C's nip Pistons, 105-100

The Celtics won tonight, although I don't think it was the type of performance that would make everyone forget Saturday's catastrophic loss to the Nets.  This is a game where you'd expect Boston to come out and make a statement.  Kevin McHale and Brent Barry said as much in the pregame; that is, normally you don't look at regular season games as "must-win" but the devastation of losing to the Nets at home put this game into that category.  And in that regard, Boston failed miserably.  (Btw how the hell did this win the NBA Fan Night Game of the Week for Tuesday night with the Flakers playing the Pacers later?  There's no way it won fair and square.  Was fan night rigged this week?  It had to have been.  I'm demanding an official recount of the fan voting to see the final tally.  The only two teams that play on Fan Night are the Flakers and Cavs.  Something is suspicious with this lol).

They basically played Detroit about evenly for 3 quarters.  They built the lead up to 8 points in the 3rd quarter, only to see Detroit come back and close out the 3rd quarter strong.  The Pistons actually lead by 3 going into the 4th.  It took solid contributions from the bench, specifically Nate Robinson and Glen Davis to gain the momentum back in the final period and push Boston to victory.  Robinson had his best game as a Celtic, scoring 14 points including 4 for 5 on 3 pointers.  Glen Davis was solid as well, despite taking 14 shots to score his 12 points.

Basically this game was a really lackluster performance.  If you missed it, Perkins was out with the flu and Rasheed got the start.  He hit the first basket of the game which was a 3 pointer and actually got an offensive rebound (for the record Robinson was credited with one as well this game).  Paul Pierce returned after missing the previous 3 games but certainly didn't look much better, finishing with just 9 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist in 29 lethargic minutes.  KG had a standard game of 14 and 9, falling victim to the athleticism of rookie Jonas Jerebko, Rodney Stuckey and Jason Maxiell on several occasions.  Ray lead Boston with 18 points while Rondo tied Tiny Archibald from back in the 1982 season with his 7th consecutive game with double digit assists (11).

So the Celts got a win.  But can you say you were happy with their performance?  I certainly wasn't.  If Boston won this game in style and put a shellacking on the Pistons I would've felt a lot better.  But they gave up 100 points to a poor offensive team and got pounded on the boards (being out-rebounded 46 to 34).  In fact if the C's don't shoot 9-18 from 3 point range, they lose this game.  Let's see how they come out tomorrow night at home in the second night of a back to back against an athletic Bobcat team that's fighting for their playoff lives.  Two things scare me about that game: the back to back scenario and (can't believe I'm about to say this lol) the Celtics playing in Boston, where they have only the 17th best home record in the league at a paltry 16-11.