In your travels through your day if you happen to see the Celtics bench players, if you could direct them to Detroit for Game Three that would be a good thing. On a night when the Big Three went off for 75 points, 25 from the previously invisible Ray Allen, the bench managed a whopping eight points. Yeah, you’re not going to win too many games, let alone home games, with that kind of bench production (or complete lack there of).
Maybe I don’t know enough about hoops, but the C’s won game one using a rotation of nine guys (I don’t count the 10 seconds Tony Allen was on the floor) and then play 11 guys in game 2? Funny thing, Detroit played their starters a majority of the minutes and they won. Funny how that works huh?
Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were almost the same from the field (Pierce had one more free throw) but Allen put his points up in 17 less playing minutes.
The teams really were pretty evenly matched, even down the stretch when the C’s were able to cut it to four but when they needed the big shots, Detroit wasn’t lacking in that department. The biggest disparity between the two teams (besides the C’s getting to the foul line 7 less times) was threes. The Celtics shot a dismal 5-19 from beyond the arc, while Detroit was killing it on 5-10. Some one get Paul Pierce on the phone and tell him he doesn’t have to force “hero” three pointers all game and that he can actually drive the lane. His 2-6 from three and James Posey’s 1-5 won’t get it done. If they shot nine less threes (for argument sake say they matched Detroit 5-10) and drove the lane, you’d half to imagine the outcome would be different. Just saying.
Another thing was turnovers, or should I say points off turnovers. If the Celtics can not turn the ball over so much (and possibly score when they force the turnover), they may stand a chance in Detroit. They turned it over a dozen times (Pierce the high man with four) and Detroit managed 16 points on those turnovers. Opposed to the whopping seven points on nine turnovers by the C’s.
Rotation, turnovers, threes, coaching, Paul Pierce insisting on being the hero (which he was in game seven against Cleveland), really just a combined effort of all of those things contributed to the Celtics loss. But, the bottom line is that they have yet to win a road game in this post season and if they can’t in this series, this game was the nail in their coffin. Time to become Road Warriors (HA!!!!).
