Rajon Rondo will reportedly compete in The South Florida All-Star Classic, a charity game at Florida International University on Oct. 8 at 7:00 p.m. hosted by Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The F.I.U. basketball team is coached by none other than the greatest NBA executive of all-time, Isiah Thomas.

A number of NBA players are slated to join the Miami trio on the court, including fellow Heat teammate Mario Chalmers, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the New York Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, the New Orleans Hornets’ Chris Paul, the Washington Wizards’ John Wall, the Atlanta Hawks’ Jamal Crawford, the Houston Rockets’ Jonny Flynn, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Eric Bledsoe, the Dallas Mavericks’ Caron Butler, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Rudy Gay, the Boston Celtics’ Rajon Rondo, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Lou Williams, the Golden State Warriors’ Dorell Wright, and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Wesley Matthews and free agent Eddy Curry.

Cleveland Cavaliers first-round picks Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson also are possible participants in the game.

The squads will be headlined by Brand Jordan players (Wade, Anthony, Paul) vs. Nike (James, Bosh, Durant). Comedian Kevin Hart, who has appeared in Brand Jordan commercials with Wade, is expected to coach the Jordan team, while Miami-based rap star Rick Ross is expected to coach the Nike club.

If those players all compete like the game means something, this game has the chance to become legendary. Alas, players treat charity games like they are And1 Streetball games, so the game will probably be as watchable as Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star.

And please, don’t let Isiah Thomas meet Eddy Curry again. Looking at an overweight, excessively lazy center, Thomas may be struck by the desire to offer another $60 million contract. And that, my friends, would be against NCAA rules. Unless the recipient of the contract is Cam Newton.

The Celtics have gotten rid of their morning walkthrough, but that doesn’t mean we have to. Here are a few Celtics links, and maybe even an NBA link or two, to help wake you up and get you focused for the day.

Doc saw some problems with Game Four.

Dan Duggan, Boston Herald – “The 6-foot-4 scoring machine [Dwyane Wade] is averaging 33.8 points, six assists and five rebounds while shooting 60.5 percent from the field during the series. Those are the type of numbers that cause an opposing coach to hold film sessions three times as long as usual. That’s what the Celtics did yesterday, spending an hour watching film before hitting the practice floor for another 60 minutes. ‘A lot of stopping and starting and then explaining and then re-explaining, and that happens,’ Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. ‘That happens when you win sometimes, too. I thought we needed to watch it.’”

Chris Forsberg, ESPNBoston – “‘I think when you’re watching film, and you’re pointing out some of the same themes that you’re doing wrong at both ends of the floor, you don’t mind watching,’ said [Ray] Allen. ‘As a team, we’re so keyed in to trying to figure out what we need to do to be better. When we watch film, the film doesn’t lie — the position we’re in, getting better position, making the extra pass on offense, seeing what they’re doing against us. It’s the best piece of education we own. We walk out of film session feeling so relieved. We understand why certain things happened. We get to that problem and keep certain things from happening again.’”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “‘I thought for the most part everybody wanted to get this settled in Miami,’ said Garnett. ‘And do it with one shot or one pass.’ In some cases, watching how it all played out makes everything clear. ‘When you’re watching film and it’s pointing out some of the same themes of what you’re doing wrong on both ends of the floor, you don’t mind watching it. As a team right now I think we’re so keyed in we’re trying to figure out what we’re trying to do to get better. The position we’re in, getting better position, making the extra pass on offense, seeing what they’re doing against us, it’s the best piece of education we own. We walk out of the film session feeling so relieved. We understand why certain things happened. We get to that problem and keep certain things from happening again.’ For Paul Pierce, the Celtics’ mistakes were evident while he was on the floor. ‘I noticed everything yesterday,’ Pierce said. ‘I saw it all. Up close and personal. I was there to see it all. We had our chances to put it away, obviously. Some late plays down the stretch. Hopefully we’re a lot better, especially at home to close this thing out.’”

Celtics Insider, Boston Herald – “All of that seems to suggest that Wade’s outburst in this series — and Game 4 in particular — has been a fluke. The numbers rarely lie, and in Wade’s case they say he’s a below average 3-pointer. But is this hot streak a fluke? Here’s how Wade explained his 3-point shooting after today’s practice. (Quotes courtesy of Herald friend Ira Winderman, who covers the Heat for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel). ‘I shoot more threes in the playoffs, anyway,’ Wade said. ‘I play around through the season. But I shoot more threes in the playoffs anyway and I work on them a lot more and I’m very confident. And I know if I hit one, I can get on a roll.’”

Gary Washburn, Boston Globe – “‘I didn’t think we had the same defensive urgency we had in Game 1 or Game 2,’ Rivers said. ‘You can’t change much [with Wade]. You have to do a little bit better in what you are doing and if he’s making shots, he’s making shots. It’s tough for anybody guarding Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, LeBron James. We knew that going into the series. Dwyane Wade’s a great player, give him that, but we’re going to defend him. It’s going to be tough. If I can find a guy in the league that can keep Dwyane Wade in front of him whenever he wants to, we’ll sign him. Hopefully [principal owner] Wyc [Grousbeck] has some more money and we’ll get him. It’s going to be a team effort, not one guy.’ Wade is a career 48 percent shooter, but he is shooting 60 percent in this series, a disturbing statistic for a Celtics team that has long prided itself on containing high-scoring players. Wade missed 19 shots during that Jan. 6 game. Sunday he missed eight.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald – “Then Beasley said something interesting. He said, ‘the pressure is when [Wade] has an off night and he’s 6 for 20 or something. That’s when the pressure comes. When somebody’s got to step up.’ It can’t be one or the other if Miami is to win Game 5 and keep winning. It has to be Wade on his game and others stepping up. Start with O’Neal, whose 6-for-34 shooting in four playoff games (17.6 percent) amounts to the worst offensive stretch in his long career. One of O’Neal’s tattoos reads, `For The Love Of God.’ And one can imagine that has been the exclamatory of many Heat fans watching his shots go awry, as in: ‘For the love of God, will you please make a [bleep]ing basket!’”

Michael Wallace, Miami Herald – “After dropping a career playoff-high 46 points, setting three Heat postseason records and making every play to stave off elimination in his last game, Dwyane Wade was asked to comply with just one request: ‘Keep it going,’ teammate Dorell Wright said after practice Monday. ‘When he’s playing like that, you just want to see it keep going. I’m sure that hot hand will still be there in Game 5.’ In other words, Wade just might have to deliver an encore to Game 4 if Miami has any chance to keep its postseason alive entering Tuesday’s game against Boston at TD Garden.”

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun Sentinel – “Need to sum up the theme of the night in a simple catchphrase? Then summon Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. Sunday, when the theme was ‘reveal,’ you could hardly miss it before the game in the locker room or after the game as the Heat savored the 101-92 victory over the Boston Celtics that kept it afloat in this best-of-seven opening-round NBA playoff series that now shifts to TD Garden for Tuesday’s Game 5. ‘When you start preparing for each specific team, sometimes there’s a specific key that kind of supersedes everything else,” the second-year coach said. “An 82-game season is a long grind, and sometimes there’s one key word that might be the most meaningful thing, not only for that game, but for the last 48 hours, something that we’ve stressed and we need to focus on.’ It is difficult not to focus on the nightly Spoelstra-isms. They are everywhere, the phrase often repeated four, five, six times on the nightly scouting board. The points are reiterated by Spoelstra in his pregame media sessions, in his separately recorded pregame radio interview and then his pregame speech face to face to his players. ‘I see it when I first come in and it kind of snaps me into that mode,” veteran forward Quentin Richardson said of catchphrases that have ranged from ‘energy player’ to ‘finish’ to ‘starters set the tone.’ They are ubiquitous on the strategy board that frames the big screen in the home locker room and a portable strategy board set up in the middle of the locker room on the road, as it will be Tuesday at TD Garden. ‘When I first come in, I look at the board,’ Richardson said. ‘When I’m sitting here, changing, I look at the board. So I’ll be really into what he’s saying already and knowing what he’s talking about by the time he brings it up.’”

Michael Wallace, Miami Herald – “Heat forward Quentin Richardson was cleared to play Tuesday after an X-ray and MRI on his bruised left hand were negative. Richardson sustained the injury in Sunday’s victory against the Celtics and had his left ring finger immobilized after the game. He will wear a protective splint. ‘No matter what it was, I was going to play,’ Richardson said. ‘Nobody had to even worry about that part.’”

Have a link I might want to look at? Send it my way by email (jayking@celticstown.com) or Twitter.

Tie ballgame.  11 seconds left.  Miami’s season on the line.

Paul Pierce wastes time, assures the Heat will have no more opportunities, and drills a step-back jumper right over Dorell Wright’s outstretched arm.

Glory. Joy. Elation.

Round Two, keep a spot open for the Boston Celtics.

Splish, splash, ballgame.

After Paul Pierce hit a buzzer-beater that ended the game, demoralized the Miami Heat and — fairly certainly — cemented the series, there were a couple points of emphasis regarding what the Heat DIDN’T do.

First, they didn’t foul, despite having a foul to give.  That one’s understandable, as an ill-advised foul at the wrong time would send Pierce to the line with a chance to end the game.  As for the second point of emphasis –  why didn’t the Miami Heat know exactly what Paul Pierce was going to do?  Heat coach Erik Spoelstra claimed ignorance. (ESPNBoston)

“They have so many different late-game situations, if you go through their [game video] edits, there’s no pattern,” said Spoelstra. “They have so many proven 25-point-per-game scorers on their roster, they just usually go with the hot hand.

“We anticipated it would be a Pierce-[Kevin] Garnett pick-and-roll. Instead they [isolated] it and gave [Pierce] a shot there at the end. They are one of the most difficult teams to get a read on. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to do that.”

Really, Erik?  You’ve watched Paul Pierce over and over and over on tape, and you didn’t know his go-to move was the step-back jumper to his right?  You didn’t know that — when Pierce is hot — the Celtics are going to isolate him up top and let him go to that very same step-back jumper he loves so dearly?

With one minute left in the game — I shit you not, there was a full minute left — I told my friends, who were watching the game with me, that Pierce was going to end the game with a step-back jumper, off the dribble, going to his right.  I acted out the exact same move Pierce proceeded to make a minute later, and ended the game with.  My friends, not Celtics fans, wondered how I knew Pierce would shoot that exact shot, but it was easy: When Pierce has it going, that is his shot.  His money ball, his Ole’ Faithful, his Mr. Reliable.  But Spoelstra somehow thought Pierce and Garnett were going to run a pick-and-roll?  C’mon, Spoelstra, you’re better than that.

So Dorell Wright backpedaled, expecting a KG screen to come for Paul Pierce, and then Pierce did what everyone in the world besides the Miami Heat expected him to do.  Step-back, game over.

Step up your scouting, Heat.  Pierce’s stepback is one tendency you absolutely should have known.

Wade did his best, but it wasnt enough.

I’ve seen it so many times I knew what was going to happen.  I told my friends the play before it even occurred.  Paul Pierce caught it at the top of the key. Dribbled around, wasting time.  Dribbled to his right, stepped to the right side with his left foot, used that left foot to propel him backwards and create separation, shot the fadeaway jumper.  Splash. Game over. Did anyone not know what was coming?

With a three -zip lead on the line and Dwyane Wade in the opposing uniform, the Boston Celtics knew nothing was going to come easy.  The series — and Miami’s season — was on the line, and Wade performed like a superstar should when his team stares a long summer in the face.  Unfortunately for Wade and the Miami Heat, the Celtics have some stars too, and even the old ones have some gas left in the tank.  Boston’s old geezers led the way to a 100-98 victory and a seemingly insurmountable 3-0 series lead.

Ray Allen brought the Celtics most of the way there, and The Truth set them free. Pierce’s buzzer-beater stole the headlines and the glory, but the rest of his second half was just as integral.  Pierce ended with 32 points, creating his own offense like it was 2008.  And Walter Ray Allen was Walter Ray Allen.  25 points for Ray, including an off-balance, on-the-move three-pointer to put the Celtics up one with only a couple minutes left.  It was another clutch moment from Jesus, but would soon be overshadowed by Pierce’s dagger that — for all intents and purposes — put the Boston Celtics in the second round.

Other things happened, too. Dwyane Wade scored a lot of points (34), and then limped off the court after his final shot. Rajon Rondo had 17 points and 8 assists.  Dorell Wright acted like he wasn’t Dorell Wright.  Jermaine O’Neal somehow lowered his shooting percentage for the series (1-7 shooting).  Michael Beasley awoke from his deep slumber.  Miami’s bench outscored Boston’s, 39-10.

But none of it mattered.  Not as much as Pierce’s game-winning, series-ending jumper at least.  While the Celtics still need one more win to technically finish out the series, only one question remains for the C’s:

Can they beat Cleveland in the second round?

"Carlos Arroyo? You thought I wasn't going to destroy Carlos Arroyo? HAH!"

It’s difficult to seriously impact two games while scoring only 18 combined points.  It really is.  But Rajon Rondo, by virtue of his disruptive defense and court vision sent from above, has done just that.

Rondo’s defensive pressure, in particular, has caused the Miami Heat fits.  Things got so bad for that, in the midst of yet another prolonged Celtics run in the second half, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra turned to his assistant and said, “Any other ideas?  We can’t bring the ball up against this team.”  He later described Rondo’s impact to reporters. (CSNNE)

“He’s an extremely quick and as fast a player as we know,” Spoelstra said. “He’s even more of that in the playoffs. He has great physical gifts, with the quickness. He also has a lot of length. He also has enough experience now that he can be disruptive to what you’re trying to run specifically.”

The Heat, thus far, have been Rondo’d.

Not that they have a definitive plan to stop it.  As Spoelstra so nicely put, nothing the Heat has done has worked.  They’ve tried putting Dwyane Wade at point guard, but Spoelstra admits, “We don’t want to do it too much where it wears him out.”  They’ve tried the normal point guards, Carlos Arroyo and Mario Chalmers, and Rondo sees that as taking candy from a baby. Dorell Wright, according to the Miami Herald, could be the next one given the opportunity to handle the ball.  But Spoelstra knows alleviating the pressure isn’t very simple.

“Easier said than done,” Spoelstra said after Thursday’s practice. “But there are adjustments we can make. We’ve been a little predictable the first two games. But we have enough in our playbook to show more versatility. We need a package of everything and to do it under duress when they’re putting pressure on us.’”

Mario Chalmers believes there’s one way to counteract Boston’s dialed-up defensive pressure: Be aggressive.

“Definitely, especially with us being at home,” Chalmers said. “We’ve been sort of robotic. We concentrate too much on trying to work plays all the way through instead of seeing an opening and taking that opening. But you just have to keep fighting.”

Carlos Arroyo agrees that the point guards have to be more opportunistic, and to let loose and have fun.

“You want to be aggressive. You want to make them play us honest. But [the results] have been very disappointing for all of us. We came into this series with a different mind-set, a different type of rhythm. It seems we’ve gotten away from that. We have to find our consistency again, not think so much, have fun and lay it out there.”

Fact of the matter is, in two games in Boston the Heat’s offense was chewed up and spit out.  76.5 points per game.  Two ten-point quarters.  Brick after brick, turnover after turnover. Almost sad, isn’t it?

Not for Boston, though.  The Heat’s minimal offensive output is as good an indicator as any that the C’s have refocused their energy on that side of the court.  The Celtics can only hope that the series’ change in venue won’t harm their defense that has finally begun to regain shape as one of the league’s finest after four months of hibernation.

If the C’s defense is to remain impenetrable, even in the South Beach heat, Rondo will be a big reason why.