A force to be reckoned with
Where was this on Monday night? Or the Friday before? Where was the passion, the zeal, the rebounding? It was all there last night and, as Celtics fans, you have to wonder: is this going to be a hiccup or is this a sign of things to come?
Did we witness the unveiling of a new force in Kendrick Perkins, who had astonishing numbers -- 12 points, 19 rebounds, 4 assists -- in the Celtics' 110-103 victory? Even the Sixers found those numbers hard to fathom. ''I'd be lying if I said I expected that," Allen Iverson said. ''But this is the NBA and he wouldn't be out there unless he had a special gift."
Moments earlier, Iverson had zeroed in on the major difference in the evening: Perkins led an Operation Overlord assault on the glass and the Sixers were more often than not spectators, watching basketballs as if they were some astronomical phenomenon instead of potential rebounds.
''You gotta wanna rebound," Iverson said. ''You can't teach it. You can't coach it. You can say, 'box out,' or 'get a body on a man,' but it's got to be pride. If that's not the case, you're not going to get the job done."
In a nutshell, that is what it came down to last night -- wanting the ball, wanting the game, getting the job done. It is the essence of rebounding. You know what Pat Riley used to say at playoff time: rebounding wins rings.
Perkins epitomized that in a way we had not seen before. The above numbers were career highs, as well as the 27 minutes 43 seconds he played before fouling out and getting a standing ovation. The lad had a double-double, for goodness sakes, when he had been on the court for only 12 minutes. He even hit Paul Pierce with a gorgeous give-and-go for a layup that brought the crowd to its feet.
''He had a career night," saluted the Sixers' Chris Webber. ''Normally, if you're going to get beat, you want to get beat by someone like Paul [Pierce] or Ricky Davis. We didn't take him for granted. But we didn't do a good job on him."
Or anyone else, really. One night after pulverizing Portland on the glass to the tune of 60-30, the Sixers were the ones bludgeoned. The final tally: 59-40. Philadelphia managed only five offensive rebounds, not a good sign when you shoot 41 percent. When Perkins, who had eight offensive rebounds by himself, wasn't inhaling rebounds, he was getting plenty of help from Pierce (11), birthday boy Mark Blount (7 in just under 22 minutes), Delonte West (6) and Ricky Davis (5.)
No one is expecting routine double-doubles from Perkins and the real tests will come in the next few games. He had one double-figure rebound game last season, against the Knicks, when he collected 13 in 25 minutes. That was it. As he put it after last night's game, ''I got to get to this, night in and night out."
That's precisely what has been missing in this otherwise uninspiring start to the season beyond the singular greatness of Pierce and the maturation of Davis into a steady force. Where was someone else, anyone else, who could dazzle the fans the way Perkins dazzled them last night? West has been up and down. Ryan Gomes has gone from rotation regular to 12th man. Gerald Green is, well, really, really green. Al Jefferson has had three games of 10 or more points and not one with more than eight rebounds.
We think Jefferson might one day be real good. But he can't stay in games long enough and, according to his coach, doesn't defend all that well. As for Perkins, he has pretty much been a glorified maybe at best. You could even make a case that Perkins was starting mainly because Doc Rivers was mad at Blount.
''The great part about Al and Perk is that we don't know what they're capable of," Rivers said after the game. ''We really don't. I think every day, they're going to show us something different. That's what makes them special."
That's been the party line all along and when Perkins comes through like he did last night, it represents hope. He was, as Rivers said, ''phenomenal." The great unknown, of course, is where and how Perkins and the team go from here. Will they report to the Garden tomorrow night and see the Bulls the same way they saw the Sixers? Will someone else, like Jefferson, maybe, submit a performance worthy of ''breakout" discussion? Or will Chicago simply be another Orlando?
It's hard to say with such a young team. What you can say for certain is the next time the Sixers play Boston, they will be paying a lot more attention to Perkins. And what Celtics fans hope to say from now on is that they can look back to this particular night -- the night Jumbo Joe Thornton was sent packing -- and report that another Jumbo in green and white grew up and became a legitimate NBA center.
