen A. Smith overstates the case a bit -- as he so often does -- in the link above when he says that if Bynum is done for the year, their championship hopes end. It certainly weakens them, but without Bynum, they are still by and large the team that made the Finals last year. Lamar Odom should flourish stepping back into his starting role, and the Lakers should still be the favorites to come out of the West even if Bynum is on the shelf for the rest of the season.

Even if Bynum comes back at some point during the 2008-2009 season, however, there are implications for the rest of the league. He is bound to miss at least some time, and the Lakers will undoubtedly lose some games they would have won had he been healthy. Those few games could be crucial, as the team with the best overall record in the league gets home court advantage throughout the playoffs, including the Finals. The Lakers have nine losses, tied for fewest in the league with Boston and Cleveland (Orlando is one back in the loss column, with ten). While Los Angeles probably can hang on to home court advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs even if Bynum misses the rest of the year (San Antonio is currently five games back), they are in serious danger of losing home court advantage to whatever East team they might meet in the Finals. Home court isn't everything, but when teams are evenly matched, as they are this year, it can often be the deciding factor (Cleveland, for example, hasn't lost a single game at home this season).

Such is the world of the NBA: one team's loss is every other team's gain.

Next game for Boston, as alluded to above, is Tuesday at Philadelphia. No national TV, though clear your calendar for Thursday night, as the Celtics host the Lakers at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

Boston 108, Sacramento 63

Not a whole lot to say substantively on a night when the Kings couldn't hit Mexico if they fell out of Texas.

[recap] [box score]

I don't take much joy in embarassing hapless Sacto on its homecourt, not when two of my favorite non-Celtic NBA players, Beno Udrih and Donte' Greene, play for them. They are without Kevin Martin, who is clearly their best player, and his backup, Francisco Garcia, didn't play the second half because of an injury. Neither guy is likely to have mattered tonight, but still, as blowouts go, given that we had just lost two in a row, this one could have been expected.

However, I will note the following: With 3:12 to go in the game and the score 104-58, Kings rookie Jason Thompson went to the line for a couple of free throws. At that moment, it occurred to me that Sacramento had not yet scored the number of points that Boston had scored in the first half (it was 59-34 at the break). When Thompson missed both freebies, I allowed myself the thought that perhaps the Kings would go scoreless the rest of the way, and we'd have scored all the points we needed to score in the first half. Alas, 34 seconds later, Quincy Douby knocked down a couple from the line, and there went that.

Still, it got me thinking a little bit about this, and whether it's ever happened in NBA history, or, say, the shot-clock era, to make it easier. More specifically, I noted that when Kevin Garnett knocked down a 22-footer to make it 64-34 with 10:38 left in the third quarter, Boston had scored every point it needed to score the rest of the game. The Cs could have gone scoreless for more than 22 and a half minutes and still theoretically have won.

I'm keenly interested in this stat for some reason, at least for the time being. Preliminarily, let's call it Time To Winning Points (TTWP). The Celtics' TTWP against the Kings was 25:22. Because I have no way of going back and figuring it out myself, I'm calling it a record and will be monitoring it via NBA boxscores for the rest of the season, and, perhaps, eternity. If someone with access to the Stats, Inc., database wants to check to see where Boston's accomplishment ranks all-time, or wants to email John Hollinger and bug him to do it, I'd be very interested in the results.

Note: After I wrote this, I went back and read some old posts, and realized that last year's 104-59 win over the Knicks was a good candidate for a game with a better TTWP than this one. However, a Ray Allen triple with 10:04 left in the third quarter gave us a 60-31 lead, making our TTWP for that game 25:56, 34 seconds longer than tonight against Sacto. The record stands!

-I want to take a moment to reflect on the Golden State loss, which came as a disappiontment, though not necessarily a surprise, when I saw the score in my grandmother's living room on Saturday morning. I was worried about that one, because I figured we'd have a big letdown after the Lakers game and maybe wouldn't be all that "up" for the Warriors, who like to go up and down and whose arena can be a nightmare for visiting teams. I figured we might get behind early and never really challenge, or maybe keep it close (Golden State's defense is horrible, so it's hard to fall too far behind) but not have anything left for a big push.

I was not expecting, however, to lose an eight-point fourth-quarter lead that had been as big as 14 in the second half.

Everyone seemed to chalk it up to being tired, but I just don't know. It's hard to say for sure without having watched the game, but it seems just as likely to me that this was just one of those days, one of those games that happens over the course of an 82-game season. And I know Perk didn't play (he aggravated his shoulder injury against LA), but you don't need a lot of size against Golden State, and it seems that it wasn't their inside guys who hurt us; the damage was done on the perimeter.

I said at the beginning of the season and have reiterated throughout that I don't mind losing to teams we won't have to worry about during the playoffs. I was taking for granted, however, that we'd earn home court advantage. After all, we just set the record for best 29-game start in NBA history; who'd have thought that Cleveland would match us nearly win-for-win and we'd gain all of one game on the Cavs during our 19-game winning streak? The bottom line is that these losses against the Woyas and the Pacers and the Nuggets become increasingly important now that the Cavs, who stand at 26-4 to our 28-4, seem poised to make their own run at history. The Cavs are good enough this year that home court advantage could well decide a playoff series with them, so every game matters.

To that end, then, it would be nice, rest of the NBA, if you'd stop giving away games to the Cavs at home. Cleveland beat Miami Sunday night to move to 16-0 at the Q; the Heat had a nine-point lead heading into the fourth quarter and lost by seven. And this came on the heels of the Christmas Day game with Washington, when the lowly Wizards couldn't hold on to a seven-point lead with 1:39 to go, surrendering the game's final 11 points in a 93-89 loss. Watching that one after seeing Boston lose to LA was pretty sick.

-Speaking of the Warriors, which I was a few paragraphs ago, I'm sure there are some Lakers fans who would like to point out that those Warriors got crushed at Staples Center tonight, 130-113. Lest they get too excited, however, I'd like to remind them that LA's third loss of the season was to...the Kings, 113-101, and Sacto didn't have Martin in that one, either.

Next game is Tuesday, December 30, at Portland (10 pm Eastern, no national TV). I'll be in Atlanta for a wedding, but should be able to watch the game and post about it at some point on the 31st.

Los Angeles Lakes 92, Boston 83

Well, we weren't going to win 'em all.

[recap] [box score]

Up two points with four minutes to go in LA is about all we can ask for, and we were there last night. That we didn't close it out is disappointing, but the Lakers needed a big-time performance from Pau Gasol down the stretch to close it out, not to mention a couple of big three-pointers from Lamar Odom to even be in that spot. I'll take my chances against those guys.

I came into this season thinking that, even if we were the defending champs, the Lakers were the team to beat. That opinion hasn't changed all that much despite our record-setting start, although the Lakers' inability to play consistently good defense had me less worried about them as the season has progressed. If anything, then, that we were so close to winning in LA despite being thoroughly outplayed is fairly reassuring. It's kind of weird to say, but given that the Lakers got the contributions they were lacking last ear from guys like Gasol and Odom and still barely beat us, I feel pretty good about last night.

We're back in action tonight, at Golden State at 10:30 pm Eastern. The game's on NBATV, so I won't be able to see it. I'm also heading out of town for a couple of days, so I won't be able to blog about it either. I'll be back to post on Sunday, after we play the Sacramento Kings.

Boston 110, Philadelphia 91

A franchise-best 19th straight win. An NBA record 27-2 start. And a rare opportunity for Rhymes With Hondo to catch a Celtics game live.

[recap] [box score]

As most of you surely know, the Celtics lone trip West to play the Lakers comes Christmas Day. Since I'm back in DC, the only time I'll get a chance to catch the Cs live in LA will be on February 25, when they play the Clippers at the tail end of a six-game Western swing. So I took the opportunity of a few days between the end of school and the holidays to make a trip up to Boston to see friends and take in a game.

Of course, when I made the arrangements, I didn't know that it would be something of an historic evening. Being in the building to watch these records being set was a neat experience, though, even if the game -- the outcome being never really in doubt -- wasn't the height of excitement.

At any rate, I don't think I've been this excited for Christmas Day in like 20 years! This should be the game of the NBA season; the first Finals rematch, in a decades-old rivalry renewed last spring. Los Angeles isn't playing quite at its best: After a torrid start, they've lost three of their last ten, a completely respectable stretch in any normal year. This is not a normal year, however, as the Lakers 23-5 mark is actually third-best in the league, behind not only the Celtics, but the 24-4 Cavaliers. Defense, the main thing that LA critics harped on last year, again seems to be the problem, and the Lakers have lost the focus on that end of the floor that they had to start the year. It's hard to imagine, however, that focus and intensity on either end is going to be lacking Thursday night.

I think Rajon Rondo, who has been as important to this 19-game run as any other Celtic, will be the difference between winning and losing for the Cs. The Lakers effectively neutralized him for much of the Finals last year, sagging off of him and basically ignoring him when the Celtics were on offense. This year, teams do that at their own peril, as Rondo has taken a giant step forward, attacking the basket fearlessly and finishing often once he gets there. I don't necessarily think that the "Let Rondo beat us" strategy is necessarily a bad one -- it's hard to say, as a Boston opponent, that you'd rather have the ball in Paul Pierce's hands, or Ray Allen's, or Kevin Garnett's. But Rondo needs to take that as an invitation. He's done it a lot recently, but never in a game as big as this one, and less so on the road then at home.

Tip is at 5 p.m. Eastern on ABC. Merry Christmas.

Viewing Alert

Thursday if the first night of a national TV back-to-back for the Cs. Eight p.m. Eastern at Washington, on TNT.

The Wizards suck -- to be fair, they've had some injuries -- but they sucked last year and that didn't stop us from going 1-3 against them (after blowing them out in the season-opener). We never play well in Washington, but hopefully last year caught our attention and we'll come out focused and do what we need to tonight.

Those who don't follow the NBA should know that the Cleveland Cavaliers, our chief rivals in the East, are apparently playing out of their minds right now. Sure, they only have a ten-game winning streak to our twelve-gamer, but over that stretch, they are just eviscerating people, winning by an average margin of 20 points per game. Granted, the nine teams they've beaten over that stretch (they had the Knicks twice). That's a huge margin in this league, and people are taking notice. My daily newsletter from NBA.com had this story that mentioned the Cavs as contenders for the magical 70-win mark.

Allow me, however, to temper Cavs' fans enthusiasm just a bit: Of the nine teams the Cavs have beaten during their streak (they had the Knicks twice), only one (Atlanta, at 12-9) has a winning record. Collectively, the group is 72-116, a winning percentage of .383. While the Celtics' victims during their current streak haven't exactly been world beaters (.438) winning percentage, we have beaten Orlando (third-best record in the East); Portland (fourth-best record in the West); and Detroit (11-9).

We've had some close games; Cleveland hasn't. The streaks are comparable. I'm not ready to hand over the crown yet, nor am I prepared to say that either team has a good probability of 70 wins. There's a reason it's only happened once. Too much has to go right, and you have to bring it every night. Just a few weeks ago there was talk of the Lakers getting 70, but they went out and lost to the Pacers and then the Kings. The league is too good right now, in my opinion, for a team to hit that mark.