Thomas impresses in his debut but gets ejected, Celtics lose to "rival" Lakers in OT "battle": 118-111


Apologies about the sarcastic quotation marks in the headline, but seriously, I don't know how to feel about this game. (more on this later)

Now that Jared Sullinger is out for the season and a few other teams in the East have reloaded for the race to the 8th seed, it is quiet likely that the Celtics won't make the Playoffs. However, the Celtics will still have one of the most exciting backcourts in the NBA, and we have seen a glimpse of what is to come tonight. Isaiah Thomas came off the bench to score 21 points, grab 5 rebounds, get 3 assists and 2 steals. Oh, and he also got two technical fouls and got ejected, but let's forget about that for now. Offensive spark, check.

Speaking of the backcourt, Avery Bradley had 20 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals, and Marcus Smart had 11 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and hey, all our point guards had 5 rebounds and 3 assists! That's true camaraderie there. Evan Turner had 12 points, 12 assists, 4 turnovers and a zillion questions about why he is still distributing the ball now that we have not one but two actual point guards. Brandon Bass's 15 points and Jae Crowder's 22 points and 7 rebounds off the bench also deserve to be mentioned.

Alright, back to the rivalry issue: Even though both the Celtics and the Lakers are in rebuilding (being politically correct here) mode, it might still hurt a little to lose to the Lakers, especially with such horrendous officiating. Here's the thing though: If the Lakers don't get a top-5 pick this year, they will lose their pick to whichever team has it after the confusing deadline trades (my gut says it's the 76ers but I'm too lazy to Google it). So yeah, that should relieve your pain, or serve as the cherry on top if you are actually happy that we lost tonight.

Photo credit: Andrew Bernstein, Getty Images