Look, I don’t like to go around tooting my own horn. Or playing my own trumpet. Or whatever the kids are saying these days. I mean, if I spent the whole day walking around pointing out how awesome I am, I wouldn’t even have time to sleep. Or eat. I would barely have enough hours left over to turn down all these models that keep asking me on dates.
But Game 1 of the Celtics/Heat series was what I told you it would be. (I’m not special. Everyone was saying this.) Two good defensive teams mucking it up, Dwyane Wade being really, really good but getting no help, and the Celtics getting their unspectacular-yet-Ubuntuesque offense together just enough to have a lead when the final buzzer sounded.
Starting at the start, Flash was an animal. He shot 4/5 on his way to 9 points in the first quarter, of which he played every second, and got the stat-sheet stuffing thing going by adding an assist, a steal and a block. Miami, perhaps relatedly, led by one after one and legitimately looked like the better team. We were watching the Heat score much easier than they should be capable of — in the TD Banknorth Garden no less — and Tony Allen was looking like the best player on Boston’s team. Not a good sign for the leprechaun crew.
Then things got really yucky. Dwyane went to the bench and his mates couldn’t score. Fortunately for them, neither could Boston, as we were all treated to an action-packed 15-13 second quarter best characterized by Ray Allen’s pre-All-Star-break-like 2/7 shooting in the period. Blah.
But the difference in this one was that the Celtics figured out how to score again in the second half while the Heat decidedly did not. 10 points in the fourth for Expiring Contracts Collective. That’s not a bingo.
It wasn’t just them sucking though, even though they definitely did that a lot and Dwyane over-dribbled way too much. More so, the Celtics played excellent defense. Tony Allen played the best game I’ve ever seen him play, keeping Wade in front of him and fighting through enough screens and denying him the ball on the wing aggressively enough to chew up some shot-clock. 24 seconds really isn’t that long, so if you can keep Miami from throwing it easily to Flash on the wing and make them instead rotate the ball to Option C, you’re really helping out the team. Tony did all that and more. It’s really weird to type that sentence.
More than anything done individually, however, it was the team rotations that stymied the Heat attack. The Boston front court played together on a string, and the Celtics quickly adjusted to ready themselves for any extra pass or drive attempt that might come their way. No matter what Miami’s plan of attack was, the defense was prepared. And once Boston figured out that Miami only has about three different styles of attacking, they were borderline impenetrable.
It was some really pretty stuff in the midst of a really ugly game. Even Paul Pierce was stepping over in time to take a key charge late in the fourth. Glen Davis similarly did this against Wade at one point, which coincided with a great recovery/shot block by Tony Allen, although the Large Infant was called for the block. Apparently his double-chin got Dwyane on the chest.
That’s all that really happened.
Dwyane was great (11/18 for 26 points along with 8 boards, 6 dimes, 3 steals and 2 blocks) but no one else on Miami was (Q was alright and JO protected the rim pretty well). While on the other side, no one on the Cetlics was great (aside from Tony Allen), but the team was very cohesive and successful defensively.
As for the little minor scrap, KG will probably get a game off. No one really did anything particularly noteworthy in this mean-mugging and chest-bumping brouhaha, but Garnett did toss that elbow pretty hard and pretty high on his way out the scrum.
At least he’ll get to rest that knee.
And hopefully this added tension will boil over into the Game 2 Kendrick Perkins/Udonis Haslem fisticuffs that everyone wants to see. It would be scowl-rific.
