Celtics End Tough Stretch with Squeaker in New Jersey

Celtics End Tough Stretch with Squeaker in New Jersey
November 8, 2009 by Nick Gelso

NSS is excited to welcome, guest blogger, Travis. You can check out more of his exceptional work at Gino’s Jungle.

Finally that dreadful 8 games in 12 nights is over. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to watch the guys in green every night if I could. The problem for the Celtics is it wears them down, and they have no time to practice what they need to fix. This was very visible in the way they jumped out on a sprint to begin the season, then the last three games have been somewhat of a letdown. Have no fear, the Celtics will take and use this 3 day layoff to the best of their advantage, to gear up for a more normal schedule.

Now onto the game. We all figured, “Ha, even with a tired and worn down team, we can beat the New Jersey Nets easily.” Nevermind the fact that they were 0-6, but they also came into the night with one player after another going down due to injury or flu. The Nets had 7 players sitting. We aren’t talking about JR Giddens taking a seat for the Celtics for a game. Key players had to sit for the Nets such as: Yi, Harris, Douglas-Roberts, and Lee. That is most of their team right there. The Nets did not lay down, though. They battled hard, and were a step faster than the Celtics all night (I would even argue maybe 2 or 3 steps faster). In the end, when all was said and done, the C’s talent prevailed.

The Nets were led the whole night by Alston and Lopez. Alston had a great night on the floor putting in 20 points and dishing out 7 assists. Brooke Lopez was the real pain for the Celtics, though. He was everywhere, and was knocking down the jumper from the top of the key consistently. We let him shoot it and he proved more times than not, that we should get a hand in his face. Lopez finished with 23 points and 7 boards.

The Celtics were battling all night to get ahead. The game was close throughout, however you never got the feeling we could have lost. When the Celtics need to buckle down and suck it up, they do it (Reference to the C’s late game defense on previous post: Defense Wins Championships, Offense Sells Tickets). The charge was originally led by Rondo. Although he didn’t have a great night in the assist department, he made up for it with steals and easy baskets. Rondo was consistently in the passing lane frustrating Raefer Alston all night.

Brian Scalabrine was what I would consider, the spark that led us onto victory. He came in and scored only 5 points, but they were huge. We were struggling to score at the time, and he came in and knocked down a 3 followed soon thereafter by another long 2. Scal also stepped in on the defensive side with fresh legs and came up with 3 steals of his own.

When all is said and done the Celtics are 7-1, and by the end of the season we will never remember back to this game and think of how we should have won by 40. Now to 3 days off to get ready for a big game against Utah at home.