Truth

Boston Celtics: Yes, they won. But they also failed to hold onto a 17-point lead and barely held on to win at home. That didn't exactly instill me with a lot of confidence, even if Ray Allen's jumper finally came home.

The Boston reserves: It was shades of 1987 all over again. No, Larry didn't steal the ball. I'm talking about the lousy bench. The Beantown auxiliaries were "good" for 3 points (1-for-5), 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 turnovers, and 4 fouls in 30 minutes of...you know what? That doesn't even count as lack-tion. Bravo to Sam Cassell for avoiding a two trillion by throwing the ball away once. Still, that wasn't as bad as...

Eddie House: E-Money must have been munching on magic mushrooms before the game, because he transformed into -- jrrp jrrp jrrp --Super Mario! (Five Basketbawful bucks to any reader who can come up with a better phonetic sound effect for the Super Mario transformation.)

Rajon Rondo: The kid had a great floor game (13 assists, only 1 turnovers) and active hands on defense (4 steals), but his shooting was sucksational: 3-for-14. And those numbers are actually worse than you think: He was 0-for-4 on jumpers and only 3-for-10 on layups. Greg Kite is a bigger scoring threat for the Celtics. And I don't mean the Greg Kite from 1984, I mean Greg Kite right now.

Kevin Garnett: It's hard to pick on a guy who scored 33 points (11-for-17) and hit the game-clinching freethrows, but I think I'm up to the challenge. Here's what KG during that last desperate stretch when the Celtics almost choked up their lead. 6:48 - Turnover. 5:51 - Turnover. 5:08 - Missed jump shot. 4:04 - Two made freethrows. 3:32 - Two made freethrows. 2:38 - Missed jump shot. 0:18 - Missed jump shot. 0:03 - Two made freethrows.

So basically, in clutch time, KG was 0-for-3 from outside and bobbled the ball away twice. He did add four important freethrows, as well as the two game-clinchers off the forced foul...but still. That wasn't exactly a clutchtastic performance.

Not-so-fun fact: Hoffman from Ballerblogger has pinpointed KG's Achilles' heal. And while it's not "I've grown a second, evil head!" shocking, the numbers are pretty revealing. "KG has attempted more shots (68) than any other Celtic in the Conference Finals. He's also leading 'Boston’s Big 3' in field goal percentage (.515). But 55 of those 68 shot attempts have been outside of the paint. Fifty-two percent is a good shooting percentage but it pales in comparison to the 69% (9-of-13) KG is shooting from inside the paint. This is why Kevin Garnett was the Defensive Player of the Year and not the MVP this season. He's either incapable or unwilling to impose his will upon games and lead his team to victory on both ends. Someone needs to remind Garnett that he’s a power forward!" Incapable or unwilling? Well, we know what Bill Simmons has to say on the subject...

Detroit Pistons: They once again waited a little too long to start playing with a sense of urgency. Do you realize how often that last line could have been used for this team over the last few years?

Rasheed Wallace: 'Sheed got his sixth technical foul of the playoffs -- a seventh will mean an automatic one-game suspension -- and then went supernova on the officials after the game. "All that (expletive) calls they had out there, with Mike (Callahan) and Kenny (Mauer) you've all seen that (expletive). You saw them calls. The cats are flopping all over the floor and they're calling that (expletive). That (expletive) ain't basketball out there. It's all (expletive) entertainment. You all should know that (expletive). It's all (expletive) entertainment."

You know, that last quote could be the first-ever Rasheed Wallace Mad-lib. Just replace every "expletive" with a funny word, like "fart" or "vagina" or "Magellanic Cloud." NBA Action: It's (expletive)-tastic!

Man-love insert: Basketbawful reader Charles spotted 'Sheed going in for a grabful of A-cup Allen. I'm sure that cat was just floppin' though...

Sheed grope

Rodney Stuckey: The kid's not here because he shot 3-for-9 and missed all three of his layups. He's here because he accidentally made a freethrow he meant to miss with four seconds left and his team down three. Who knew that missing a freethrow could be so hard. And the look on his face was classic. Can anybody find a picture or some video of that?

Antonio McDyess: In Game 4, he hopped in the WABAC Machine, returning to his 1997-98 form for a 21-point, 16-rebound performance. But he apparently came back to the future last night: 4 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 turnovers and 6 fouls in 28 minutes. I guess he really did leave it all on the floor in Game 4.

Theo Ratliff: He did about as well as anybody could hope for last night: 2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 foul in almost 14 minutes. But that's not good enough for some people (and by "some people" I mean "everybody who's rooting for the Pistons"). And so stopplayingtheoratliff.blogspot.com was born! (Thanks to John L. for the link.)

Yahoo!: This just in: The Celtics are going to the NBA Finals! I mean, they won Game 6 last night, right...? Oops. (This message was brought to you by the eagle eyes of Sky Flakes.)

Det-bos

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

12 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hey, you need to update about the NBA-imposed anti-flop rules next season...I predict the Spurs to win 30 games next year if the rules are enforced...the NBA is FLOP-tastic!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
How about this quote from Flip Saunders last night:

"Perkins is eating us up."

Maybe he should keep his private life to himself.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/extras/celtics_blog/2008/05/saunders_qa.html

Anonymous Anonymous said...
per Rodney Stuckey via the Detroit News

He missed the first free throw and made the second. Stuckey said he was not trying to miss the second free throw.

"No, I was just up there shooting it," he said. "They would have probably just fouled us again. I was just trying to make it."

The replay they showed on ESPN was actually of the first free throw he missed. You can tell since he just sat at the line after the shot, but after the second free throw no one called time out so he ran from the line to play D. The guys on the telecast mistakenly identified the replay as the second one assuming he was upset that he had made it.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"BWRRK BWRRK BWRRK!"

How's that?

Blogger Wild Yams said...
You probably should also mention a rather disturbing trend in Rondo's game of late: the way he tries to avoid the trap by floating up a lob pass to a teammate while out by the halfcourt line. That is a pass that is just begging to be picked off and converted into breakaway dunks. He got lucky with that a couple times last night that the Pistons committed fouls while trying to steal those passes, but sooner or later that's gonna bite him in the ass.

Also, last night was the first time I'd ever heard Kendrick Perkins speak, and after hearing his postgame interview there's no doubting he really is from Texas :)

Blogger Unknown said...
wild yams, thanks for pointing that out. i've been screaming at the TV each time rondo has been lobbing up passes late in games. more than half the times he could have made a safer bounce pass. it happened multiple times in 4th quarter of game 3 as well when celts had the lead.

doc rivers need to be in WOTN too. with about 8 minutes left, he already went to his "prevent defense"...actually, he's using 4 corners on offense. the problem is that you CAN'T get any good shots that way. by doing this with so much time on the clock, you're allowing the opposing team chip away at the lead while you can't get your own shots. 4 corners should be used with maybe something like 2 minutes left...which still allows you about 10 minutes of action to run your offense and score. why do you think detroit went on a 21-8 run? most of the points scored in the quarter by the celts were really late in the game when doc had an "oh sh!t" moment and realized he needs to run some offense. rondo is best when he can run the offense freely...not 4 corners which for some reason he thinks the defense eases up and he starts lobbing passes. detroit's d is too good for it

Blogger clicc916 said...
Another addition to your WOTN:
http://www.nba.com/playoffs2008/photos/e3s1_game5_6.html
Back when the Kings actually made it past the first round of the playoffs, the Original Penny was often seen at Kings games decked out in Kings regalia...now Boston? And with Wahlberg? My my how quickly the Penny falls off the bandwagon.

Blogger Unknown said...
ALSO, did you guys see how Rip Hamilton hurt his arm? he was trying to prevent Ray Allen from going in for a rebound by grabbing his neck with his left hand, then putting his entire left arm around Ray-Ray's neck only to have a freak unseen injury to his right elbow. that could either be the Basketball Gods or Karma. btw, no foul was called when there definitely should have been...replay available on ESPN's highlights for the game

Blogger GMoney said...
Rip Hamilton pulled an Al Czervik last night with his arm injury.

I hope that Yahoo paid Jon Lovitz for the use of his catchphrase.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
gotta love sheed´s straight talk

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"meep meep"

oh, that´s roa.. rondo?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Personally, I'd go with BRWPP, BRWPP, BRWPP, but jrrp jrrp jrrp is pretty good too.