Ray Allen beats BoGo by 3

Amazing night but not quite enough

What a shootout! Unfortunately, we ended up on the wrong end of it but any real basketball fan would have appreciated that game. It had some of everything: tough inside defense, good designed plays, historic give and take from Allen/Gordon, drama (Powe, Rondo, Noah, Garnett), and a last minute buzzer beater.

Some observations:

1) Joe Noah is annoying, ala AJ Pierzynski. This is a good thing.  His teammates love him, he's a hustler and he will do whatever it takes to win. These are the guys you LOVE to play with and HATE to play against.

2) Tyrus Thomas may have developed a midrange game. I cannot say for sure but it sure looks like Ty has a acquired nice J to go along with his over confidence. Jury is still out (strong game 1, mediocre game 2, although he took as many shots).

3) Derrick Rose is still human/a rookie. Rose was awesome early and strong late. Totally disappeared in the late 3rd and early 4th though. He did a nice job on Rondo (despite Rondo's triple double) but didn't have the magic on offense last night. I assumed that once Rondo went out with the sprained ankle, that Rose with embarrass Marbury and/or abuse a slow and wounded Rondo. Didn't happen. He needs to do more if we're going to win.

Look out Derrick, Big Baby is trying to eat you!!

4) The Celtics are tired, beat up and emotionally exhausted. They are still dangerous. Paul Pierce looked really fucking tired in the 4th quarter. Leon Powe is out for the rest of the series. Garnett is NOT coming back. Rondo has a sprained ankle. Ray Allen's arms are falling off. (That, or he just likes really gay arm sleeves. Or he wishes he was a white guy. I don't know but it's weird.) All that being said, great teams and players rally around adversity like this especially in the playoffs (think Jordan's domination with the flu in game 5, Favre tossing 4TD's on MNF the day after his father died, etc). At some point, Pierce is going to rally the troops in the face of all the shit going on. Hopefully by the time he does, we're up 3-1.

-KEG