HEAT 102 CELTICS 107
I told you I’d do it. I was, however, getting a little nervous that I may have jinxed the team because everytime they got a lead, somehow the Heat would come back. This loss makes Dwyane Wade 1-10 against the Celtics since the beginning of the Big 3 era. From the very beginning of this game, the Celtics looked like the better team. You never really got the feeling that they would lose, but how many times have we had that same feeling over the past 2 weeks just for it to be completely wrong? The C’s would grab a 7 point lead, and soon it would be tied. Then in the 4th when we pushed it to 10, suddenly it was back down to a 1 possession ball game.
For the Heat, the charge was led by none other than Wade. He finished the game with his usual 30 points, but he also had to be the facilitator with Chalmers out, so he dished off 13 assists as well. For the Celtics, the walking double-double Rajon Rondo had 22 points and 14 assists. He was, as I have been saying, the spark for this team. Everything started at him- heck he even went 2-3 shooting 3’s tonight. Now that is a little unusual but we will take it.
Another good thing to see was that Ray Allen had a decent night. He did not have a great night from behind the arc (1-5), but he did well in his other fieldgoal attempts and he finished with 23 points to make up for the loss of Paul Pierce. Again, he logged some big time minutes tonight which he has been doing for the majority of this year. He played for a little over 42 minutes but at the same time he is by far the most in shape vet we’ve got.
Off the bench, for the first time in a long time Eddie House brought some energy. He finished with a much needed 16 points that was based around his good shot selection. Lately he has been rushing shots a little and taking shots out of what is even his norm. He is known to take some off balance shots, but alot of this year he has been shooting really, really off balanced shots. 2-4 shooting 3 is a good start, and hopefully a game that will catapult him in games to come.
The Celtics finished this game out strong again down the stretch. Don’t be side tracked by the 33-28 fourth quarter score. The last 35 seconds of the game consisted of lax defense so as not to foul, and a lot of free throws that the Celtics took. The C’s let the Heat take open threes (again so they didn’t foul) and they just kept hitting them to prolong the game.
This was a very big victory for the Celtics to grab without the Captain. They can stay at home and get some rest until Friday when they play the Nets in a game that we can hopefully rest the starters in before a showdown on Sunday against the Magic who we have (clear my throat) beaten 2 out of 3 times this year (if you get my jist).
(Photo via NBAYahooSports)