Celtics Lose Game 6 and Half of their Players to Injuries

Boston - PHILADELPHIA -- The Celtics are not expected to have Avery Bradley for the rest of the season because of a left shoulder injury. A source close to Bradley told the Globe that the percentile is in the "high 90s" that Bradley will be shut down and will perhaps need surgery. The source said that it's "highly likely" Bradley's left shoulder would pop out again -- it has popped out twice in the series against the Philadelphia 76ers -- and playing further would put him at risk of "serious structural damage."

And I thought last nights loss sucked...

I'd flat be lying if I told you I was optimistic about Saturday and Game 7. The Celts last night looked very much like a team who's injuries and age were catching up with them. This is a team that battled like absolute (over used cliche alert) warriors from the All-Star break on. A team that legitimately only goes 6-7 men deep, plus two rotating scrubs that Doc likes to insert at his whim. And last night, it looked like it was all finally taking its toll. Please note I'm not knocking anyone right now, they've played great and have done better than anyone expected in late January/early February. I'm just coming to grips with a sad reality.

KG looked like he was back to being old. The fountain of youth that he tapped for a few weeks appears to have run dry. Guys he absolutely torched the first few games of this series he couldn't even get his shot off on. He just seemed a step slow, and couldn't get the ball off against smaller guys in the post, never a good sign. To his credit he was the only guy knocking down shots in the 4th, but still, they're not going to win based on KG 18 footers. 

Pierce is running on fumes. I've never seen him front rim as many shots as he has this series. The ball has no arc, he's not getting his usual step back spacing, and his already old man, herky-jerky game, has looked even slower. This is a guy who just needs some rest. 

Ray Allen is a guy valiantly trying on one leg, mainly because the C's are without the aforementioned Bradley. He's playing *way* more minutes than he's capable of right now and he's being exposed as a result. Watching him attempt to guard these younger sixers is just depressing at this point. 

Rondo - Listless performance. I don't know if its because his running mates were off, or if he missed one of his scheduled naps before the game, but something just wasn't right last night. Lack of aggressiveness, his usually crisp passes found the hands of the sixers far too often, and he seemed gun shy to take the elbow extended jumpshot that he'd made his home as of late. They're gonna need a prototypical Rondo game Saturday to have any shot of advancing. I'm saying one of his 14 pts, 11 rebounds, 18 assists, type of games. 

Marquise Daniels - What's he doing here, you ask? My thoughts exactly. But Doc decided last night, "you know what, a cold Marquise Daniels, who hasn't played in two games, might be able to slow down their best scorer." He couldn't. Not that I want to be too hard on Doc, at this point I gotta believe Danny Ainge is gonna be camped out at Basketball City these next two days looking for a two-guard to sign to a 10 day contract. 

But we'll see, we'll see what they got this Saturday. If this game wasn't at home I'd give them about a 30% chance of victory, but they've played very well at home as of late...I'm gonna give them a 75% chance of victory, but also begin to prepare myself for a crushing loss anyway.

Celtics Lose Game 2, Blame the Play Calling

Video of the Dunk...The Most Degrading Highlight of All Time

That's right, blame the play calling.  Doc's handling of the team has beennnn...suspect, to say the least as of late, and last night was really no different. 

Now, let me say this by prefacing that I understand the C's aren't the deepest team in the league, we're playing Ryan Hollins and Greg Stiemsma regular minutes, so it's understood that our bench is in shambles...that said, Doc has used it HORRIBLY these past three games. 

Make no mistake, the Celts had been lucky, very lucky, to win the previous two games. Doc is experimenting with lineups for 4, 5, 6 minutes at a time, that I only saw play together in garbage time. Take for instance Keyon Dooling...This team has an all-world point guard in Rondo, and a very suitable backup in Avery Bradley, yet inexplicably Keyon "Wouldn't Know an Assist if it Hit him in the Face" Dooling is running the for 5 or so minutes a night, mostly in the 4th quarter. It's inexcusable...and that'd be bad enough if that was the only egregious substituion, but it's not.   You know who Keyon's running mates are? Ryan Hollins, Mickael Pietrus, Marquis Daniels, and one of Pierce or Ray Allen...or as I like to call it, 4 guys that are lucky not to be in the D-League, plus an all-star. 

Now, that's a problem that Doc directly affects and should take all the blame for, but wasn't the real problem last night...the real problem last night was game plan and execution. Bottom line is there are players that are performing right now, and there are players that aren't, and that needs to be recognized by the team, and it needs to be the head coach to lays it all out for them. 

Paul Pierce has negative lift on his shots right now. They're not flat, they're hardly reaching the front rim. I love that he's out there trying, and frankly he's still better than Sasha Pavlovic and Mickael Pietrus, but still, he can't be the focal point in the early, middle, or late stages of the game.  Brandon Bass is a black hole in the truest sense of the word. The ball goes to him, and it immediately goes back to the other team. He doesn't pass, he doesn't hit shots, and his defense has been non-existant. Frankly, it might be time to bench him. He's shooting a horrendous 40% for the playoffs, which would be bad enough on it's own, till you consider that last night, he took 15 shots. KG, who's been the teams best scorer, took 12...and only had 4 coming into the 4th quarter. That's a crime against good basketball.

If I'm Doc right now, I'm pulling Rondo into a Rondo only meeting today and showing him highlights of Pierce and Bass tossing up brick after brick with subliminal messages flashing "Give KG the Rock." It needs to be drilled into the team right now that KG needs 5-6 shots per quarter for this team to win. Ray has more or less been Ray, Rondo has been his usual brilliant self, but with the lack of any production from Pierce and Bass, the only reason they've won at all in the last week has been KG's ridiculous playoff performance thus far, that needs to continue. We saw it again in the 4th quarter, he can dominate the game when he's the focal point, and that's exactly what this team needs going forward. 

That's on you Doc. Make the team see it, make Rondo see it, make someone take Brandon Bass hostage before Wednesdays game, and most of all, make Pierce accept it.