Celtics Blow Lead, Arguably Worst Loss of Season


As great as the Celtics looked in the first half tonight, they were equally sheepish in the 4th quarter, getting their asses handed to them.

  • Celtics overall play in the first quarter was superb.  That's the best defensive effort I've seen in quite some time.  They did an outstanding job in the whole first half of closing out on Orlando's shooters.
  • Matt Barnes is a bitch.  His shove on Paul Pierce before Pierce's wrap-up foul on Dwight Howard was uncalled for.  The fact Marv Albert and Reggie Miller were oblivious to Barnes initial shove is annoying.  They made it out to seem Barnes was retaliating because of Pierce's foul.  Paul got in Barnes face because of his shove which was unnecessary.
  • Rashard Lewis is having a crappy season.  Wasn't this guy an all star last year?  His scoring average is way down.  He was overpaid to begin with but his contract looks outrageous right now.  Maybe that supplement he took in last year's playoffs he had been taking all season and is now feeling the withdrawal?  Pure Celticslife speculation there.
    • For the 47th time this season I'm gonna mention again how the Celtics have no one to defend perimeter big guys.  Lewis played well above his average this year because Boston's got no one to defend him.  That last play where he took KG for a layup was pitiful. 
  • Gortat turned into Hakeem Olajuwon for like a 2 minute stretch in the 2nd quarter.  He was much more Marcin Gortat for the rest of the game.  Has anyone seen his heinous Michael Jordan tattoo on his leg (you can see it in the picture above)?  What a clown.
  • KG's still out of it.  His lack of athleticism tonight was obvious.  How bad was he tonight you ask?  He was so awful that on the last play with 1.5 seconds remaining he wasn't even on the floor.
    • This can't be understated.  He has 2 years remaining on his contract for an absurd amount of money.  And he's not even out there?  Right now he looks like Olajuwon on the Raptors and Ewing on the Sonics.  Gortat outplayed him tonight.  Is this whole injury this debilitating?  Or is he finished?
  • Ray shot very well all game and played the best game of any Celtic tonight.  His miss on the penultimate offensive possession hurt but I can't blame him since he played so well otherwise.
  • Perk never got into any kind of flow in the game.  Early foul trouble and the fact Rasheed does such a good job defensively on Howard equated to not many minutes tonight for him.
  • By the way, what's with the constant wearing of road uniforms at by the home team?  Once in awhile I understand but it's way too frequent in my opinion.  Celts wearing white on the road is dumb.
  • 2 more 2 pointers with his foot on the line for Eddie House.  2 "Ball Don't Lie" for Sheed.  These two things are getting extremely old.

Another gut-wrenching loss that shouldn't have happened.  Here's my final take: unless KG is about 90% healthy and/ or the Celts acquire a guy who can defend the premier perimeter big men of the league, the Celtics will not win the title this year.  I don't care how electrifying Rondo is, how rugged Perkins is or how solid Ray or Paul are.  It depends on Garnett and he looked about 50% out there tonight.  An utterly pathetic loss.

Lastly please no excuses about the foul discrepancy (Orlando shot 40 free throws to Boston's 18).  It just wasn't a factor tonight.  I feel the game was very well officiated  (other than one play Lewis got away with a similar moving screen to Perkins, it wasn't called, and he hit a 3 which hurt).  This was a personnel loss tonight.  Rashard Lewis looked like Larry Bird and that just can't happen.