Phoenix 79, Boston 71

[recap] [box score]

You might be tempted to look at the box score of this game, note the absence of Rajon R-ndo's name, and assume that was the reason the Celtics managed just 71 points while just shooting just 40 percent from the floor. And it's probably true that R-ndo, who missed the game with the sprained wrist he suffered Wednesday night against Toronto, would have made a big enough difference to swing the outcome of this game from a Boston loss to a Boston win; he's much too quick for Steve Nash, and indeed registered his career high of 32 points in a matchup with Nash in the 2008-09 season, well before he became a consistent scoring threat.

Hell, even R-ndo's backup, Keyon Dooling, might have made the difference. It wouldn't have taken much: The Suns didn't exactly scorch the net themselves, and they turned the ball over 21 times. But Dooling sat this one out, too, sidelined for the fifth straight game with a sore knee.

What's really frustrating, though, is that Boston could have -- should have -- won this game, even without their first- or second-string point guard. It came down, as it has in each of the team's last seven losses, to the most basic fundamental in the game of basketball: making open shots.

At around 45 percent on the season, the Celtics are in the middle of the NBA pack when it comes to shooting. And yet, I'd bet that if you filtered the data for open, mid-range jumpers, Boston would rank at or near the bottom of the league. (There's a good chance such data is available, but I don't know where to get it.)

You really ought to be able to take an open jumper for granted in the NBA. I'd say that almost every team, at any given time, has at least three guys on the floor who you'd feel reasonably confident in taking a wide-open 15- or 17-footer. Right now, Boston has two guys on its entire roster who I feel confident seeing take those shots: The great Ray Allen, who hasn't exactly lit it up recently, and Brandon Bass, our backup power forward.

That's not good, and it gets worse, because so much of Boston's offense is predicated on that mid-range jumper. (Again, I'm sure the data to prove or disprove this claim is out there.) Sure, we'll run Allen off of screens to try and spring him for a three, and R-ndo will take matters into his own hands and penetrate on occasion, but there's no post-up game to speak of, and so many of R-ndo's forays into the lane end in a kick-out to a teammate whose defender has sloughed off to help.

Statistically speaking, an offense based around mid-range jump shots is not a good one: you're better off taking a contested three than a contested two, for example, because the added difficulty of making the longer shot is outweighed by the extra point when the shot is made. Boston has succeeded in recent years in part because it has some excellent mid-range shooters, in part because the shots they got were more open than is typical, and in part because their defense was so good that they didn't need to be outstanding offensively.

We're seeing now that the offense looks like when the shots aren't falling, and it isn't pretty. And with R-ndo on the sideline and Paul Pierce still not himself, the usual alternative sources of offense aren't available. There's little we can do at this point but hope that the shots start to get down.

On to some Phoenix-game-specific stuff:
* After Marcin Gortat went nuts with a 14-point first quarter, mostly off of pick-and-roll with Nash, the Celtics defense was pretty good the rest of the way. They forced something like ten turnovers in the third quarter alone, and by and large shut down Nash, both his scoring and his assists. There were a couple crucial errors in the fourth quarter by the new guys -- a missed rotation by Mickael Pietrus; Bass leaving Channing Frye to help Kevin Garnett with Gortat in the post -- but the Celtics were more than adequate on that end to win.

* Boston trailed 46-35 at halftime, then opened the second half by scoring 18 of the first 22 points, the team's lone offensive outburst of the game. From there, however, the offense sputtered, as the Suns quickly went on a 12-0 run to re-seize control. The Celtics, maddeningly, went away from the more fluid offensive sets that had been working, in favor of a series of clock-draining post-ups. When Pierce is healthy, these plays are annoying, but tolerable. When he's not, or when the guy posting up is Marquis Daniels, it's just stupid. Stick with what's working.

* Bradley probably had the best game of any Celtic. He had ten points on 5-of-9 from the field, even burying a couple of the open mid-range jumpers that have eluded him in his career (and his teammates this season). He also had three steals, including picking Nash clean as the veteran point guard dribble near midcourt. Only one assist, but only one turnover, too. It was his finest outing of the year.

* In contrast, Bradley's backup for this game, E'Twaun Moore, was terrible. He shot 1-for-6, including a bad miss on a wide-open three-pointer (supposedly his specialty), and he committed three turnovers in 12 minutes of action. Moore's a rookie, and the way he's playing reminds me a lot of a college freshman in his first couple weeks of game action. As you move up in levels, the game moves faster, and for many, it takes some time to adjust, for the game to slow down, as some are fond of saying. You don't see it as much in NBA rookies as you see it in college freshman, but it happens, and its happening with Moore. His lone bright moment came in the third quarter when, with the shot clock running down, he find himself in an isolation with Nash. Moore calmly backed Nash down, then swished a sweet turnaround.

* It's funny, because Doc Rivers has quite notably been terrible at developing rookies over the last several years by not giving them playing time. His hand is forced somewhat with Moore, but Doc seems willing to give Moore run even without the exigent circumstances of injuries and a crazy schedule. Whatever Doc has seen in Moore on the practice court hasn't translated to games.

Boston 91, Orlando 80

[recap] [box score]

Precious little time to blog about this game, as my Internet cut out right around kickoff time yesterday and I couldn't get it restored until this morning (with a lot on my plate today).

Bullets:

• Marquis Daniels' freak injury -- a bruised spinal cord -- is going to have him out at least a month and quite possibly longer. Daniels' personal long-term health is of course the most important concern and in that regard the news is good -- given how long he stayed on the court, it could have been a lot worse. On the court, his absence means that four of Boston's top reserves -- him, both O'Neals, and Delonte West, will likely be out of the lineup this week when Miami and the Lakers come to Boston. Thankfully, Von Wafer has played a lot better of late -- maybe he can fill some of the void Daniels leaves. Expect to see more of Luke Harangody than we have of late. The other big question will be how much Doc is willing to play Paul Pierce and Ray Allen in some of these "big" games. The Heat are bearing down on us for home-court advantage in the East.
• Rajon Rondo was spectacular, playing as aggressively as we've seen him all year. It was the kind of game we need from him offensively against the strong defensive teams in the league. Opponents have their hands full with Pierce, Allen, and Garnett, and are willing to let Rondo beat them if he can. There'll be plenty of opportunities for Rondo to take over games like this in the playoffs, and we'll need him to do it from time to time if we're going to win a title.
• I don't know what to make of Orlando these days, though I'm leaning heavily -- as I have been since the December trades that shook up their roster -- towards worrying less and less about them. Gilbert Arenas, plucked from Washington for Rashard Lewis, has been a disaster. He didn't score on Sunday. The other new key additions, Hedo Turkoglu and Jason Richardson, have been decent, though inconsistent, and not a huge upgrade over Vince Carter. And the loss of Marcin Gortat, as I've said here before, gives the Magic zero reliable big man depth behind Dwight Howard -- whose petulant elbow to Kendrick Perkins' sternum on Sunday led to his 14th technical foul on the season, just two away from suspension. Getting back Brandon Bass, who is having an excellent year, will help some, but it's still a three-man rotation at the 4/5 spots (Howard, Bass, and Ryan Anderson). It's enough to win a game or two, but a whole series against a team like Boston? I don't think so.
• Boston's at Charlotte tonight, then has the Lakers on Thursday (on TNT) and the Heat on Sunday (ABC).

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.

The Next Lamb: The Orlando Magic

Game 28: Boston (23-4) at Orlando (17-12)

Saturday, December 25

2:30 p.m. Eastern

ABC

If you are but a casual observer of the NBA, you are probably surprised to see the 17-12 record next to the Orlando Magic. Over the past few seasons, the Magic have emerged as an Eastern Conference rival, reaching the conference finals last season and beating Boston and Cleveland on the way to an NBA Finals loss to the Lakers the season before. When this current season opened, not much had changed, and Orlando was expected to make another deep playoff run. After consecutive wins at Chicago and Detroit in the first three days of December, the Magic were 15-4, and everything seemed hunky-dory.

But Orlando lost its next four games, beat the Clippers, then lost to Denver, and the front office decided to shake things up. They sent Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus, and Marcin Gortat to Phoenix for Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu, and Earl Clark, and shipped Rashard Lewis off to Washington for Gilbert Arenas. They promptly dropped three more -- to Philly (the day of the trades, so they were shorthanded), at Atlanta, and to Dallas -- before snapping San Antonio's ten-game winning streak Thursday night.

More thoughts on this rather shocking attempt to rebuild on the fly in a moment. In terms of the Christmas Day game, it's tough to know what to expect. Sure, the Magic still have Dwight Howard, who has put up gaudy numbers the last four games and looks to have developed a little bit more of an offensive game in the offseason, and they still have Jameer Nelson, their sharpshooting point guard. But Carter and Lewis were starters, and Pietrus and Gortat were rotation players. It's going to take some time for them to jell, and so it's hard to use Saturday's matchup as any sort of measuring stick. They certainly looked impressive in putting up 123 points against San Antonio, but the Spurs were on the second night of a back-to-back and haven't been nearly as good defensively this season as we're accustomed to.

Looking toward the rest of the season and beyond, it's certainly a bold move. Frankly, it seemed to me that the front office panicked a bit: No one likes to lose five out of six, but four of those losses came on the road to possible playoff teams (Milwaukee, Portland, Utah, and Denver) and the fifth was to a solid division rival (Atlanta). Obviously, the goal in Orlando is a championship and you have to be able to beat those types of teams, even on the road, to win a title, but it seems like an over-reaction to turn over so much of the roster in response to a little slide. My hunch is that Orlando perhaps wasn't happy with its roster heading into the season and had been looking to make moves, and that this is the time that a deal to their liking materialized.

From an Xs and Os perspective, one glaring hole this leaves on the Magic roster is backup center, of which Gortat was one of the league's most effective (and highest-paid). It's especially glaring given the makeup of the various title contenders. That is, if the Magic are to win the title, then they have to plan, at least, on beating Boston and the Lakers. That means going through Kendrick Perkins, Shaquille O'Neal, and Jermaine O'Neal (who should return to action Saturday, by the way) in the former case, and Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom in the latter case. The loss of Gortat leaves Howard and the undersized Brandon Bass (a Glen Davis-ish player) as Orlando's only viable bigs, which you have to think isn't going to be sufficient to beat the Celtics or Lakers. The team has said that it will look to add another big via trade before the trade deadline in a couple of months, but one would be justified in wondering where that player will come from and at what price he will come.

As for the other losses and additions, Richardson should fill in reasonably well for Carter. A little more consistent, perhaps, a little less injury prone, but not as dynamic as Vince, and not as a good a passer. He can fill it up, though, and is a threat beyond the arc. Clark is a non-factor for the foreseeable future; Phoenix didn't pick up his contract option for next year and it's hard to see him breaking into the rotation this season. The key to this deal is Turkoglu and Arenas, and how well they make up for the departure of Lewis and Pietrus (plus whatever they have to give up to get a replacement for Gortat).

Turkoglu was a key part of Orlando's Finals run two years ago, then bolted to Toronto for a hefty contract. He was miserable as a Raptor (both in mood and in performance), lobbied for and got a trade in the offseason, and was basically as ineffective in 25 games in Phoenix as he was in Toronto. He's moved into the starting lineup in Lewis' place in three games with the Magic, going 3-for-15 in his first two outings before bouncing back with a respectable 5-for-10 against the Spurs.

When he's at his best, Turkoglu is a catalyst. He would take some of the ballhandling responsibilities away from Nelson the way he did in 2008-09, when Nelson shot a career-best 50.3 percent from the floor and 45.3 percent from three. (Recall, too, that Orlando made its big postseason run that year with Nelson out of the lineup due to late-season shoulder injury). I, for one, am not at all sure that Turkoglu is, or ever will be, close to his best, but it's possible that his decline in effectiveness over the past season-plus was due to unhappiness. Even if his best days are behind him, he won't be much of a downgrade over Lewis, a fairly one-dimensional three-point shooter with similar career percentage behind the arc to Turkoglu.

Arenas is a huge x-factor. With his recent injury history, it's easy enough to think of him as washed up, but he's only 28, and if he regains his form, he's instantly one of the most dangerous men in the NBA with the basketball in his hands. It appears that he's taking on a role with the second unit, and that strategy has to be right: No matter what you think of Nelson, both Turkoglu and Arenas need the ball to be effective, and they cancel each other out a little bit if they have to share it. But if he is playing well, he's a sixth man of the year candidate type player, injury/foul insurance for Richardson and Nelson, and another option late in the game. Of course, who knows how often he'll play well. I've only seen him once this year, when the Celtics pasted the Wizards, and I wrote then that Arenas did nothing but stand around shooting three-pointers all night. Gil was clearly unhappy with his situation in Washington, though, and perhaps his play will change with a change of scenery. Orlando's certainly counting on it.

As for Arenas' much-publicized off-court issues (you know, the gun in the locker room thing), most reports suggest that once the hammer came down, he put that stuff behind him. (Indeed, it may have contributed to his melancholy demeanor this season). Still, Arenas has always been a peculiar, unique character, and a guy like that -- particularly one who likes to shoot as often as he does -- is always capable of disrupting a locker room. I'm not saying that I think Arenas will try to stir things up, but if he does, I'm not sure Orlando has the personalities required to prevent it from becoming a big distraction. I think Stan Van Gundy is a good coach, but he's high-strung; Dwight Howard is an easy-going guy, but he's young and sensitive. No one in that locker room has won anything, and Arenas was brought in as part of a plan to put the team over the top. The ingredients are present for a bit of a meltdown, though I expect Arenas to behave.

I haven't even addressed defense, in part because it's always a little difficult to tell how individual defenders will fit in with specific defensive schemes. I can say with certainty that Turkoglu's a pretty bad on-ball defender and that while Arenas has been a big steals guy throughout his career, he's not a lockdown type of guy. Howard is perhaps the league's premier shotblocker and he can erase a lot of mistakes, but he's also foul-prone, a characteristic that is magnified by the fact that he doesn't have a backup, at least while the team looks for a replacement for Gortat. Pietrus was a pretty good defender, too, and there isn't anyone on the roster that immediately comes to mind as someone to fill that role.

In short, the Magic have taken a big risk here. Once the team gets acclimated with itself, they've probably done no worse than tread water offensively -- with a chance at great improvement on that end -- but they've probably gotten worse defensively, a big deal for a team coached by Van Gundy that has hung its hat on defense. In theory, they're less reliant on jumpshots -- a big criticism I've had with them -- but now they're more reliant on "outscoring" opponents, as opposed to winning games on the defensive ends. They've also taken some risks with their team makeup.

Moreover, it's unclear whether this team will come together fully this season, and, if it does, whether it's even enough to beat the league's elite. The best they can hope for is probably something akin to their 2008-09 team, and that squad needed seven games to beat the Kevin Garnett-less Celtics in the Eastern semis and never really challenged the Lakers in the Finals. With the Celtics certainly better this year and the Lakers, Spurs, and Heat hanging around as well, it's tricky to see this team getting it done -- particularly if it needs to sacrifice a player like J.J. Redick to pick up a backup pivot. While some may applaud the Magic for making this kind of bold move in the middle of the season, it says here that it won't be enough to push them over the top.