New York 118, Boston 110

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Look at New York's three-point shooting on Tuesday -- 19 for 32 -- and you'd think that the Knicks were simply too hot to be beat. And while it's true that they were on fire from behind the arc, the fact is that Boston's defense was as bad as it has been all season. The rotations were off all night, and even when they made an adjustment to better guard the three-point line, they left the paint wide open, ceding a number of easy baskets to Tyson Chandler.

And yet the Celtics gave themselves a chance to win in the fourth quarter, mostly thanks to Paul Pierce, who had a season-high 43 points, largely on the back of a 17-for-18 performance at the free throw line. Battling foot injuries, though, he was almost as ineffective on defense as he was effective on offense, and Carmelo Anthony got plenty of his 35 points against Pierce. (Melo added 12 boards and ten assists for his second career triple-double.)

Other than Pierce's offense, Avery Bradley was a bright spot for the Cs, draining 5-of-6 three-pointers, most from the corners. It's beginning to look like his outside shot, which was atrocious at the beginning of the season, has improved permanently to something respectable. Rajon R-ndo had 13 points and 13 assists -- remarkably, something of a pedestrian performance for him lately -- but sat for some of the second half after falling awkwardly on his back after colliding with Chandler on a rebound. R-ndo refused to go back to the locker room for treatment, however, and gamely finished out the game

Really, though, the big story in this one was the difference in bench production. In about 50 minutes of court time, the Boston reserves scored a total of two points. The Knicks got 25 each from Steve Novak and J.R. Smith, who combined to go 15-for-20 from beyond the arc.

To be fair to Boston's second unit, two of Boston's top reserves (Bradley and Brandon Bass) have moved permanently to the starting lineup, and the next two missed the game -- Ray Allen was a late scratch with his lingering ankle injury after participating in shootaround, and Mickael Pietrus went back to Boston to have fluid from his knee drained. But I can't help but contrast the Celtics with, say, the Spurs, who I watched dismantle the Kobe Bryant-less Lakers in the nightcap. San Antonio has like 11 guys who play and contribute, while there are nights, like tonight, where you wonder how Keyon Dooling and Marquis Daniels and Sasha Pavlovic even have NBA jobs.

Anyway, back at it Wednesday night, 8 Eastern, in Boston against Orlando. I think our magic number is two; we just need some combination of two wins and Knicks losses and we've got the division, unless we lose our last four and Philly wins its last five. With a road game in Atlanta and then a home date with the revenge-minded Heat looming before the season finale against Milwaukee, it'd be nice to get this one against the Magic to take some of the pressure off.

Dallas 101, Boston 97

Friday's game was one of those where I was legitimately surprised that the Celtics couldn't finish the job.

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It's not even that we played that well; we didn't. Our defense was terrible in the first half, as was our offensive execution over the game's final two minutes. But it just seemed -- hmm, how do I say this without taking credit away from the Mavs? -- it just seemed like we were making far more plays down the stretch than they were. Yeah, we didn't score for the final 2:42, but we came up with a bunch of great stops defensively, whereas it seemed like we were just missing shots on our end, rather than being stopped.

Anyway, I can't be too mad at the key play, a Jason Kidd three that put Dallas up two with just seconds left. The Mavs ran Jason Terry off a Dirk Nowitzki screen, with Action Dirk rolling to the basket. Boston's defense was in place; Nowitzki was free to catch the ball, but he would have had a contested shot. Terry's pass was low and Nowitzki booted it. The ball was loose just long enough for Ray Allen to react to it, leaving Kidd open in the process. Dirk recovered quickly enough to beat everyone to the ball, kicked it to Kidd, who patiently waited for Allen to fly by before knocking down the game-winner.

Allen was pretty magnificent tonight, actually, coming alive offensively in the third quarter. He also contributed a huge block of Tyson Chandler in the fourth, and battled Chandler for the rebound on a Dallas miss that ended up out of bounds to Boston. These were all things I was prepared to write about in more detail had the Celtics won. Instead, because the Cs lost, I'm forced to question the quick three-pointer Allen took under a minute to go. It would have iced the game and frankly I'm perfectly fine with him taking that look, but I'm sure some will question the shot selection.

Kendrick Perkins started tonight in place of Shaquille O'Neal, who is out with some sort of Achilles injury and probably won't play Sunday against Orlando, either. Perk was great, with 13 points and 12 boards, including a couple of tip-ins and another bucket in the fourth. He looks terrific out there, and I think it's safe to say we have our starting center back. Just in time, too; in addition to Shaq's latest malady, word came after tonight's game that Jermaine O'Neal had knee surgery and is expected back in six to eight weeks -- in other words, expected back in time to mess up the rotation. More likely, because Doc Rivers is sensitive to these things, he'll be back in time to be available in absolute emergencies. But I'm not expecting anything out of JON the rest of the year.

Kevin Garnett started really hot and then missed something like nine of his last ten shots, including a long jumper that went in and out on the possession before the Kidd dagger. He also got hit with a technical foul for pushing J.J. Barea, which isn't that big of a deal. However, during the minor fracas with Barea, he also pushed away the arm of official Eric Lewis, drawing a reprimand of sorts from ESPN play-by-play man Mike Breen.

I doubt very much it's something the league is worried about, and therefore I don't bring it up in the context of it possibly costing him some money or even a game. KG did the same thing when Steve Javie was trying to keep him away from Channing Frye in the dustup in Phoenix last week. I mention it only to draw attention to what I thought looked like unprofessional conduct from Lewis: It sure looked to me like Lewis pushed KG back after Garnett swatted his arm away.

Generally speaking, I think it's a bad idea to put your hands on someone who is fired up. This is an accepted practice in breaking up NBA scuffles, however, so I'm not going to criticize Lewis for that. And if the rule is a player, KG in this case, can't swat an official's arm away, than I guess I have to live with that, too. But part of the officials' job is to keep a cool head when tempers flare, the same way, say, players aren't supposed to run into the stands when someone throws a beer at them. Lewis obviously didn't go after KG, but he reacted poorly. After KG pushed Lewis' arm away and Lewis responded by shoving KG's arm, Lewis then gestured with his thumb while talking with fellow official Bob Delaney -- at Garnett, perhaps, or perhaps suggesting that Garnett be shown the exit. It was as if Lewis was saying to Delaney: "You deal with him." That's not an acceptable mindset for an NBA official to have, and Lewis' actions were inappropriate.

As for Dallas, they're a pretty strong team. They're dealing with the loss of their starting small forward, Caron Butler, as well as a nagging ankle injury to Nowitzki that caused him to miss nine games earlier in the season. (It speaks to how talented Nowitzki is offensively that he scored 29 points against one of the league's best defenses while being far less than 100 percent healthy.) They've got DeShawn Stevenson in their starting lineup, which is okay as long as he doesn't finish games, and he nearly cost coach Rick Carlisle the win Friday night before Carlisle took him out. They also have a ton of scoring punch off the bench, with Shawn Marion, Barea, and Jason Terry, and they may get Rodrigue Beaubois back in time to contribute down the stretch. They're certainly deeper than the Lakers and Spurs, but I'm not sure they have the horses to beat those teams in a seven-game series. I wouldn't overlook them, though.

Boston 94, New Orleans 82

A good win over a strong team on a night we didn't play our best.

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The highlight reel found in the game recap has a couple of spectacular plays toward the end; 1) a steal by Glen Davis, followed by the 289-pound second-year player taking it 70 feet before dishing to Tony Allen (who provided a great finish while getting fouled -- pretty much the only thing he did right all night); and 2) a sweet give-and-go alley-good between Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Otherwise, this one was kind of ugly. Boston out-toughed New Orleans, although some of that is because the Hornets were without their starting center, Tyson Chandler, who hurt his neck in practice.

I though Davis and Leon Powe played very well, despite their modest stat lines. Eddie House provided the outside shooting we needed to put the game away. And it was good to see Paul Pierce, who had 13 of his 28 in the decisive third quarter, step up and play the kind of offensive game we know he's capable of but hadn't seen from him in a while.

Although Chris Paul had 20 points and 14 rebounds, that's really a deceptive stat line; the Celtics did a nice job of containing him all night. Holding a guy like Paul to five made field goals is an indication of why we are so good defensively; we stop the other team's star player from getting to the basket. A few times, it broke down a bit, as we left guys open under the basket in an attempt to keep Paul away from the tin, and he found them for easy layups. But our defense certainly frustrated Paul, whose overlooked dirty streak -- remember, he was suspended a game in college for punching Julius Hodge in the groin, something everyone seems to forget about -- came through late when he set a fairly vicious illegal screen on Kendrick Perkins (Perk did a nice job not reacting to it).

Fourteen in a row now, and Cleveland is still hot on our heels. Next game is Monday night vs. Utah (7:30 p.m. Eastern; no national TV). The Jazz have another great young point guard in Deron Wililams, but our job against him will be a little different. He doesn't drive to score as much as Paul does, so we'll need to jump the screen-and-roll a bit more to keep him from shooting if Rondo goes behind the screens, rather than sagging back and daring him to shoot outside, the way we do with Paul.