Greg Monroe had a great game as his hustle took advantage of the step-slow Celtics

The Celtics looked like they had a long weekend, as they finished one of the toughest stretches of their season with five games in seven days with a loss.  Mike Gorman was saying the Palace at Auburn Hills’ air conditioning was broken and it showed as Kevin Garnett had an extra glisten on his brow.  Sounds like the Detroit crew pulled one of those sneaky home court moves, the very same tricks Boston’s floor crew used to employ back in the Garden days.  Some notes from, quiet honestly, a tough game to watch:

• The C’s got out to a hot start, but after around the seven minute mark fell flat and never really recovered.  They were down five at half, and the Detroit lead ballooned to fourteen by the end of the third quarter, where they closed the quarter out on a 23 to 12 run.
• There was a lot of complaining from the Celtics today, from both the players and Doc Rivers.  A long stretch of games will do that, but it is still unfortunate that the Celtics’ point total fell short of their disgusted looks and incredulous glares tally.
• Pierce left the game early with what appeared to be a right ankle sprain.  The severity of the injury is unclear, but something to monitor moving forward.
• Shots were just not falling.  The Celtics did not play well on either end of the court, but they also missed a great deal of make-able shots

Now for some positives…

• Rondo played until the end of the game in search of his ten assists, and got it on a Sullinger jumper at the top of the key.  The streak is now at 34 straight games of ten-plus assists, and Rondo could have gotten many more had it not been for the Celtics players putting their hands in ice blocks before the game.
• The Celtics get a couple days off, one of which will presumably be used to further work out some of these early season kinks.  They play San Antonio on Wednesday in what should be a great game.
• Jared Sullinger played 27 minutes and scored 16 points and grabbed five rebounds.  He looked more confident towards the end of the game, but it is difficult to attribute too much value to this, as the game’s result was no longer in the balance.  Either way, confident play is a good thing, hopefully that will continue.
• The Celtics looked bad, but it was not the rebounding.  The C’s got out-rebounded 39-30, but that is approximately proportional to the amount of missed shots (Pistons missed 33 shots, whereas the Celtics missed 39).  The offensive rebounds were even at seven a piece.

There you go, four bullet points for each.  Trying to stay positive (or at least neutral) after such an uninspiring performance.  Shots were just not falling for the C’s as they were a step slow all night.  Everyone deserves a lazy Sunday, but a loss to one of the worst teams in the NBA was a tough pill to swallow.