Gino Time! Celtics 116, Lakers 95 as Celtics win sixth straight
I do not want to highlight one player in tonight’s win, as this was truly one of the Celtics best team efforts of the year. In direct opposition to what I just said, the only player I do want to highlight is Kevin Garnett, who got his 25,000th point tonight with a fade-away jumper. His response? Thanking all the people who helped him get there and finished with a “it’s not that surprising when you put the work in”. Congrats to KG, another great accomplishment in a hall of fame career. Almost everyone on their roster stepped up to play their role. The team defense was superb, and fed into their offense seamlessly. On to the notes:
- There was a series of possessions early in the third quarter where Kobe Bryant took three very well contested shots, and made all three. All three were well defended by Courtney Lee. Just for comparisons sake the Celtics three possessions over that time span consisted of two short push shots for KG against Metta World Peace and an open Avery Bradley jumper. The Celtics ball movement came naturally; the Lakers stood around and watched Kobe dominate the ball. While Los Angeles was able to play the Celtics evenly in that stretch, it was most definitely a sign of things to come.
- There was an unbelievable stretch in the end of the third quarter to make a 18 point lead a 26 point lead:
- Made Terry three-pointer
- Jamison missed a horrible 7-foot shot
- Jeff Green drove to the hoop for a dunk off a beautiful Pierce assist
- Jamison blocked by Green on a pure effort chase-down block
- Pierce makes three-pointer
- Celtics pushed the ball all night, playing the up-and-down game that some of us (Jordan) have been begging for since some of the offseason acquisitions seemed to support the idea the Celtics would, much like the Spurs of late, push the pace a bit more to better suit their personnel. Not to say the full transition has been made, but tonight was a start.
- Dwight Howard got bullied into playing tonight and it initially paid off for the Lakers as Garnett picked up two quick fouls. That was about as far as it went, as the Laker center finished with 9 points and 9 rebounds, but simply did not play well.
- I still love watching Avery Bradley play defense. Tonight was no exception. I would have a tough time holding the ball for more than five seconds in the presence of Bradley.
Nice to write a recap early with the games result never in doubt after the third quarter. Sixth straight win for the Celtics as they look forward to a couple days off until their match-up against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
Follow Jesse on Twitter: J_duderanch
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Celtics Blog | Jesse Doran | February 7, 2013
James will say : You call that a win? PP had 15 points and the lakers played with an injured Howard and without Gasol, otherwise they would had crushed us. Go Cs…
On the other hand this was a delightfull game for me to watch… living in LA and hear everyone scream Fuck Boston made me smile at their suffering in the third quarter. That was a hell of a game. Really proud of my team, 6 in a row!
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Eric? Your gonna give the company to Eric?
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Sure it was a nice win and we looked like we SHOULD HAVE all season, or during our 23 losses, but let’s get honest about this winning streak, please. We beat the Heat with Chalmers/Haslem/Battier getting a total of 4 pts (that won’t happen again) and the Clippers without CP3 and almost blowing a 15 pt Q4 lead, and the other wins were vs sub .500 teams (Orl, Tor, Sac and the Lakers) and you and others are all ranting about how great the team is now??? We were supposed to beat sub .500 teams all year so now let’s beat Chicago, Denver and go 4-1 on the month-end road trip before anointing this team as good and capable of having any chance in the playoffs. Go Cs…
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I liked the fact that KG, after the game, seemed to be the first player to suggest that maybe, just maybe, they should have played harder while Rondo was still around. Just maybe they could share a little blame. Maybe. You know, don’t want to push that very hard, since it’s so much fun to blame Rondo, but… just maybe…
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C’s had too many good backcourt players and one of them should have been shipped, Terry in my view. Rondo’s injury has broken that logjam and allowed both Barbosa & Terry to play their styles of game.
Green is stepping up as is Bass. Last year’s team took Miami to 7 games. We got the same players plus better backup centers, a healthy and playing Jeff Green, a healthy best on ball defender in the NBA Bradley, and trio of Barbosa – Lee- Terry to replace Rondo & Allen.
Sixth or maybe even 5 seed is a real possibility. Garnett’s minutes should increase in playoffs after the strict limit on his time in the regular season.
Barring any firther injuries, good things are coming!
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The Sully injury hurts more then the Rondo injury at the moment. This team still has two hall of famers on it plus another Nba champion in Terry(also a sixth man of the year award). Our defense is back since January 1st. We are number one in fg percent against us and also number one in holding teams to only 31% from beyond the arc. If we rebound well we are tough to beat.
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what some are missing is the Cs are finally gluing together. It has little to do with Rondo being down. We’re getting better, probably we would be even better with Rondo at the point (and a trade for a starting center…)
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Could it be too because of the trade deadline and players that were underperforming now being fearful of being gone? I love the latest chemistry, and CW was great last night and should get all of JC’s minutes, but we still need to prove this consistently and vs the top playoff teams. As I have mentioned, I think the Chicago/Denver gms and 5 game road-trip will be a much better gauge of where this team is and how they play vs much better teams (especially on their home courts). Go Cs…
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absolutely.
still, Bass was nailing the contested jumper (when he was missing the open ones), Green was attacking the hoop (when he was like a ghost on the court), Pierce was working his butt off, etc.
tougher tests awaits the Cs, but I believe this team can go down with a bang.
raising #18 is a different beast, but the “old” Celts would have dropped at least 3 of the last 6.
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That was a great win every win on this streak has been good in almost every aspect support the Celtics all those waive the towel comments are gone until they lose 2 in a row big game Sunday lets get it
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