Well.
I guess the Celtics will have to win on the road, after all.
Not a lot of mystery to this game, the Celtics just got out played. Despite decent (but despite some reports, not great) efforts from Pierce/Garnett/Allen, the Pistons were pretty much in control of the game from the middle of the second quarter on.
So despite the fact that the series is tied 1-1, really the Celtics are down, and all the Pistons need to do is defend their home court and they’ll win the series.
Celtics fans need not feel too bad though, as the Pistons really had to play about the perfect game to take this one, and the Celtics have won in Detroit already this year. To do that again, they’ll have to play better defense than they did last night in the fourth quarter, when the Pistons seemed to get a fair amount of wide open shots. They’ll also need more from Rondo, who deferred a little too much at a couple points in the game.
There were plenty of bright spots from the Celtics, most noticeably Ray Allen starting to drop some shots from the outside. (Even if he looked surprised every time they went in..)
Still, there’s no taking away from the fact that this was a huge win for the Piston’s. The Celtic’s lost their homecourt advantage, now they need to go and take one in Detroit. Not the easiest task, but perfectly do-able for this team, despite their road game issues so far in the playoffs.
Filed under: basketball, sports
At no point did a Cs team on the floor look like they were in a rhythm. There were certain times when an individual Celtics PLAYER was in a rhythm, but not the team.
One thing I noticed that hindered the Celtics from getting any rhythm was the extended breaks so the broadcast can fit in extra commercials (the playoffs pay better). Time outs are longer, and breaks between periods are longer. After watching the game from the stands last night I felt like I spent more time sitting in the stands WAITING for the game to start again after a stoppage than I did WATCHING any game play!
Every time the Celtics began putting something together there was a foul or a TO that seemed to last two full songs (typically classic rock or techno while the jumbo-tron camera scanned the crowd for idiots dancing in their seat). Every time the game started back up again I was a little surprised.
Also the officiating was questionable at times. At the end of the game during a crucial Celtics inbound, did you see Prince trip Pierce causing him to stumble and allow Prince to catch up and regain the gap that Pierce had made? No? That’s probably because the refs did nothing about it.
I understand the ‘just let them play’ philosophy, but in person it didn’t appear that the game was called that way. A lot of ticky-tack fouls (although most of them went both ways) followed by a minimum of two songs.
Last night there was a lot of booing (some of which was done by me). And I swear that a fan two rows behind me promised to eat one of the refs for lunch.
With that said, I agree. The way to win in Detroit is with great team defense. But Ray Allen shooting better than 39% will help (the crowd erupted ever time Ray hit a jumper), and the bench needs to score more than 8 points in a game.
The bench definitely needs to play a little better, but the bench is generally the area that has the toughest time when playing on the road. I really do think that the Celtic’s are going to take one of the next two games, and then it’ll be a three game series after that.
As for Ray Allen, 39% may not be good, but watching Tony Allen play instead of him for long stretches was PAIN-ful.