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Recap: Celtics leave OKC with a moral victory

Chuck - Red's Army February 22, 2012 Uncategorized 16 Comments

I didn't watch enough of this game to offer legitimate analysis, but I will give the Celtics a boat load of credit for cutting a 27-point deficit (83-56 with 6:35 remaining in 3rd quarter) to 6 points late in the 4th quarter.

The Celtics had two sloppy turnovers (Pietrus bad pass and KG's drop) that squelched the comeback. OKC ran away with it 119-104.

Avery Bradley (12 points, 5 assists, 3 blocks) played some ferocious defense on Russell Westbrook (31 points, 11-24 FG) in this game. Check out the video clip for one of his 3 blocked shots.

Strong night for Kevin Garnett – 23 points, 8-11 FG, and 13 rebounds.

The Celtics were too thin to win this game. Look at the bench production in the box score.

Box score | Recap

(video courtesy Jose3030)

Alex

Paul Pierce not making the appropriate pop which resulted in Pietrus passing out of bounds (can’t blame the dude, Pierce was moving weird) and Paul Pierce always feels like missing his free throws during clutch moments. C’mon PP…
Bradley needs to play more minutes, even with Rondo back. I’m sick and tired of Doc not giving this kid more minutes. His defense literally energizes the team! He moves the ball on offense and the offense just looks so much smoother and better with him in. With Rondo in, things tend to look bad… both defensively and offensively. I’ll be keeping an eye on this when the Celtics are playing again with most of their crew back.
Good to see Kevin Garnett back and not missing a beat.
http://profile.typepad.com/kwapt KWAPT

Very encouraging. The fact that they were being absolutely blown-out at the half and then fought-back tells me they actually do care and have some heart. They also did this without all their bigs (except Ticket). Speaking of Ticket, good God-can we just play him every 3 or 4 days? And I have a new nickname for Avery Bradley; “Zero Tolerance”. Enjoy the all-star break everyone.
Lee in Oregon

That’s all I wanted, some heart, and I think they showed that. Hopefully we get Bass back soon, but just having KG out there was crucial….I like that small line-up but they still weren’t boxing out for most of the game. Zero T was not at all intimidated by Westbrook.
Jessy

We stink! I watched this whole game and it hurt. Playing catch up won’t win banner 18! We need to make some trades to set up for the future. Put Rondo, Allen on the block for draft picks and young talent! Do it Danny!
kyle

really jessy? All in all that was an encouraging game and even though they got down early, (mainly from hot shooting from okc) they stayed in and kept on fighting against a premiere team. So what if they didn’t win, its a good note for the last game before break.
http://profile.typepad.com/redsarmy Red’s Army

young talent? Like a 26 year old 2-time all star point guard?
Pete

Bradley had the sickest plays of the night with his two dramatic swats of Westbrook (each beautiful in its own way) and the cram on Durant (after leaving Harden in the dust).
trytryagain

Do “moral victories” get you a “moral ring” in the end?
Didn’t think so.
Elliot

you’re an idiot you do realize the most under performing starting player on this team is Pierce (excluding JO because well who cares) If you’re trading anyone it’s him. This is the NBA, Danny can’t be sentimental and keep Pierce because he’s “Mr Celtic” You could gut the starting 5, keep Pierce and load the other 4 spots with younger better players it isn’t gonna make Pierce play any better.
http://profile.typepad.com/kristovar Kristovar

No, but it gives me hope coming out of the all star break. It tells me not to write off the season or the team for the next few years, as there’s still hope we’ll come out and possibly escape the 7-8 seed. I love all of the Celtics banners and I love all of the history– it doesn’t take away from loving our guys, our organization and getting to watch them play past the first round.
http://profile.typepad.com/andreas24x7 Andreas24x7

it was lovely to watch the refs come up with a bunch of bogus calls to sway momentum early in the 4th..moving screen on ray..avery poked the ball away from westbrook and a bogus call..then they got Kevin for one on harden where he barely grazed him…amazing..for the record OKC isnt half as good as they think they are and its going to be funny to see them get bounced from the playoffs by the Spurs.
I bleed green in L.A.

Who can’t hit a jump shot and is an offensive liability on a team that has fading offensive talent. The time is now to BLOW IT UP, you need to either be Elite in the NBA or completely bottom of the barrel to get those top 3 draft picks and rebuild. We are in 8th seed purgatory, and the time has passed to get rid of players a year too early rather than a year too late. We got our ring with the Big 3 +Rondo, time to start over.
http://profile.typepad.com/6p01157053529f970b zippittyay

Screw the fear of being a 7th or 8th seed. We will have to beat Miami AND Chicago to get to the finals any way you cut it. Why not face one of them in the first round? It wont be any better playing them after we win a 6 or 7 game series and they are well rested off a 4 game sweep of a playoff-wannabe team. Make sure our key guys are rested and healthy and our scrubs get the minutes they need! If we don’t make the playoffs, what the heck… What are our realistic odds of winning it all anyway? Take a lottery ticket. Going into the playoffs with our key guys spent struggling to win a 7 game series vs Indiana only to play a well rested and evil Miami team is not a good scenario.
James Eisenman

The zone killed us in the first half along with a ton of turnovers. But the most important sign was how much we play better without Rondo. Instead of being demoralized by someone who plays no defense and pounds the ball into the floor, everyone is energized by someone working his ass off on D and plays that attack the basket rather than just run around in circles. Westbrook made some incredible shots but, unlike Rondo, Avery kept plugging away and everyone worked harder. Don’t blame the refs on this game. They were mostly awful but awful in both directions. We got the benefit of some stupid calls as well as the burden of others. Dissapointing but, at least, WE broke 100 (forget our streak of not giving UP 100). When was the last time we broke 100?
http://profile.typepad.com/mattwilding Matt Wilding

Lots of hating in this thread. I know a lot of us grew up in an era when everybody got a trophy for everything, but seriously guys. We can’t win every year. We’re probably not contenders this year or in the super-near future. Just be a fan, root for your team when they work hard for you, and stop pretending you are better at basketball-related decision-making than Danny Ainge.
http://www.monsterheadset.org/ Monster Beats

may be you need to see