agoo101284

The Celtics are kicking off the second half of the season tonight in Orlando against the astounding Orlando Magic. The Celtics are at 20-21 and are three off the pace in the Atlantic, but are seventh in the East. Orlando is not fairing so well as the Celtics and are stuck down at 9-30, which makes them the worst team in the league by two games over (or under?) Washington.

The Celtics last played Wednesday at a cold Fleet Center against the Houston Rockets and lost 95-80. Mike James led the team with 20 points, to go with 2 assists, 2 steals, and 3 rebounds. Starting powerforward, Walter McCarty had 3 boards (ouch) and 7 points on 2-7 shooting. Mark Blount played well with 14 points on 6-13 shooting, and 9 rebounds. Ricky Davis had 12 and 5 with four assists and two steals. Marcus Banks had 10 and 2 assists. An injured Paul Pierce had the worst game, possibly, of his career with 4 points on 1-10 shooting (0-4 from three), 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and a block. On a brighter note, he had a mere two turnovers.

The Magic also played on Wednesday in New York against Isiah's Knickerbockers. They lost 120-110. Tracy McGrady scored 28 points and grabbed 7 boards, and dished out 9 assists. TMac shot 10-27 from the floor and 2-7 from three. Juwan Howard had 23 points and 8 boards (all defensive). Tyronn Lue, Keith Bogans, and Lee Nailon also reached double figures with 13, 10, and 12 respectively.

Our boys in Green have defeated the Magicless twice this season, the first being a 94-92 victory on 11/26 (pre-Davis). The second game was a 101-93 victory nine days ago at home. Tracy McGrady led the Magic with 28 (11-29 shooting) with three boards and four assists. Keith Bogans put up 18 and pulled down 8 boards. Juwan Howard had 13 and 8 boards (all defensive). Tyronn Lue had 10 points and 9 assists. For the victorious Celtics, Mike James led the team in scoring with 21 points and also had 5 boards and just as many assists. Paul Pierce had 19 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, and 9 turnovers, a near quadruple double. Jiri Welsch had 13 points, 4 boards and 3 assists. Chris Mihm had one of his better games with the Green as he scored 11 points, pulled down 11 boards (5 offensive) and two blocks. Walter McCarty and Ricky Davis led the solid bench effort with 12 points a piece. McCarty had 5 boards to go with his 12 and Davis had 7. In this game, the Celtics led from wire to wire had were up by as many as 18 before the Magic came back a bit for an 8 point loss.

The Celtics should win this game against the NBA's worst team. Paul is playing, but not shooting well at just 1-5 thus far. But I for one am excited to see Vinny Baker playing and playing well thus far. When Vinny is playing, Walter McCarty is playing where he should be at small forward. I don't mind Walter on the floor at small forward where his three point shooting fits in at the position.

Currently, the Celtics are holding for the last shot in the first quarter and are down by four.

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Big John

Two totally bogus phantom fouls in Welsch vs McGrady. McGrady will get 40+ tonight. The refs will make sure of it.

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VINNY A TRIUMPHANT RETURN, EVEN A DUNK, MUSIC TO MY EARS, AND A GOOD BACK AND FORTH GAME AND PIERCE DOESNT SEEM TO BE FORCING AND LETTING HIS TEAM WIN IT, HURT HAND AND ALL.

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Big John

So what happened to Mihm in the 4th quarter? Baker? Banks?
Win or lose, if I were Danny Ainge, this would be Jim O'Briens last game coaching the Celtics. McCarty can't even hold on to the ball. Ridiculous.

Well, Walter hits the big three to force overtime. His reason to exist. But why did it have to come to that?

Big John

Airball Paul. Are we rebuilding yet?

h180ys

Terrible game guys.............. Bad bad bad lost for us.

I just got back home from playing ball, then turned on the TV and we're still leading. Then we just got lucky with that Walter's shot. He's no clutch at all, he's just lucky. LUCKY.

Then we lost in overtime, they're playing as if it's only 1 minute left. Terrible game. But it can be a good lost for us so Obie can teach this guys when it comes down to OT.

JNice

Whats up with Pierce? Doesnt look the same the last few games. Bogans/Tmac played some good D on him, but he never really looked much into it except for a couple minutes in the 4th.

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Big John

Pierce sucks big time. He MISSED 20 shots. Banks, Mihm and Baker were playing really well. Why in God's name were they taken out?

Horrible, just horrible. How can you let Dwight Gooden score 30 points, and a 19 year old (Za Za) demolish you on the offensive glass. Oh.. I forgot. McCarty was in the game.

agoo101284

He hurt his left hand diving for a loose ball in Milwaukee. I saw the replay before tonight's game and I couldn't tell exactly what happened. Either a Buck stepped on it or he hurt it by smashing it against the ground and the guys foot. Then against Houston, he got fouled on the hand and that didn't really help him any.

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Richie Rich

I guess we forget that he wuz probably playing through alotta pain and prolly shuldnt have been playing, but since he's such a competitor he did. Give the guy some damn respect, it's not exactly easy to shoot a ball when your HAND is hurt, I know you are going to say he should have sat, but no he shouldn't have. When anyone else goes 7-26 or whatver Paul was it doesn't turn into a "AI sux" or "T-Mac sux", only on the C's board do we do this to oour star player, I give Pierce alot of credit for playing injured, unfortunately we lost, we will get em next time.

I agree the other 3 shuldn't have been taken it, it makes no sense. It's liek he doesn't see what is happening on the court.

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lastlaugh

Boston is used to winning. It has been too long between Championships.

When Paul plays a game like he played tonight he deserves to be called on it. He has had a free ride in this town for too long.

I don't know where you get this board is too hard on him. He has not been called out for one bad game in his entire career in Boston. It took 6 years before he was ever called out.

I said above he deserves a break for playing injured but don't you think he deserves at least a little bit of the blame when everyone on the team shoots 50% or over but Paul who took 26 shots but only made 7 of them.

Richie Rich

IMO, he should have sat tonite so I agree he had a tremendously bad night. He deserves the blame for being too competitive though? I guess not, but IMO we are one of the only boards that always seem to call out our star player and I think it's kinda pathetic, that's my opinion. You may not agree, but that's what I have noticed.

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It took 6 years for Paul to EVER be called out for a bad game.
Do you not understand how big that is?
I know of no other anointed superstar who has never been called out when he played crappy. The papers have NEVER called Pierce out. They always blamed someone else.



Plenty of players play hurt. That is part of the game. Allan Iverson plays hurt all the time so does everyone.

Big John

If this were just one bad game I could live with it. I could live with 2-3-4 bad games. But of the Celtics 23 losses, at least half of them have been caused, in whole or significant part, by sluggish, selfish, ineffective play by Pierce. As all of you know, I have been ranting since the beginning of the year about his poor play. It continues. Tonight had nothing to do with his hand. It had to do with a player who was too selfish to involve his teammates, too lazy to take it to the hole and too slow to guard anyone effectively. He just jacked up those threes and he couldn't even hit the bloody rim.

I said before that the Celtics could win #17 with Pierce if they got him the proper supporting cast. I was wrong. They will NEVER win #17 with Pierce.

If the ball had been in Marcus' Banks hands in the 4th quarter the Celtics would have won the game going away.

goNBAjayhawks

So ungrateful

Who cares if "we", "us", or "you" is used to winning, if you didnt know this isnt a dynasty it once was so get over it, there's alot of teams on dry spells there have only been 4 teams to win it over the last 12 championships since '91. If pierce isnt a piece of the puzzle than i dont know who is, Perkins is a HS kid we might not be able to see his fruits, w/Banks you see flashes but looks to be a couple years, we still have McCarty, Davis is young and fun, Pierce is still pretty young(but sux so we should trade him for nothing, or just release him caus he serves no purpose) and then temporary fixes in blount, james, jones, Hunter,Mill. And then solid bench guys in Mihm and Welsch of which the jury is still out on how good he can be. So is Pierce really holding us back, and are we on the brink of busting out a dynasty and all we need is pierce to leave. I mean come on, im gonna be watchin caus it has some potential but pierce is a part of that and you take him off and there isnt much just davis and Jiri, who you could say play the same position.

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