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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.

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “The Celtics are about to experience something completely different – a six-games-in-12-days homestand. ‘I don’t think any of us knows what that feels like,’ Ray Allen said of a stretch that begins tonight against Denver at the Garden. ‘We haven’t been home that long all year. Hopefully I can get my bags unpacked.’ Perhaps they can unpack some of what worked on their 2-1 road swing through Texas and Utah. The second half of Monday night’s frustrating loss to the Jazz aside, the Celtics showed some of the most promising signs yet that they are ready for a stretch run.”

Gary Washburn, Boston Globe – “So there is much at stake in this six-game stretch, with four opponents heading to the playoffs (Denver, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Cleveland) in addition to a difficult game against Houston and a tricky matchup with the young Kings. ‘It’s tough, but it’s at home,’ said coach Doc Rivers. ‘It would be a nice chance to reestablish us at home. We haven’t done that this year yet. We haven’t had a lot of rhythm at home, so we have a chance right now.’ The numbers at home are quite similar to the road numbers, hence the nearly identical records. The Celtics score almost 3 more points per game at TD Garden and allow opponents just 1.6 more points.”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “The Celtics’ play of late has squashed a number of the questions and concerns about them being too old to compete with the top teams. ‘Maybe for 82 games, people can say that … the Celtics are too old,’ Dallas guard Jason Kidd told CSNNE.com recently. ‘But when it comes down to it, they keep on winning. Come playoff time, you don’t look at age. You look at experience and understanding the situation.’ The Celtics’ situation is pretty clear – keep on winning. ‘We want to be greedy, especially this time of year,’ Pierce said. ‘Our goal is to win every game.’”

Peter May, ESPNBoston – “The Celtics looked tired against the Jazz. It was their third game in four days, and they had no response to the Jazz in the second half. The season-long bugaboos — turnovers, rebounding — surfaced again. The C’s lost to a very good team on the road. It happens. Only one Eastern Conference team — Atlanta — has won in Salt Lake City. So what does it all mean going forward? The mission statement continues to be ‘We just want to get better.’ Doc Rivers admits it sounds corny and that most people probably don’t believe him. Rivers still hopes that the team he had in November and December, the one before the injuries hit, can re-emerge.”

Greg Payne, CelticsBlog – “And now, as the C’s continue to gear up for the postseason, they are about to welcome in the Denver Nuggets, the Sacramento Kings, the San Antonio Spurs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Houston Rockets, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Hopefully the Celtics will welcome these clubs in with nothing short of a sincere sense of utter hostility. For, with the playoffs looming, it would be nice to see this club continue to fine tune its game, re-establish the roles of its essential players, and play with the same sense of bravado that they’ve displayed several times on the road this season. We applauded their efforts against the Rockets and Mavericks. That aggression, that intensity (particularly on the defensive end), and that sense of calm amidst their opponents’ respective runs – we all want to see more of it, for its what we expected to see all along.”

Jessica Camerato, WEEI – [Nate Robinson said,] “I remember one time I was like 15 or 16 and I was in Oakland, California. There was this park where I grew up called Bushrod, it’s in north Oakland, me and my family took a little trip up to another park called Mosswood. It’s like rival parks and my family went up there and we played against another family. I remember we put the money in a hat, everybody put in five dollars. … We played for hat, played for the money. I remember this one big dude, my cousin threw me an alley-oop and I caught it and I dunked on him. I was screaming and yelling. He was like, ‘If you do that again, I’m doing to kick your butt.’ I was like, ‘Oh man.’ So I’m going through the game, I was scoring, and it was game point. My cousin who was on fast break, she threw another lob and dude goes up and I was like, ‘A. Do I catch it and dunk on him? B. Do I let the ball go out of bounds and I lose and my family beats me up?’ (laughs) I didn’t know what to do. So I just went with my first instinct, caught it, and I dunked on him again. We got the money and we ran home. They were chasing us (laughs), they were mad.’”

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

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.

Deron Williams is a tough matchup for the Diminutive Dunker. (AP Photo/Danny Chan La)

Ross Siler, Salt Lake Tribune – “The Jazz scored the last seven points going into halftime and the first nine points coming back from the break. They took off from there, snapping Boston’s four-game winning streak and closing within a half-game of No. 3 Dallas, which lost to New Orleans. ‘We came out like a bullet out of a gun,’ Carlos Boozer said of the Jazz’s second-half surge, adding, ‘I hope everybody in this locker room had fun tonight because we played against a championship-caliber team and beat them.’”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “The tale of the first half was free throw shooting (Boston 13 of 18, Utah 13 of 14), rebounds (Boston 21, Utah 13) and second chances (Boston 11 points, Utah 4). But in second half, Utah dominated every category, finishing with 40 boards, 7 of 21 3-pointers, and 16 second-chance points. The Celtics took their feet off the pedal after Ray Allen drilled a three from the corner with 2:01 left in the first half, turning the ball over, missing layups, and allowing the Jazz to go into the break down just 54-49. ‘I thought the second quarter we closed out terribly,’ Rivers said. ‘I thought what we did was give them hope.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “Kevin Garnett was clearly angry after a frustrating night of chasing Mehmet Okur into the corners. ‘They started the third quarter pretty electric,’ he said. ‘But that was something you had to anticipate. As many times as I have played (in Utah), they have always come out like that. They were pretty aggressive in the first half, so you had to anticipate them coming out with some energy. When you are aggressive like that the refs are going to give you the whistle. We just didn’t put 48 minutes of basketball together.’”

Paul Flannery, WEEI – “It was typical for the last game of a short but grueling trip. But did it mean anything? Every Celtics win and loss has prompted a new twist in the ‘turn it on, turn it off’ saga that has dominated the second half of the season. As he has for the last month, Rivers has resisted the urge to play that game. He’s not going to get into short-term analysis. ‘It was a good trip,’ Rivers told reporters after the game. ‘We’re not counting the trip. We’re not counting games. We’re just trying to get better.’ Still, there were interesting developments on a night when Rivers concluded, ‘They outplayed us. Give them credit. They were the better team.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “Judging from his last three games, during which Pierce took a week-long “vacation” from talking to the media, the go-to element in Pierce’s game has resurfaced. ‘For the most part I’m healthy now,’ Pierce said. ‘I played a lot of games I shouldn’t have played in and I’m really starting to come around as far as my foot, knee and my hand. When you play less than 100 percent it’s tough, especially at the age I am now. I could bounce back when I was younger. But I learned a lot about myself this year with these injuries and I probably need to take more time off when I have these types of injuries.’”

Gary Washburn, Boston Globe – “Pierce’s sentiments were understandable. The Celtics were struggling and needed offensive punch. They were blowing second-half leads and looked ragged and uninterested at times. But what Rivers stressed — many times to deaf ears — was there was plenty of time to recapture that confidence and swagger — that same swagger Pierce showed when he strutted back to the bench after draining that 3-pointer against Dallas. ‘I’m always motivated,’ he said. ‘This is a crucial part of the year when you are trying to battle for playoff position, and at this time you really want to start playing some of your best basketball. We’re starting to show a lot of signs of things that we did earlier in the year.’ And the same could be said for Pierce, who personifies the Celtics.”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “The Celtics are essentially hosting an open house for potential playoff teams the next two weeks with Denver, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Cleveland all due at the Garden. They faired well on the road, but Pierce would have preferred taking all three games on the trip. ‘We’re trying to be greedy, especially at this point in the season,’ Pierce said. ‘We need every win we can get, especially with the seeding being so important. By no means are we satisfied with losing today. We don’t come on a trip saying we win two lose one. Our goal is to win every game. So we’re disappointed for losing this game. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board, and look at the last couple games that we played well, and continue to build. We can’t get discouraged from one loss to a Utah team – who is tough and at home – we’ve got to keep building for the rest of the season.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “The Celtics’ 105-86 win against the Jazz at the Garden on Nov. 11 ranks as a night of infamy for Utah players. According to point guard Deron Williams, the players gathered at a restaurant afterward, went over the box score and noted that there wasn’t a Celtic with 18 points in the game. They also witnessed the Celtics having a bit too much of a good time – probably grooving a little too much on the Gino dance video – late in the game. This humiliation, according to Williams, was the start of Utah’s turnaround.”

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

Mehmet Okur balled out of his mind tonight.

The Utah Jazz came out of halftime like a midsummer California forest fire: Flaming hot and viciously destructive.

Before you could say Mehmet Okur, a five-point halftime lead for the Boston Celtics had turned into a 10-point deficit, and a very winnable game was suddenly headed to the ‘L’ column.  The final score would be even worse, 110-97.

Just before halftime, the Celtics had seemed headed for their fifth straight impressive win.  A Ray Allen three-bomb put the Celtics up 12, and they were threatening to break the game wide open.  Just when it seemed they might put the Jazz away for good, the Celtics took their foot off the gas and allowed the Jazz right back into the game.  The 12-point lead disintegrated to five by the intermission, and the table was set for Utah’s second-half onslaught.

For the Celtics, it was a disappointing loss, but far from the end of the world.  A 3-0 road trip would have been delicious, but 2-1 is nothing to be ashamed of.  Beating the Jazz in Utah is exceedingly tough, but beating them in Utah when Okur plays like Reggie Miller, Hakeem Olajuwon and Dennis Rodman all rolled into one is next to impossible.  Ohkur was everywhere, blocking shots, snatching rebounds, and draining three-pointers from all angles. 

The Celtics looked like a team ready to fly home and embark on a six-game homestand, while the Jazz looked like a team thirstily trying to defend its homecourt.  In the end, that was the difference.  It wasn’t that Utah was a better team, or that they have more talent, but simply that they wanted it more.  It was that simple.  Had Boston kept the turnovers to a minimum in a sloppy first half, Utah might have faced an insurmountable halftime deficit.  But they didn’t, and they didn’t. 

I’ve spent half a season urging Boston to find the heart to exert effort throughout every play of each game, but tonight was the most excusable loss Boston has had in awhile.  I don’t want to let them off the hook after another second-half meltdown, but this one was understandable.  On the last leg of a road trip, playing a very good Utah team in a hostile environment, with a six-game road trip waiting on the horizon, it all added up to a second half devoid of any energy.  I don’t condone it, but I can see why it happened.

If the Celtics don’t bring their hardhats and lunchpails on Wednesday, though, there’s something wrong.  Playing a Nuggets team that all but bent the Celtics over and spanked them last time the two teams met, the Celtics should be out for blood.  It should help that it’s in the Garden, but playing at home hasn’t always been a good sign this season. 

After seeing the Jazz play the Celtics like a fiddle in the final 24 minutes of tonight’s game, spectators might think this was another night the Celtics got overrun by a better opponent.  I wouldn’t read too much into the loss, though.  It was one game, and one game only.  Really, it was one half and one half only.  The Celtics live to play another day.

The next time the Celtics take the court, they should thank their lucky stars they don’t have to play Mehmet Miller Olajuwon Rodman Okur.  He’s a killer.

*****

• Doc Rivers was tossed out of the game with a minute or so left after receiving his second technical foul, and mockingly applauded the referee after his dismissal.
• Ray Allen led the Celtics with 15 points.  Paul Pierce, the reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week, scored only 11 on 3-13 shooting.

Box Score

Paul Pierce, welcome back to the Superstar Club.

Wanna know how long ago the Jazz last played the Celtics?

As the Celtics subs finished off a 105-86 smackdown, Deron Williams marveled at how the Celtics starters laughed on the bench, clearly unworried that they would be unable to compile statistics during the fourth quarter.

Williams even credits the Celtics’ team play and unselfish attitude that day for helping Utah find the right path.

“It was a turning point in the season,” Williams said, “when we saw how they played, and we kind of wanted to emulate that.”

A blowout of a good team? A team wanting to emulate the Boston Celtics?  That’s how you know that game was played a lifetime ago. Or at least on Nov. 11, when the Celtics were still shooting for 72 wins and already planning a championship parade.

The Celtics can no longer feel such confidence and haven’t blown out a good team in a millennium or so, but are starting to piece together the puzzle that confounded them for a few months. With each recent win, including two in a row in the state of Texas, the Celtics come a little closer to resembling the team the Jazz strived to emulate after that November night.

The season has been a lot different than the Celtics imagined, but the C’s seem to have come full circle and regained the magic that was M.I.A. as they sputtered to a .500 record for almost half a seasonworth of games.  After the win against Dallas, ESPN’s Marc Stein noted via Twitter, “Celts might have found something in Texas. Turned it up a notch late and Mavs couldn’t deal. Saw some ol’ Celts swagger tonight.” 

Some ol’ Celts swagger, indeed.  The Big Three didn’t spend the fourth quarter laughing and cheering on their backups.  No, they instead spent it digging out of a 7-point fourth-quarter hole and emerging with a victory, against a contender, on the road, on the second night of a back-to-back.  The Celtics executed beautifully down the stretch and, in a season that has so often seen them look old and creaky, looked a step faster and a whole lot hungrier than their Dallas counterparts. 

It was only one win, only one night.  But, after seeing the Celtics falter time after time, watching them patch together their first significant win in months felt better than opening presents on Christmas (which, coincidentally, was the last time they had won a significant game).  The win against Dallas even feels like more than a fluke.  When coupled with two home blowouts and a gritty victory in Houston, it feels more like a pattern.

That pattern will be tested again tonight, in Utah.  The Jazz are 28-8 at home, where the cozy confines of the Delta Center (sorry, but I refuse to call it EnergySolutions Arena) have always allowed Utah a legitimate homecourt advantage.  It will be a tough task to defeat Deron Williams and co. in their own backyard, but one the Celtics finally seem ready for.

“They’re a great team,” Williams said way back when, after getting smoked by Boston. “They have a group of guys who know their roles 1 through 10. They come in, they do the job, they get stops. They don’t coast. They hold everybody accountable. That’s what it takes to be a championship team.”

They lost their mojo for a long time, but the Celtics are again starting to look like the championship team the Jazz were so impressed by in November. 

The mojo is back, baby.

Oh, behave.

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.

Frank Isola, Newsday (Via Celtics Hub) – “Nate Robinson rose from his seat on the Celtics bench, looked at Mike D’Antoni and began clapping. Lil’ Him wasn’t honoring his former coach Wednesday night as much as he was taunting him. With Boston building a 27-point third-quarter lead over the Knicks, Robinson twice made it a point to show that he was enjoying D’Antoni’s misery. It was another example of Nate being Nate during the Celtics’ 109-97 victory over Robinson’s former club.”

Green Street, WEEI – “When you said, ‘This team is very, very close,’ what did you mean by that? I thought you might even be a little sarcastic with the remark. ‘No, I was not. You look at the Cleveland game, we didn’t play great and it was 68-all with four minutes left in the third quarter, on the road. There was a lot of positive signs, we had the ball back to back in those possessions, turned it over, and missed four free throws in a row. What we didn’t do was when Cleveland made their next run, was fight after. You can just see things — Paul improving, Kevin improving, everybody’s starting to get their rhythm back. And I’ve said it earlier, I don’t think people realize — and it wasn’t about the injuries, it was about the amount of injuries and trying to bring guys back at the same time — you lose your rhythm. Not only as a team but as an individual, and we haven’t gotten it back. But we’re starting to get it back, and if we can get it back in time, like I said in the interview, I love our chances.’”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “‘I know a lot of people are like, ‘You don’t want to be in that fourth seed to face Cleveland in the second round,’ ‘ Perkins said. ‘But, shoot, we both got to get to the second round.’ The Celtics have 15 games left, 10 against teams with winning records. The Magic, currently the second seed, are in the enviable position of simply having to win winnable games. Only seven of Orlando’s last 13 games are against teams above .500. Atlanta has nine games left (out of 15) against winning teams. The Celtics are 13-18 against teams with winning records. ‘It’d be great, obviously, to get the second or third seed,’ Rivers said. ‘It’s not going to be easy.’”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “Boston’s next three foes – Houston, Dallas and Utah – have a combined winning percentage of 61.9 this season. And for a team with so few quality wins to its credit, Boston could benefit in more ways than padding its win total with a successful West coast trip. Coach Doc Rivers has been preaching for weeks that no one game has a greater value than another. But even he acknowledges the C’s could use a few more wins over teams above .500 between now and the playoffs. ‘It’s nice to beat a playoff team,’ Rivers said. ‘We haven’t played well against a lot of them.’ Uh, try most of them, coach.”

Steve Bulpett, Boston Herald – “What’s critical is that Garnett recognize the changes and adjust. NBA people have been saying for years that he is not the best when it comes to some of the positional minutiae, but Garnett always has had the energy, desire and physical gifts to recover when an opponent gained a step on him. Now the foes are finishing. ‘I think now he has to be a little more sound fundamentally,’ Ainge said. ‘He’ll have to do it more, because he’s not the same athlete. He’s had some adjustments to make, for sure. KG’s got to do a better job of keeping guys in front of him because he can’t catch up. But that’s the case with everyone on our team.’ The question is whether Garnett can perform as well as the Celtics need him to in the postseason. ‘Yes,’ Ainge said. ‘Absolutely.’”

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