Bring on the Haters!

Quick thoughts on tonight's debacle of a game. Or really just the second half.

--Worst half of a game we've played since I can remember.

--13 assists. Total (at least until I shut the TV off with about 1:30 left).

--Almost opposite defensive energy between the first and second halves. I was pleasantly surprised that in the first 24 minutes, every single player on the Celtics showed a helluva lot of energy, helping out teammates, overplaying everything (in the best sense of the word), getting in passing lanes, HUSTLING. The second half was a completely different story. Sluggish, showing the men they were playing a clear way to the basket, overplaying (in the WORST sense of the word) when showing on screens (PS: Why does that tend to happen? For example, Rondo guards Williams. Okur comes to set a screen. Sheed leaves Okur to help the semi-open Williams. Rondo, meanwhile, slips over the screen and is clearly still capable of guarding Williams. Sheed keep guarding Williams for some ungodly reason. Okur is wide open and knocks down a three. Happened far too often.)

--Several missed layups and, more important, missed and-ones in the second half. Perfect way to shoot yourself in the foot when you're missing FREE throws (i.e. FREE points, but the league couldn't just give them to you...they had to come up with something more official=free throws--surely professional basketball players can hit a wide open shot from 6 feet!, says Mr. Naismith. And they should. But we didn't.)

--Nate Robinson and Davis doing jack in the second half. Nate, buddy, I know you want to run the offense and pass the ball and really buy into our system, but we got you to score, score score. Ya know, like you did in the first half when you got 8 points in 25 seconds. And Big Baby. You get a thump on the nose and can't do ANYTHING in the second half? 13 points in something like 7 minutes sounds amazing, except when you consider that was all in quarters 1 and 2. Come on.

That's all I can think of for now. I could talk about the refs and how they most likely went into halftime, saw the free throw discrepancy (attributed to the Celtics actually attacking the rim the entire half), and deciding to try and even it out by letting the game get out of control in favor of the Jazz....BUT I won't get into that :)

Oh well, back to home for a season-long 6 game homestand. Hopefully that will help right the ship a bit, eh?