Paul and Rondo make their return!
Well, that was a great win. Incase you live under a rock and you don’t know, with 5.5 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter, D. Wade picked the ball off of Ray, sprinted down the court and delivered a thunderous dunk, screaming and flexing his muscles for all 200 Heat fans in the building. The Celtics called timeout, and then Paul Pierce stepped up to the half court line. The Celtics have so many weapons, you have to pick your poison when matching up with them, but still, with the clock winding down with the Celtics down and with Paul in-bounding the ball, locked and loaded team aside, you have to think it’s going to go to Ray. Well, Paul proceeded to lob the most perfectly delivered alley-oop pass in history to Rondo, who cut to the basket and gently laid the ball in, leaving Mario Chalmers wondering what had just happened. I was wondering what happened, too, as I stared at the TV in disbelief, it took me a couple seconds to start screaming my head off. You almost could have missed how momentous it all was because it all happened so fast and everyone was so calm. Rondo pumped his fist in acknowledgement, but the display that D. Wade put on was not mirrored on the Celtics end as they sent it into overtime. As Rondo and Paul both explained later, that play had been run over and over again in practice. Besides, there was no time for celebrating because there was a greater task at hand, in winning the game… Which they did. Oh, the genius that is Doc Rivers and the unbelievable amount of talent that this team has. I (almost) can’t take it.
As much as that was the play of the game, they got that win because of a tremendous team effort. Rasheed got 6 fouls, but he managed to keep it together and stay on the floor for the team. He also shot 3 for 5 from downtown, always a plus. Perk came out and had a monstrous game (I watched Syracuse-Memphis earlier on last night and it always amazes me how much more they’re allowed to play in college, in terms of physicality. Perk would have been a phenomenon in college). I thought Paul looked a little off in the beginning, but as he got in to the flow of the game he warmed up and looked much more comfortable out there, drawing contact and playing aggressive. He ended up playing way more minutes than what was probably originally intended, so hopefully that doesn’t come back to haunt them. It wasn’t the best night for Glen Davis or Tony Allen, but they were still effective. Both of them were aggressive and played some good defense. TA had a great drive in the second where he took the ball the basket in complete control, showed the ball to D. Wade and then switched hands and laid it in. I think it’s just a matter of both of them gaining confidence- Glen is coming back from the wrist and now a sprained ankle and TA has a long list of scrapes and bruises to put completely behind him. What’s important is that they’re both playing in their role and aren’t trying to do too much.
I don’t know what Doc should do about minutes right now, down KG, Marquis and Eddie. As great a win as it was, the 49 minutes for Rondo and 40 plus minutes for Paul, Rasheed and Ray were probably too much. What is he supposed to do, when they’re out there getting it done and it’s neck in neck all game? Take them out? I’d like to see Shelden Williams get around 12 to 15 minutes consistently. He has a lot of good stuff going for him. He’s extremely hard working and is a great presence on the boards. I think he needs the consistency in his minutes to build confidence in his game. He’s had a problem of getting the ball down low and putting the right shot up- and not finishing. I think if he’s out there consistently, the shots will start to fall. JR Giddens had a solid 20 minutes against Toronto, and even if he was out there for 10 to 15 minutes a game, it would do a lot of lessen the load for the starting five. And speaking of JR Giddens, please, can he get some of Brian Scalabrines’ minutes? At least until he shows that he shouldn’t get them. It’s just not going well for Scal right now- he knows the system in and out and he works hard, but in Giddens there’s a tremendous athlete, fresh (young) legs, good defense and a guy he’s positively chomping at the bit to get on to the floor.
P.S.: I don’t know what to make of Lester Hudson getting waived. I really liked what I saw in his 12 minutes against Toronto. Is there someone else coming? It doesn’t seem like a financial move, because he wasn’t making much, in NBA talk. It seems more likely that they wanted to open up a spot on the roster.
