Un-undefeated

So the Celtics winning streak ends at eight. They were the last team in the NBA to join the ranks of the un-undefeated. It was clear to everyone that at some point Boston would drop one, and on the road against a hot Orlando team seemed like the likeliest of losses.

The Celtics trailed for almost the entire game before fighting back and eventually taking the lead in the fourth quarter. The final four minutes of the game could only be described as ridiculous. Most of the stories following the game centered around the end of the streak, or the emergence of the alleged new team to beat in the East in the Magic, but nobody had anything to say about the whacky way in which the game, and the streak for that matter, ended.

With four minutes left the Celtics pulled within one point of the Magic when Paul Pierce stole the ball and passed to the Real Ray Allen who layed it in. I called him the Real Ray Allen because all night he switched back from his evil doppelganger who plays exactly opposite of the way Ray Allen has played throughout his Hall-of-Fame caliber career. Here is a rundown of those frantic four minutes.

4:00- Orlando 93, Boston 92.

3:45-A phantom call on James Posey in the corner on a 3-pointer by Rashard Lewis that CSN provided no replay for. The foul was Posey’s sixth, sending the Celtics best perimeter defender to the bench down the stretch.

3:45-Tommy Heinsohn references World B. Free during free throws.

3:29-Evil Ray Allen misses a wide open 3-pointer.

3:15-Magic forward Hedo Turkoglu hitsa fall away 3-pointer. 98-92, Orlando.

Turkoglu played out of his mind in this game. This season Hedo is averaging 17 points, 6 boards, and nearly 3 assists, while Peja Stojakovic averages 14 points and 3 rebounds. I don’t know too many people who would have thought Turkoglu would be a better offensive player than Peja at this point.

Anyway…

3:06-Tommy Heinsohn yells, “know what I want to do? Pull his Green Card!”

I wish I was making this up.

2:53-Tony Allen to Kevin Garnett for an easy two, 98-94 Orlando. This was the last time Tony Allen’s brain was ever seen again.

2:35-Another phantom call, this one on Tony Allen against the Magic’s Dwight Howard underneath the hoop. The foul was T. Allen’s 5th.

Howard makes one of two, 99-94 Orlando.

2:22-The Evil Ray Allen misses the free throw for a defensive three seconds call against the Magic. The real Ray Allen shoots 93% from the charity stripe.

2:13-The real Ray Allen hits a three with Turkoglu in his face. 99-97 Orlando.

1:38-Rajon Rondo, who shot 8-for-9 in the game, passes on a wide-open 7-footer after Pierce drew triple-coverage in the paint, causing a 3-second violation on Garnett.

1:28-Rondo fouls Jameer Nelson. After two free throws, 101-97 Orlando.

1:23-Tony Allen misses a wide open lay-up. When I say wide open, I mean their was nobody within three feet of him. A shot my little sister would have made. A shot Allen would have finished with a 360-degree dunk two years ago, before he blew out his knee, and then did it again while trying to dunk after the whistle. Moving on. Oh yeah, he missed that dunk after the whistle for the record, not that I’m bitter. Really moving on this time…

54.00-After Evil Ray Allen dribbled himself into the corner, Turkoglu fouls him for some foreign reason.

54.00-I still can’t believe Tony Allen missed that lay up. There was nobody on him, nobody.

After the real Ray Allen hit both free throws the score was 101-99 Orlando.

36.00-The real Ray Allen steals a terrible pass from Jameer Nelson…

Now, the next possession is the killer. Even worse than the eventual Pierce miss at the buzzer. Even worse than the Tony Allen lay-up debacle. Well, maybe. (Did he really blow a wide open lay-up? That really happened?) Even if there are three All-Stars on this team, this wasn’t an All-Star game, a timeout should have been called right after Ray Allen stole the ball. The Celtics had two and Doc didn’t use it. Why? Why not call a timeout? Why not draw up a play? WHY? TELL ME WHY?????

Anyway, I feel that this possession was what lost them the game. Watch, er, read…

36.00-Allen makes the steal and passes to Eddie House who throws an entry pass to Pierce in the post. Pierce takes it to the rack, and kicks it to Ray Allen, but the pass is almost stolen. Then the Evil Ray Allen hoists up an airball from behind the arc that misses by about three feet. The 6’12” Kevin Garnett gets the rebound a foot from the basket, while covered by Jameer Nelson, whose nickname is Mighty Mouse for the record, and instead of thunderously dunking, he turns around and passes to Eddie House, who subsequently front-rims a miss.

This might be the most surprising moment of the game to me. It wasn’t something I noticed when I watched the game again, or during a replay, or something a writer or analyst mentioned, but something that was so blatant that I yelled at my television. The only Magic player near Garnett was the vertically challenged Nelson. I’ll get back to this…

House’s rebound falls in the hands of Keith Bogans, who can’t control it, and it falls out of bounds. And somehow the official, who was standing two feet from the play, called it out on Boston. I had watched this play a few times, once in slow motion, not to see if it was out on Orlando, that was obvious, but to watch the reactions of the Magic players as the ball went out. Bogans held his head as he sat out of bounds, wondering how he didn’t catch it. Jameer Nelson smacked his hands together in disgust, just before hearing the call and immediately turning toward the official shocked. Terrible.

15.9- 101-99 Orlando.

But it wasn’t over yet!

15.00-For some reason Kevin Garnett takes the obvious foul on Rashard Lewis. The foul was KG’s sixth, so the C’s lost the best rebounder, defender, er…player on the floor.

Lewis made both free throws, 103-99 Orlando.

15.00-Pierce takes the ball and drives to the hoop, is collapsed on, and ends up throwing the ball off of the Magic. Bad play call.

7.7-The Real Ray Allen buries a three with a man in his face. Good play call. 103-102 Orlando.

7.2-Rashard Lewis gets fouled by Pierce and makes one of two free throws. 104-102.

The ref blows the whistle randomly as Rondo is letting the ball roll to half court. So, the Celtics offense, which was spread out with Rondo in the middle, has to start from the side, and gives the Magic a smaller court to cover for the final play. This was just one of the dozens of awful calls in this game that, like any NBA game, go unnoticed by media and announcers because the game continues on immediately and the crappiness of the call gets lost in the speed of the game. (The most egregious calls in playoff games are rare exceptions.) An NBA game is 12 minutes shorter than an NFL game. There are far more blown calls in an NBA game, yet they are talked about far less. This is almost surely due to the fact that the stoppage time between plays in the NFL is greater and the shorter seasons places a larger importance on each game, each play, and each call. While that’s true, NBA refs shouldn’t be allowed to be terrible without consequence, while NFL refs are ripped in the media and sanctioned by the league. This should probably be a post of its own, but so should a lot of things.

4.9-Paul Pierce takes a quick three pointer that hits off the back rim and Howard pulls down the board, game over.

Pierce clearly had plenty of time to take it to the basket and get a good shot, even make a pass for a buzzer beater by an open teammate. Bottom line, I don’t think they wanted to go to overtime. Maybe that was why Garnett kicked the ball out to House for the win when he had a lay-up for the tie earlier in the game. At first I thought this was the play Doc called, and I wouldn’t have blamed him, but he said later that the play was supposed to go to Pierce on a drive. I just don’t think any of the Celtics wanted to play another five minutes on the road. Garnett had fouled out. Pierce was clearly tired. Ray Allen was having an off night, and Tony Allen was so in shock that he missed that bunny, he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with an Uzi at that point.

So, after being down by 20 points in the third quarter, getting bad offensive nights from two of your three stars, and having incompetent referees for the entire game, it still took a blown lay-up and a deep 3-pointer from Pierce, that didn’t miss by much, to beat the Celtics. After four of the weirdest minutes you’ll see in a basketball game, this team still had a shot to win at the end. I guess I’ll take one of those every ten games or so.

I could care less about losing. I did, however, have there areas of concern.

1.) Ray Allen hasn’t been the real Ray Allen of late. I don’t know how much of this Evil Ray Allen I can stand. Let’s hope he will be back to the old Allen after “going back into the lab” to figure it out. Whatever that means.

2.) Paul Pierce taking a deep three at the end of the game. That was just way too 2006 Celtics for my tastes. All game and all season he was setting up teammates and taking good shots, why did he decide to change his tune at the most important time of the game? Let’s hope it was the whole “we are avoiding overtime” thing.

3.) The old Doc Rivers reared his ugly head in Orlando. Not calling timeouts in crucial possessions. Allowing Kevin Garnett to get his sixth foul when any of the five Celtics on the floor could have taken it. Let’s hope this flashback to crappy coach was a side affect of heading back home to the Magic Kingdom.

So the Celtics aren’t going 82-0, or even 10-0. Who cares? The bullseye is off their backs, and it’s time to settle into the season. Let’s not start any streaks or anything, though.

Three things I thought while doing Miken drills with Tony Allen…

Most of the experts have the Celtics behind the Magic in their power rankings. I understand they just beat the C’s heads up but you can’t really place them as the class of the East. Boston was on the road. Kevin Garnett spent half the game on the bench in foul trouble. The Magic had a 44-26 free throw advantage and a 20-point third quarter lead and the Magic still couldn’t put them away. Jameer Nelson played the final quarter with his head up his you-know-what. Orlando celebrated the win like they just advanced to the NBA Finals. This is the best team in the Eastern Conference? Really?

After the game Jameer Nelson said, “we did a good job of keeping our composure.” There’s no punch line here…if you watched the game you’d know how funny that statement is.

Check out this story about how the Warriors tried to land Kevin Garnett in the offseason. You’ll learn that Golden State GM Chris Mullin’s wit and tongue are as sharp as his flat top.