Celtics Do The Expected, Roll Past Nets
By bpaul
Boston Celtics 111 New Jersey Nets 87
January 13, 2009
IZOD Center – East Rutherford, NJ
Coming into tonight’s game the Boston Celtics were expected to go into New Jersey and come out with an easy victory. Even without Garnett, Wallace, and Daniels we all knew that the Celtics were clearly the better team and, in kind words, they proved it. At the same time the Nets proved why they are now 3-35 and have now lost 16 of their last 17 games. The Celtics came out of the gate playing exactly how we wanted them to and came out with an easy 111-87 Victory. With the win the Celtics move to 27-10 on the season.
Before the game the one thing that worried us Celtics fans was that the C’s may play down to the level of their opponent. After all this has been a common theme this year so we had reason to worry, even though they were playing the team with the worst record in the league. The Celtics quickly put all those worries behind as they jumped out to an early 20+ point first quarter lead and never looked back.
Although the Nets may not be known as the best defense in the league you still have to give the Celtics credit for their terrific ball movement. The lack of defense on the part of the Nets, along with great ball movement on the part of the Celtics combined to give the Celtics a 38-22 lead after one quarter of play. The Celtics assisted on 11 of 12 field goals in the first quarter and as a team shot 66.7%.
In the second quarter we saw some quality minutes from some of the Celtics reserves including Glen Davis, Tony Allen, and Shelden Williams. Instead of giving up ground the reserves kept the momentum going and along with help from some of the starters the Celtics got the lead up to 36 points at one point in the quarter. The Nets were an embarrassment to the game of basketball tonight and went into halftime down 71-36.
In my honest opinion I think half of the NCAA teams could have competed with the Nets tonight. Not only are they horrible, but they have the heart of a Jelly Fish (they have no heart). Once the Celtics increased the lead past 25 the Nets continued to play worse and worse, making foolish mistake after foolish mistake.
As expected, the Celtics did let their foot of the gas a little bit in the second half, heck with a 36 point lead can you blame them. The Nets got the game to as close to 24 in the third quarter but were ultimately still down and out for the count. The Celtics took a 90-64 lead into the fourth quarter.
Like the second quarter, the fourth quarter once again saw a lot of play by the Celtics reserves. Eddie House, Tony Allen, J.R Giddens, Shelden Williams, Glen Davis, and dare I say it, Bill Walker were all players who saw some action in the quarter. The Celtics ended the game in front of an empty IZOD Center as most Nets fans had seen enough by this point in the game.
Paul Pierce played his best game in awhile, leading the Celtics with 24 points. Pierce continued his hot three point shooting going 3-5 from behind the arc, and also kept up his hot free throw shooting going 9-9. The rest of the Celtics scoring was spread out between the rest of the starters and a few bench players. Seven players (Pierce, Rondo, Allen, Perkins, Scalabrine, Davis, and T. Allen) scored in double digits for the guys in green tonight. The Celtics shot 53.1% as a team overall tonight and assisted on 30 of 43 field goals.
Overall this game was a huge success and exactly what the doctor ordered. The Celtics had to take care of business in New Jersey because tomorrow night they take on the final end of this back to back against Chicago. All of the Celtics starters played under 30 minutes tonight so they should be ready to go tomorrow night.
(Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)