"A game of poise ... "

That's how Tommy Heinsohn described last night's contest, as the Celtics maintained their cool (rather than panicking like they did at the end of Game Five) and were able to silence a lot of critics by closing out a series on the road with a 89-81 victory over the Pistons (sports.yahoo.com) ... Suddenly, it was the (supposedly) mentally tough Pistons who lost their composure, standing dumbfounded with that "deer-in-the-headlights" look as they squandered a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter ... even though the refs did everything in their power to help keep Detroit in the game*.

However, nothing could overcome a dominating performance by the C's in the fourth quarter, where Paul Pierce scored 12 of his team-high 27 points in the final stanza (he almost single-handedly outscored the entire Detroit team himself, who had just 13 points in the quarter). Meanwhile, they limited the Pistons to 33.3 percent shooting in the fourth, while forcing the team into committing six of their 13 turnovers during the final twelve minutes! Not bad for a team that can't finish off opponents and crumbles under the playoff pressure, eh?

So now, it's the Finals matchup that the NBA suits and ABC advertising execs have been praying for (possibly by sacrificing small farm animals in the name of their dark gods): Celtics versus Lakers makes its return after a 21-year absence ... Unfortunately, it seems that everyone is favoring the Black Mamba and his La-La Land lackeys, but we'll see if The Truth and his crew have a little more gas left in the tank.

Game One starts Thursday, baby, I can't wait!




* Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, as I'm really only focusing on that one horrendous offensive foul call where Hamilton just bowled over Pierce - as he hit the three pointer while falling away, mind you - and yet Bennett Salvatore took away a potential four-point play that would have gotten the Celts back within two. Not that it matters now anyway, but Michael Wilbon did call it "the worst call in the playoffs in history" after the game on SportsCenter, so you can't exactly charge me with homer-ism on that one!

The Onion just can't get enough of Paul Pierce ...

First they accuse him of using a spitball during a game, now they're looking at both the strong side and the weak side to his game (theonion.com):

Is Pierce the most underrated or the least overrated shooting guard in the playoffs?

STRONG SIDE:

• Special headband allows him to read opponent's minds
• Although his shooting takes advantage of the characteristics of Newtonian space-time, Pierce accomplishes this without conscious thought
• Good at giving convincing high-fives when teammates miss free throws
• Kevin Garnett
• Extremely large hands allow him to fake a pass with two fingers while shooting with the other three
• Although he is at the exact same skill level as him, he is much nicer than Evil Paul Pierce
• Huge toes allow for awesome pivots

WEAK SIDE:

• Somehow wears headband at a jaunty angle
• Laser vision is just the "pointer" kind, not the "death ray" kind
• I-didn't-foul-that-guy face not incredulous enough
• Terrified of little Celtic-guy drawing
• When donating money, seems to favor children
• Name more of a white-shoe lawyer name than a scrappy-point-guard name
• Always hangs out in the seedy "Way Downtown" part of the key

Rondo and Perkins are young ...

... so we can forgive them their sins in the closing moments of last night's nail-biter (sports.yahoo.com).

Perk'd-Off had perhaps the best game of his young career, with 18 points (8-11 FG) and 16 rebounds ... of course, he kind of disappeared at the end of the game (only six points and three boards in the second half), and picked up a silly technical foul for arguing with the referee at a point in the game when you MOST DEFINITELY should not be picking up technicals (of course, Rasheed Wallace - supposedly a saavy veteran himself - also picked up a tech at an inopportune time, so maybe we shouldn't be too hard on the big lug for getting emotional).

As for I've Got a Rajon Rondo, he just was not showing much poise out there on the court during a high-pressure postseason contest, throwing ridiculous passes all over the place in the fourth quarter for anyone to get their hands on ... Cassell and House can't buy time on the floor right now (Rajon played all of two minutes in the game), so he needs to calm himself down now that Doc has seemingly decided to give him control of the team in this series; hey Rondo, no need to dish the ball behind your back or lob a high-archer about five feet above Garnett's head when the game's getting close, okay?

However, with all of that negativity out of my system, let's focus on the positive - the Celts now have a 3-2 series lead with a chance to close out the Pistons (gulp) on the road ... Well, lemmee just slide back into a little bit more negativity, as the C's did themselves no favors by nearly choking away a 17-point lead at the end of the fourth while in the friendly confines of the Garden. Seriously, if you looked closely enough, you could see every Celtics players' asshole collectively puckering up through their shorts as the score continued to get tighter in the fourth (my apologies for the graphic visual).

Luckily, the C's were able to survive, and - in the end - Detroit may be the ones who come out of this thing the worse for wear ... In the closing moments, as Rip Hamilton was getting away with putting Ray Allen in a goozle (en.wikipedia.org) whilst going for a rebound, he somehow - even after several replays I still couldn't see how it happened - hyperextended his elbow and actually had to leave the locker room area after the game in a sling.

Obviously, no one wants to see a player get hurt, but (without the services of their leading scorer) the Pistons might have a much harder time putting that home-court advantage to good use come Friday night ... We shall see.

It's never too early to talk about breaking up the band ...

Leave it to good ol' Way of the Ray (igtc.com) to already declare this season a failure ...

All flaws are exposed in the playoffs, and the warts and blemishes of this Celtics team are shining through.

- The Celtics need a young SG/SF. Ray Allen: Are his days as a NBA starter over? Just a dud during these playoffs. Is it age, injuries, or personal problems? The only trade value that Allen has for this upcoming season is to bring back bad contracts and a quality draft pick, say from the Knicks. Ray Allen, Davis, and a future first to NY for Curry, Richardson, and the sixth pick?

- The Celtics need a starting center. Perkins, Powe, and Scalabrine for Brad Miller.

- The Celtics need a young PG. Sam I Am, more like Sam He Was. Just dreadful. Has Doc Rivers sucked the life out of him? He had played decently during the regular season. And Rondo, very mercurial. An injured Billups would be taken advantage of, by most other NBA starting PGs, but Rondo is struggling.

- The Celtics need a scorer off the bench. Could be the place for Ray Allen, or a free agent signee.

- The Celtics could really use a low post scorer. Ray Allen for Zach Randolph and the 6th pick. Danilo Gallinari would be a nice substitute for Allen.

- Doc Rivers, how much longer will he be allowed to torment Celtics fans? Enough is enough with this playoff liability.

- The upcoming NBA Draft. Teams will be willing to trade away their first round picks. Will Celtics ownership allow Ainge to acquire an extra draft choice
or two and suffer the pangs of added luxury tax?

Robin Lopez, Marreese Speights, Joe Alexander, J.R. Giddens, all players who could help the Celtics.

And on that optimistic note, bring on the Pistons! I'm ready for Game Five, baby!

Anything but a blowout ...

That's all I was hoping for in last night's game - whether the Celtics won or lost, as long as they remained competitive and exhibited the kind of intensity that they had during Game Three, then I would have been happy and upbeat about their chances for coming out in this series on top.

Sadly, that's not how things went down (sports.yahoo.com) ... Sure, there were plenty of moments when the Celts came back and made the score close, but - to be perfectly frank - those brief runs did not instill me with a great deal of confidence, as there was just no passion behind those outbursts. In the end, the C's just had no business winning that game.

Now, all of that positive energy that Boston built up with their first road win in the playoffs has been (seemingly) squandered away ... Obviously, the series being tied up at 2-2 is not a death knell which signals the end of the C's postseason run by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I can't help but feel that the guys lost an opportunity to really "step on their chests" (as Tommy would say) and take control of the series.

Oh well, that just means that the Celts will have to work that much harder tomorrow to break the tie and get back in the drivers' seat ...

I'm glad the Pistons are in a "must-win" situation now ...

All of the basketball experts (and Dick Vitale) are flooding the airwaves with declarations that Detroit has to win tonight's game, or else the series is over ... and quite frankly, I'm happy to hear it, because they've been using that kind of talk to describe the Celtics in damn near every game of the playoffs thus far.

Boston must win versus the Hawks in Atlanta.
Boston must win against Cleveland in Game Six.

It's nice to see someone else having to face that kind of pressure for a change ... of course, watch this statement come back to bite me in the ass when this series suddenly stretches to a seventh game :(

And where have they been hiding THAT for the last six road games?!?

The word "security blanket" had been used several times by various media pundits prior to the start of the Eastern Conference Finals, in reference to Boston's ability - however remote - to secure the NBA title without having to win a single contest away from the friendly confines of the TD Banknorth Garden; in other words, since the C's technically didn't have to win a road game, why should they get all worked up about their "little" six-game skid?

Well, once the Pistons yanked that security blanket away on Thursday, like Linus having his little blue comfort object torn asunder by Snoopy (celticsbeagle.net), the C's were effectively out of excuses ... It was either win at the Palace of Auburn Hills or go home.

Well, looks like that was exactly the motivation they needed to finally break out of their "on the road" doldrums, as Boston jumped out to an 11-0 lead to start the game and never really looked back, taking a momentum-shifting 2-1 series advantage with a 94-80 victory (sports.yahoo.com).

Who knows? Had the Celts taken care of business in Game Two - like they were expected to - and gone into last night's contest up two to nothing, perhaps they would not have had the intensity and focus necessary to drown out Detroit's fans right from the start, and might have found themselves losing their seventh straight road game ... After that, the pressure to keep the series from being tied up on Monday - by going "par for the course" in Game Four and losing yet another road game - would have been even greater on the team, and they very well may have fallen once again, so that (instead of now possibly tackling Game Five with the mentality of closing out the series), they would have been staring down another must-win home game at the Garden.

Yes yes, causality (en.wikipedia.org) can be a tricky thing; in effect, losing their first home game the other day could have been the best thing to happen to this ballclub ...

In any event , we can all stop talking about this "futility away from home" nonsense now, reaffirmed in the knowledge that the Celtics are, in fact, a good road team (imagine that, a team that went 31-10 on the road during the regular season actually being described as "good") ... Not only did Boston hold a double-digit lead throughout almost the entire game, but it was their ability to rebound in the face of adversity that really boosted my confidence levels:

First, both Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett picked up two early fouls in the first quarter (Kevin's second coming off a particuarly putrid call by the referee wherein Rip Hamilton was actually grabbing his arm but was still able to draw an offensive foul call, bleh) ... While the Pistons used this opportunity to - briefly - take the lead, the Celtics' bench bounced back from a subpar Game Two performance (including the previously non-existent entity known as Sam Cassell hitting a couple of shots) to put the road team decisively back in control.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the comeback mounted by Detroit in the fourth quarter ... Now, while I hate using it as an excuse, I'm really going to have to call out the officiating again; while the C's weren't doing themselves any favors with some sloppy play (Rondo's attempt at a full-court bounce pass at one point was particularly egregious), the refs were just not going to call anything in Boston's favor. It was almost getting to the point where it was laughable, the disparity between the ticky-tack calls being called on the Celts, versus the slapping and mugging that the Pistons were allowed to get away with (I can laugh now that the C's won, rather than punching a hole through my television set in frustration).

My qualms with the zebras aside, all that matters is that the Celts were finally able to overcome a huge pyschological barrier that had been plaguing them since their first-round matchup versus the Hawks ... Winning a road game in the playoffs is possible, guys, so just remember that come Monday night.