Amazing Win, but..........

[GeoDim]

We'll get a trial at the Q this year, I promise. We may not get a fair trial in front of the tainted Witnesses but we will go to Cleveland this year.

Orlando does not impress me at all. Dwight Howard is OVERRATED.

23 pts 17 rbs 3 blk with foul trouble

Pretty good game, IMO.  The problem with Dwight is that he lacks the ability to take a game over, like Shaq did in his prime.  He was taking a lot of low percentage shots from the post.  He's still very young.  I'm sure he'll be high on the list of all time big men by the end of his career.

[wiley]

Ray Allen a no show for the third game in this series; 2 points off the bench; Perk's shoulder, and Rondo's continued erratic play. I LOVE this win, but the four things I list here all concern me greatly. I still cannot believe that any team can win a game in the playoffs with TWO points of that bench. That truly is amazing.

I thought Rondo was awesome in this game.  21 points on  8 for 15 shooting and 14 rebounds.  That's a large-sized double double.  I also think he controlled things nicely, showed leadership, etc... His jumper came back a little too.

[DanMan08]

Man, neither team wanted this game, for the longest time neither team made a FG in the late stages of that 4th quarter. 

[illantari]

I rewatched the Baby buzzerbeater, and I couldn't help noticing again how well the Magic guard Ray.  Hedo was all over him.  Gotta give them credit for that.

As far as I can tell AJ "blew by" Rondo a grand total of twice, both times when Mikki was the help.  Alston, you might be curious, was 1-7 tonight.

Random side note: was that Bill Russell and Mike Gorman congratulating Baby after the shot?  If so, good to seem them both.

[GeoDim]

Man, neither team wanted this game, for the longest time neither team made a FG in the late stages of that 4th quarter. 

Yes, I'm sure that this equates to neither team wanting the win.  They're all tired and probably just want the season to be over.  

[nickagneta]

We'll get a trial at the Q this year, I promise. We may not get a fair trial in front of the tainted Witnesses but we will go to Cleveland this year.

Orlando does not impress me at all. Dwight Howard is OVERRATED.

23 pts 17 rbs 3 blk with foul trouble

Pretty good game, IMO.  The problem with Dwight is that he lacks the ability to take a game over, like Shaq did in his prime.  He was taking a lot of low percentage shots from the post.  He's still very young.  I'm sure he'll be high on the list of all time big men by the end of his career.

Dwight Howard should never have been voted DPOY. They should have given it to all the refs who don't calling reaching and blocking fouls on LeBron because they are the real DPOYs because they made a mediocre defender almost a perfect defender.

Perk is the best defensive one on one big man in the league, and maybe by a fairly wide margin. One on one against D Howard in this series here are the numbers:

Perk 11 PPG, 11.3 RPG, 2.5 BPG
DHow 16 PPG, 16.2 RPG, 2.7 BPG

Now here are their regular season numbers:

Perk 8.5 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 1.9 BPG
DHow 20.6 PPG, 13.8 RPG, 2.9 BPG

Seems to me that the DPOY can't hold Perk to his season numbers and that Perk is holding the Superstar Superman to below his season numbers. You be the judge, but if I had three superstars on my team, I'd rather have the inexpensive Perk playing defense than the over-hyped Superman at max money making it not possible for me to have three other superstars, every day of the week.

[guava_wrench]

Ray Allen a no show for the third game in this series; 2 points off the bench; Perk's shoulder, and Rondo's continued erratic play. I LOVE this win, but the four things I list here all concern me greatly. I still cannot believe that any team can win a game in the playoffs with TWO points of that bench. That truly is amazing.

Considering both teams want to play defense, we shouldn't be surprised if not everyone has a good game. Do we think we are the only team that can defend all star quality players?

[DanMan08]

Man, neither team wanted this game, for the longest time neither team made a FG in the late stages of that 4th quarter. 

Yes, I'm sure that this equates to neither team wanting the win.  They're all tired and probably just want the season to be over.  

yea, but even tired players do this thing called "running the offense" not turning the ball over every other posession or just giving it to hedo to chuck bad 3 after 3, or have pierce take fadeaways from the elbow with Pietrus in his face.    

[GeoDim]

Man, neither team wanted this game, for the longest time neither team made a FG in the late stages of that 4th quarter. 

Yes, I'm sure that this equates to neither team wanting the win.  They're all tired and probably just want the season to be over.  

yea, but even tired players do this thing called "running the offense" not turning the ball over every other posession or just giving it to hedo to chuck bad 3 after 3, or have pierce take fadeaways from the elbow with Pietrus in his face.    

I know what you mean, but that's an inaccurate and  overused expression.  If anyone thinks that either team didn't want it enough, they weren't watching the same game I was.  Sometimes shots don't fall and bad decisions are made, but that doesn't always correlate with the team's desire to win.

[get_banners]

about ray, keep in mind that he actually did get a few good looks tonight that just rimmed out. he hasn't gotten friendly bounces all series long. i'm not really worried about him. sometimes you're just unlucky for a few games. the magic are also playing great defense on him. but if a few of those rims outs go in, this isn't a squeaker and ray probably has 20+ points.

[vinnie]

I rewatched the Baby buzzerbeater, and I couldn't help noticing again how well the Magic guard Ray.  Hedo was all over him.  Gotta give them credit for that.

As far as I can tell AJ "blew by" Rondo a grand total of twice, both times when Mikki was the help.  Alston, you might be curious, was 1-7 tonight.

Random side note: was that Bill Russell and Mike Gorman congratulating Baby after the shot?  If so, good to seem them both.

Yes, AJ blew by Rondo twice in about 30 seconds, which is totally unacceptable. Why is he ever blowing by Rondo? In addition, Alston was 1-7, because he thinks he is a 3-point shooter and he is not. He also blew by Rondo at least twice if not more, which led to easy baskets for other Magic players. I love Rondo, but he seriously needs to step it up on the defensive end.

[vinnie]

Ray Allen a no show for the third game in this series; 2 points off the bench; Perk's shoulder, and Rondo's continued erratic play. I LOVE this win, but the four things I list here all concern me greatly. I still cannot believe that any team can win a game in the playoffs with TWO points of that bench. That truly is amazing.

Considering both teams want to play defense, we shouldn't be surprised if not everyone has a good game. Do we think we are the only team that can defend all star quality players?

Look, I love the Celtics and love Ray, but he had several wide open looks tonight from behind the arc and inside the arc that were bricks.

[wiley]

Ray Allen a no show for the third game in this series; 2 points off the bench; Perk's shoulder, and Rondo's continued erratic play. I LOVE this win, but the four things I list here all concern me greatly. I still cannot believe that any team can win a game in the playoffs with TWO points of that bench. That truly is amazing.

Considering both teams want to play defense, we shouldn't be surprised if not everyone has a good game. Do we think we are the only team that can defend all star quality players?

Look, I love the Celtics and love Ray, but he had several wide open looks tonight from behind the arc and inside the arc that were bricks.

Of all your concerns, Perk's shoulder is first in my mind.  Ray seems to like making us nervous but he'll surely rescue us again at some point in the near future.

[BballTim]

I rewatched the Baby buzzerbeater, and I couldn't help noticing again how well the Magic guard Ray.  Hedo was all over him.  Gotta give them credit for that.

As far as I can tell AJ "blew by" Rondo a grand total of twice, both times when Mikki was the help.  Alston, you might be curious, was 1-7 tonight.

Random side note: was that Bill Russell and Mike Gorman congratulating Baby after the shot?  If so, good to seem them both.

Yes, AJ blew by Rondo twice in about 30 seconds, which is totally unacceptable. Why is he ever blowing by Rondo? In addition, Alston was 1-7, because he thinks he is a 3-point shooter and he is not. He also blew by Rondo at least twice if not more, which led to easy baskets for other Magic players. I love Rondo, but he seriously needs to step it up on the defensive end.

  You noticed the pick Howard put on Rondo one of the times Johnson got into the lane, right? Did it happen on either play for Alston? And do you really think that having 3-4 plays where the other pg gets by you in 42 minutes is unacceptably bad? Which point guards never get beat off the dribble? And how many times did Rondo get into the lane? I'd guess more than 4.

[nickagneta]

I rewatched the Baby buzzerbeater, and I couldn't help noticing again how well the Magic guard Ray.  Hedo was all over him.  Gotta give them credit for that.

As far as I can tell AJ "blew by" Rondo a grand total of twice, both times when Mikki was the help.  Alston, you might be curious, was 1-7 tonight.

Random side note: was that Bill Russell and Mike Gorman congratulating Baby after the shot?  If so, good to seem them both.

Yes, AJ blew by Rondo twice in about 30 seconds, which is totally unacceptable. Why is he ever blowing by Rondo? In addition, Alston was 1-7, because he thinks he is a 3-point shooter and he is not. He also blew by Rondo at least twice if not more, which led to easy baskets for other Magic players. I love Rondo, but he seriously needs to step it up on the defensive end.

  You noticed the pick Howard put on Rondo one of the times Johnson got into the lane, right? Did it happen on either play for Alston? And do you really think that having 3-4 plays where the other pg gets by you in 42 minutes is unacceptably bad? Which point guards never get beat off the dribble? And how many times did Rondo get into the lane? I'd guess more than 4.

Excellent point BBall! Rondo was run into a tremendous screen by Johnson on the second drive 16 feet from the basket and yet Johnson was still able to dribble past two to three other Celtics that just looked at him. Even on the first drive where Rondo let him by and didn't play great D, Johnson was still 15 feet from the basket and had two Celtics on either side of him that just watched him walk in.

And other than those 2 plays, Rondo barely gambled and played tremendous stay home defense for much of the game. There was a reason the Magic's back court shot so poorly last night and it was that Ray and Rondo kept their men in front of them, fought through some tough screens, and ran their players off the three point line into uncomfortable, contested shots.