The Sports Guy Cometh

If you haven’t seen today’s Inside Track in the Boston Herald, you missed this beauty of a picture featuring our own Mike Dowling and ESPN’s omnipresent King of All Media, the Sports Guy Bill Simmons. We caught up with Bill at his October 30th book signing (‘The Book Of Basketball’) at Hurricane O’Reilly’s down by the Garden. Thanks to the Herald photo desk for supplying us with Stuart Cahill’s picture, which we immediately printed out and hung all over the Sports office. Hope to have an interview with Bill on the air very soon.

What else can ail Bruins?

Not being able to score a goal for nearly 3 entire games is bad enough by itself but having one of your most capable scorers get infected with the H1N1 virus shows just how badly everything is going for the Bruins right now.

Most importantly, 23 year old Dave Krejci has been quarantined after catching the swine flu and is out for an indefinite period of time. With Players from both Detroit and Edmonton, 2 teams that the Bruins have recently played, being infected with H1N1, you’ve got to wonder if this is going to become a league wide epidemic.

Players told me yesterday that they have become a little more OCD recently in staying sanitized but that they are not panicked. They say that they are doing all that they are told to try and avoid the H1N1 virus but the fact remains that they are in a close quarters environment that would seem to be very susceptible to spreading germs.

Now, on the ice, the results have not been good. Last night the team finally scores a goal in the final minute of their game (their 1st goal in nearly 3 games) but it was only good enough to get into overtime where they lost in a shootout.

A season which started with such high expectations has slogged along at a .500 clip. Not what long suffering, diehard Bruins fans had in mind.

-MD

Celtics win real game

This was actually competitive. In fact almost a little too competitive for the Celtics who barely pulled out a 2 point win over an inspired Minnesota Timberwolves team who played a little over their head in giving the Celtics all they could handle.

Rajon Rondo proved that he can score when he wants to leading the Celts with 18 points, 13 of those in a critical come from behind 3rd quarter. The Celtics bench again contributed but nothing too extraordinary on this night as a balanced starting 5 was critical to this win.

Kevin Garnett contributed 12 points and 11 rebounds but he is obviously not back to 100%. Do we need to be happy with these kind of numbers than the 25 pts and 20 rebound performances he used to put up? The question is,  while he will get a little healthier, will he ever really be back to 100%. And more importantly is his less that 100% still good enough for the Celtics to win it all? That is the question to be looked at all year long.

Remember Garnett is playing his 15th season in the NBA. That is a LOT of  games and as much of a genetic marvel as he is, everyone slows down a little. But I’d still take an 80% Kevin Garnett with his 110% intensity than nearly any big man in the league.

Next up-The Phoenix Suns, a real opponent and a real game with a real active big man in Amare Stoudemire. A nice test for Garnett and the 6-0 Celtics to stay undefeated.

-MD

Celtics win another scrimmage

That’s what half of the Celtics games are going to resemble-a scrimmage, instead of a competitive game because that’s how much better these Celtics are than most of their opponents. They really should set a franchise record for wins this season- 70 wins in 82 games is not unrealistic, seriously.

On this night the Celts just manhandled the 76ers, by 31 points 105-74. The 6ers led early but after the 1st quarter this game was never competitive. And Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett combined for 3 baskets, total. And 8 points, total, and they won by 31!

The Celtics bench, led by Rasheed Wallace’s 20 pts and Eddie House’s 12 pts, outscored Phillie’s Starters by 9 pts. Heck they outscored the Celtics starters by 19.

Tomorrow night the Celtics play at Minnesota. They could be tired playing back to back road games. Then again both Kevin Garnet and Kendrick Perkins played less than a half game tonight. Looks like another scrimmage.

-MD

Celtics Re-Sign Rondo

SportsCenter 5 has learned that The Celtics have reached an agreement in principle with Rajon Rondo which can pay the 23 old point point guard 55 million dollars over the next 5 years.

The 2 sides had been very close in their negotiating which had a league mandated deadline of tonight at midnight. If no agreement was reached then Rondo would have become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.  The Celtics would then have had the opportunity to match any offer Rondo received next off season.

The contract Rondo will sign a contract which is basically the same contract that the San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker signed a few years ago and that is the player that Rondo’s agent Bill Duffy used as a comparison which is pretty accurate. Parker is a better shooter than Rondo who is a better defender.

Currently Rondo is 2nd in the league in assists (to Steve Nash) with 11.8/gm (up from 8/gm last year). Rondo is also 2nd in the league in steals (to Kobe Bryant) with 2.5/gm. Rondo is averaging just 6.5 pts a game, down from 12 last year, but with more scorers added to the team Rondo will not be counted on as much to score.

What the Celtics like about Rondo as much as anything else is his toughness. Last night’s game against Chris Paul is exhibit A. Paul was getting frustrated with Rondo’s defense and elbowed him (but of course no foul was called). Rondo had words with Paul afterwards saying basically not to try that stuff anymore. Last year Rondo took on Kobe in a game at the garden. You can’t teach that.

We’ll hear from both sides coming up at 5 and 6 O’clock on NewsCenter 5

-MD

Celts toy with Bulls

The NBA schedule maker was kind to the Celtics on Friday night as the Bulls came into town (very late) after facing a very good San Antonio team the night before. The Bulls tired in the 3rd quarter as the Celtics pulled away to a 28 point win.

Rajon Rondo was the star of this show despite having just 2 points. He had 8 rebounds and 16 assists. To begin the 3rd quarter he just toyed with the Bulls purposely setting his teammates up on the 1st 7 possessions of the quarter making this game a laugher.

It’ll be very interesting to see how Rondo plays tonight against arguably the best point guard in the league in Chris Paul considering Rondo is just 24 hours away from the deadline to sign his contract extension.

-MD

We’re On Twitter

Follow us @SportsCenter5 for breaking news and analysis. Our first tweet included Saturday’s college football schedule:

College Football Saturday on WCVB: Noon: Rutgers @ UCONN 3:30: Miami at Wake Forest (HD) 8:00: USC at Oregon (HD)

Celtics Stop Losing Streak in Cleveland

It didn’t take long to see which team made the better off-season acquisitions. Advantage Celtics, and those additions helped the Celtics halt an 11 game losing streak in Cleveland lasting nearly 5 years

Even tho Shaq played more minutes than Rasheed Wallace (and new Cleveland guard Anthony Parker played more than new Celtics guard Marquis Daniels) Rasheed’s three 3 pointers and Daniels overall play helped the Celtics bench overcome an early 14 point deficit that the Celtics starters had dug themselves into and propel the Celtics to their 1st win in Cleveland since December of 2004.

Garnett, in his 1st regular season game after off-season knee surgery, looked pretty good playing 33 minutes. It will be very interesting to see how he feels tonight and how many minutes he will (is able to) play tonight. Fortunately tonight’s opponent is the less than stellar Charlotte Bobcats.

Last Friday I asked Danny Ainge who was the most indispensable player on his team and his response was Paul Pierce. Last night Pierce proved Ainge correct by leading the Celtics in scoring and rebounding with 23 and 11. More importantly he hit 2 huge baskets down the stretch to clinch the win over LeBron and company.

I use that last phrase to describe the Cavaliers because last night that is exactly what it looked like. Despite Shaq’s 10 rebounds and 10 points, LeBron just didn’t get a lot of help. After James’s 38 points, guard Mo Williams was next with 12. For the Celtics, Pierce got help from Ray Allen who had 16 and both Garnett and Wallace who had 13 pts apiece. Therein lies the difference between these 2 teams, The Celtics have 4 legitimate veteran scorers not to mention point guard Rajon Rondo who seems to always gives them what they need-last night it was 10 assists and good defense on the Cavs all-star guard Mo Williams (12 pts).

-MD

Big Baby has surgery

This statement released by the Boston Celtics just minutes ago

GLEN DAVIS SURGERY UPDATE BOSTON – The Boston Celtics announced today that forward Glen Davis underwent successful surgery to reduce and fix a right thumb fracture. The surgery was performed by Celtics Team Physician, Dr. Brian McKeon and was assisted by Dr. Hervey Kimball and Dr. Drew Terrono at New England Baptist Hospital. Davis is expected to miss the next six weeks. “I would first like to apologize to my fans, teammates, coaches and the entire Celtics organization. I am extremely disappointed that this incident occurred and that it will prevent me from starting the season with the rest of my teammates. My teammates and the entire Celtics organization are extremely important to me and I will do my best to expedite the healing process and be back on the court as soon as possible,” said Davis.

-MD

Big Baby Out

A General Manager expects injuries- that’s why he build’s depth to a team. And  GM Danny Ainge has seen all kinds of missteps that have kept players out of games from with the likes of Rickey Davis (whose car was once found in a river) to Sebastian Telfair, who was arrested with a gun and questioned about a shooting after Telfair was robbed. So this past weekends “misstep” by Big Baby is not shocking Ainge, just disappointing because he tried to get rid of all the knuckleheads who used to dominate his roster (think Mark Blount).

Now I’m not saying that Glen Davis is a knucklehead, but he was certainly involved in a knucklehead action over the weekend when he got in an altercation with an acquaintance that will keep Davis out of the Celtics lineup for at least the 1st month of the season. This past off-season Davis signed a 2 year contract extension worth 3 million dollars a year, a fact that you would think would add some maturity and responsibility. But Davis is just 23 years old. Remembering back to when we were just 23, we were not the most mature individuals and we all made some ill advised decisions (tho I never got in a fight injuring myself, then again I was never 6-7 and 285 pounds).

So Ainge takes this setback in stride (Celtics owners don’t – they are livid) and moves on. Ainge realizes it could be so much worse like any setback Kevin Garnett might suffer. Davis will be back in a month, maybe 2. He’ll learn something from this that should make him a better and more responsible individual. In the meantime he will have to watch his teammates play, and jell together, and win, and win alot. And Big Baby will be on the sideline with plenty of time to think about this knucklehead move.

-MD