The Eastern Conference's two best point guards.

Rajon Rondo started Team USA’s first three exhibition games this summer. He looked to have the team’s starting position all but locked up, until the third game. That’s when everything started to fall apart.

Playing against Lithuania, Rondo turned in his first poor performance of the exhibition tour. One bad game isn’t the end of the world, but that game clearly marks the time that Rondo’s brief run with Team USA started to sour. The next exhibition was against Spain, a hyped matchup of the world’s two best teams, and for the first time this summer Rondo didn’t start. He sat there waiting to play, and kept waiting. The first quarter passed by, and Rondo hadn’t yet played. The second quarter went by, same thing. The game ended, Rondo shook hands with the Spanish players, and he definitely wasn’t very sweaty. He had received a DNP-CD.

A few days later Rondo withdrew from the team. So they say, at least. There was speculation that he was actually the team’s final cut. Whether Rondo was cut or not, one thing is for certain.

Derrick Rose had already stolen Rondo’s starting spot. Read more »

Yup, the Celtics are playing that guy tonight.

In other Chicago news, the Bulls just gave up 120 points to the New York Knickerbockers (including a staggering 132.1 points per 100 possessions in the first half). Then the fourth quarter came around, the Bulls cut the lead to nine, and Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah spent the game’s final minutes on the bench. Wait, what? On the bench? In a semi-close game? What did Thibodeau do, forget that he could make substitutions again?

No, he was simply riding his bench’s hot hand. The subs went on a 10-0 run and Thibs wanted to reward them. Can you blame him for that? Not really. But as soon as the run stops you have to put Rose and Noah back into the game. Right? Not in Thibodeau’s eyes. “The second unit I thought fought hard to close it, and I wanted to see what they could get out of it,” he told the New York Post.

Don’t sweat it, Thibs. You’ve got something up your sleeve for tonight. You know all the Celtics’ plays.

Thinking a little more about Thibodeau’s decision to keep his stars on the bench than I probably should care to, I kind of love it. It was the type of move that makes you scratch your head for now, definitely. But when the Bulls’ bench scraps together a gutty performance in a big game some time later this season, people should think, “Ahh. So THAT’S why Thibodeau left the bench in against the Knicks.”

He was building confidence in his second unit and rewarding them for good play. Sure, he might have lost his team a game, but they probably weren’t going to win anyway. They were still down nine points with just three and a half minutes to play. Thibs will surely catch a lot of heat for the move, but I’m on board. It was a ballsy decision that could pay serious dividends in the future.

The Morning Walkthrough is a set of links to Boston Celtics articles throughout the internet, designed to get your day started the right way.

Slim.

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “Paul Pierce started FitClub34 as a public service to encourage children to exercise. Perhaps he didn’t know it at the time, but it became a personal initiative as well. An athlete who sets himself up as a spokesman for fitness can’t then go to seed. It wouldn’t have been kosher for the Celtics [team stats] captain, in the wake of last June’s Game 7 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, to go home, get married, sign a new deal and spend the next two months at a luau. Instead, Pierce went home, got married, signed and lost five pounds. ‘I’ve got to lead by example, right? I can’t tell people to eat right and exercise and train and I don’t do it,’ he said. ‘It’s all a part of me and what I do in the lifestyle.’ … ‘I’d say I’m a week away, truthfully,’ he said. ‘Each and every year it’s been my focus to do a better job on my fitness, coming in in better shape with each year, especially the last four years. The older I get, it doesn’t get any easier. It’s important that I take care of my body, eat right, exercise and do the best I can to be healthy. That will take the stress off my knees. Last summer I had surgery on my knees, a hard time on my foot, so if I cut down on my weight it cuts back on the problem. That’s what I’m trying to do, especially at this point in my career.’”

Gary Washburn Boston Globe – “O’Neal is bigger and less nimble than Kendrick Perkins, so some adjustment is necessary. Garnett said O’Neal’s presence actually makes things easier defensively (Celtics Town note: offensively?). ‘It makes things more simple,’ he said. ‘Being out there with Shaq, everything’s open. I’m used to counter moves and setting up things, and for the most part I’ve been able to attack and not have double teams, and when they do, I have a great option in dropping it off. So it’s a good addition.’”

Chris Forsberg, ESPN Boston – “With a revamped roster and improved health, the Celtics are hellbent on returning to that inside-outside game. To prove that point, Boston has attempted to post up just about everyone on their roster this preseason, including point guard Rajon Rondo. … ‘We’re posting everybody, even Rondo,’ said Rivers. ‘We told them on the first day [of training camp], ‘We’ve got to get back to being an in-and-out team.’ We want to run and get easy baskets, but we also want to look early to post. [Friday vs. Toronto], [Kevin Garnett] had five of them where he sprinted down the floor, beat everybody, and got into the deep post. Last year he was the last guy down the floor, dragging his leg. So we did what we had to do [last season]. It’s nice, it allows you to stop runs. When you have a post team and teams are on an 8-0 run, you can call timeout and usually you get something out of that. When you don’t have that, you have to hope you’re making shots.’ … Rivers has raved about the renewed confidence Garnett has in that leg and how he’s demanded the ball in the post, unlike last season when he shied away. Rivers also noted how even Paul Pierce was skittish to return to the post because of his variety of injuries a year ago. ‘Paul was injured too, and we forget that Paul missed a big chunk of time and it took a long time for him to get back to health,’ said Rivers. ‘When you have injuries, guys try to stay outside. That hurt him. You look at some of his bigger games in the playoffs, we didn’t have a post presence. It’s a difficult way to play and win.’ Some say the Celtics overcame that deficiency to come within a half-quarter of a title. But Rivers doesn’t buy it. The team didn’t walk out of the Staples Center with another title, so the coach says it’s time to get back to the championship ways of 2008.”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “Wake up, Celtics Nation! The C’s 97-84 preseason win over the New York Knicks on Saturday rang the alarm, loud and clear, that the regular season is right around the corner. ‘We feel like, it’s one preseason game left (against New Jersey on Wednesday), so we have to start sharpening up the tools going in,’ said Paul Pierce. … Celtics coach Doc Rivers believes that being banged up, more than boredom, was the main culprit in the C’s struggles last season which ended with Boston losing Game 7 of the NBA Finals on the road to the Los Angeles Lakers. ‘When Paul and Kevin got injured, we weren’t going to win a lot of games with injuries,’ Rivers said. ‘This year, we would like to have Game 7 at our place.’”

Chris Forsberg, ESPN Boston – “Despite playing in Tuesday’s game at Philadelphia, Avery Bradley has been experiencing setbacks in his recovery from ankle surgery. ‘I’m more upset for him because this is not the way you want to break into the NBA,’ Rivers said. ‘Where you’re frustrated and you can’t play. We probably have to try something else because what we’re doing is clearly not working. [Celtics trainer] Eddie [Lacerte] and I talked about it [Friday] night. I don’t know what, but what we’re doing is not working.’ What possible avenues could the Celtics travel? ‘It’s just so sore, maybe he’s just not ready to play right now,’ Rivers said. ‘And we may just sit him down and let him do rehab. Maybe we pushed him back too soon.’”

John Schuhmann, NBA.com – “And as good as their starters have been, the Celtics’ bench will be just as critical to their success, both in the regular season and in the playoffs. The veteran stars of the team need to be fresh come April, but the Celtics do not want to take their foot off the gas at any point. Though they more than proved that they can flip the switch, they would rather not coast into the postseason like they did last year. ‘If we want to do the things that we hope we can do, we’d like to have home-court advantage all through the playoffs,’ Ray Allen says. ‘That changes things a lot. So that requires us to make sure that we take care of business all [season].’ The upgrades to the bench will help make that possible, and they go beyond the two O’Neals. In fact, it may be the return of Delonte West that will be most critical in keeping the Celtics at the top of the standings.”

Tim Povtak, NBA Fanhouse -”There is no point in playing the game if you’re not trying to be the best. I’m just trying to be the best in the NBA,’ [Derrick Rose] said with his typical quiet confidence before the Bulls played the Magic Thursday night. ‘If that’s not the case, retire and start doing something else.’ Rose doesn’t care that most everyone else believes that Kobe Bryant, James, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant, Deron Williams, and even Anthony have a better chance to be the MVP. Rose doesn’t see it that way. He likes his Bulls, and he likes his chances. ‘Why can’t I be MVP of the league?’ he asked.”

Got a tip? An article you think should be included? Send an email to jayking@celticstown.com or hit me up on Twitter @CelticsTown.

I would write a better post about this commercial, but I’m going to go grab a sandwich. You guys wants chips, RINGS, something like that? Anything?

I don’t know what’s better: Derrick Rose carefully adding icing to a cake or Josh Smith advising Michael Jordan, “Can’t eat sushi in Utah, brotha.” I would discuss further, but I’m on the phone with my moms.

By the way (“hold on a damn second, moms!”), I just came across a piece on David Berri’s blog comparing Rondo to the guards who made Team USA (I know, I know, I can’t let it go): “Rajon Rondo was clearly the most productive player in this group,” the author, Ben Gulker, wrote, “and frankly, it wasn’t close.”

That productivity was in the NBA, not the international game, but still. Gulker continued to explain why Rondo would have been a great fit for the team. Read it, it’s interesting. You know, as long as you still care about Rondo’s mysterious departure from the national team. Or if you just want to read about how Rondo produced far more wins than Chauncey Billups, Derrick Rose or any other guard who made Team USA’s roster.

Before you watch the NBA’s top ten dunks from 2009-2010, I just want to apologize to Glen Davis for posting this video. You’ll see why when you watch, but I’ll give you a three-word hint: Andrew Bogut, devastation.

If you ask me, and I may be the only one who thinks this way, Amare Stoudemire’s dunk on Anthony Tolliver is overrated. Stoudemire’s supposed to dunk on Tolliver. Meanwhile, 6’4″ Dwyane Wade dunked on 6’11″ Anderson Varejao, Varejao’s parents, his grandparents, his un-born grandchildren, and all his ancestors, all at the same time. I give the mythical dunk of the year title to Wade, and Derrick Rose’s two-hand cock-back comes in second. Vote for your favorite dunks here.

Click the jump for the Celtics’ top dunk of the season. Read more »