For one half tonight, Marcin Gortat stood at the top of a mountain and released a golden stream of urine aimed at all the peasant Boston Celtics standing miles beneath him. The Celtics ultimately wizened up, donning ponchos to avoid the onslaught of Gortat’s excretions and returning to the defensive execution that evaded them for the first 24 minutes, but the damage had been done and the Celtics — grab an orange creamsicle if this sounds familiar — could not escape with a win despite a reasonable second-half effort.

Boston’s offense without Rajon Rondo often resembled a lost, blind dog trying to find its way home, and Phoenix was able to muster enough points — 33 points in the second half — to emerge with the 79-71 win. The game was slightly less pretty than Tim Tebow’s worst throws this season, and the Celtics are now 5-9. The loss occurred without Rondo, sure, but Boston managed to fall to one of the Western Conference’s worst teams and scored just 71 points against a Phoenix defense known to be more permeable than paper towels.

I’m not sure know what this says about me, the Celtics, or the world, but I was begging for Avery Bradley’s return when he was sitting on the bench during the fourth quarter.

Saving the most important note for last, I hope Patrick Chung did not eat too many nachos while sitting courtside.

P.S. – Phoenix, the worst rebounding team in the entire NBA according to John Hollinger’s stats, had 44 boards to Boston’s 32.