Thursday, November 29, 2012

Nets 95 - Celtics 83: Fight Leads to Ugly Loss


For all the spectacular plays and immense talent Rajon Rondo brings to the table, we saw last night his biggest flaw co me to life. Rondo has been knocked for his inability to control his emotions on the court, and that was evident last night midway through the second quarter. 

After watching Kris Humpries' flagrant foul on Kevin Garnett, Rondo immediately shoved Humphries leading to an altercation that ended with a pile of Nets and Celtics players in the stands. 

As awesome as it was to see Rajon Rondo basically man handle Mr. Kardashian, it was totally uncalled for in what was a huge division game last night. 

The fight landed Rondo in the locker room the rest of the night, and left the rest of the Celtics team looking for answers the remainder of the game. 

Overall it was a piss poor effort last night from the C's. They let the Nets push them around all night, except for the 30 seconds that Rondo was doing the pushing.

The performance was so unsettling that it led to some pretty honest and harsh comments from their coach Doc Rivers after the game. 
"We’re a soft team right now; we have no toughness. And that stuff’s not toughness. All that stuff, that’s not toughness.”
All the focus from last nights game is on the fight, as it should be, but there are much bigger problems for this Celtics team other than their petulant, yet outstanding point guards emotional issues.

Last night, the Celtics lost the lead in the first quarter and were not able to overcome timely shooting from the Brooklyn Nets. 
They especially had no answer for Jerry Stackhouse, (yes that's right he still plays in the NBA) who was deadly from the corner and finished the game with 17 points going 5-6 from downtown. 

Not only did the Celtics let Stackhouse go off but they also couldn't stop the Nets from  utilizing one of the weakest benches, to finish off the Celtics. Andray Blatche, and Reggie Evans were beasts on the glass and were constantly giving the Celtics headaches. Blatche ended the game with 17 points and 13 boards, while Evans exploded offensively (for him anyways) for 5 points and 10 boards. 

With everything seemingly going right for Brooklyn, the Celtics were struggling to find anyone willing to step up. Pierce struggled all game to find his rhythm all night long, however was able to fill up his stat line in garbage time.  Garnett was really only effective when either Humphries or Lopez were guarding him. However, Humphries was ejected which may have actually helped the Nets, and Lopez only saw 18 minutes due to foul trouble.

You know its a bad night when Tommy is having a tough time choosing his Tommy Award Winner...

The only bright spot for the Celtics may have been Jason Terry who was trying to spark a comeback at the start of the fourth quarter.  He finished with 13 points and was agressive on both ends of the court. 
The Celtics cannot continue to play like this, especially in Atlantic Division games, if they have any aspirations of coming out of the East. 

The 'Quote of the Night' comes form the Coach Doc Rivers, who so eloquently was able to sum this performance up in a few sentences. 
"Kevin, Paul, and Rondo and a few other guys, its almost as they understand the Jersey there wearing, adn the Pride that comes with it. Everyone else, its almost like they think because they put the jersey on that they are something. You gotta earn it here, and you gotta understand when we play that every team is attacking you and its a big game for them.  What I saw tonight was Brooklyn looked at this as a huge game, they wanna make the playoffs this year. They wanna win the division. They've struggled with us for how many years? And we just showed up to play some basketball. Thats what  I saw. "

We saw it to Doc, we all saw it.




 

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