Celtics Hit Low Point Of The Season With Loss To Nets
By bpaul
New Jersey Nets 104 Boston Celtics 96
TD Garden – Boston, MA
January 27, 2010
Boos were raining down onto the parquet floor at the TD Garden today, and for good reason. The Boston Celtics took the floor today against the five-win New Jersey Nets and were expected to grab the easy win in front of the home crowd. Going into the game the spread for the game was -10.5 for the Celtics and even I thought that would be an easy cover. It turns out that I was completely wrong and the Boston Celtics dropped an embarrassing one to the Nets this afternoon by the score of 104-96.
I keep saying to myself that this was just a horrible nightmare and that I didn’t really witness what went on today at the Garden. But in all reality we all watched this and it was a disgrace to anyone who associates themselves with Celtics green. It is one thing when you drop one to a playoff contending New York Knicks team, or even a Detroit Pistons team, but a loss to the five-win New Jersey Nets takes it to a whole nother level. It is official, the Boston Celtics have hit their low point of the season. It can not get any worse than losing to one of the worst team in NBA teams in history, at least I hope not.
The Celtics started the game looking as if they were going to get rid of the Nets early and grab a blowout win, as was expected going in. They jumped out to a quick 12-2 lead in front of the sold out crowd at the Garden, but then mysteriously they lost focus of everything, and anything, they were doing to be successful. The Nets led by Devin Harris, Courtney Lee, and Brook Lopez took advantage of the Celtics collapse and grabbed a 29-27 first quarter lead.
From that point on the Nets looked as if they were playing the best basketball they have all season and at the same times the hometown team was arguably playing their worst basketball of the year. The Celtics found themselves down by as much as eighteen in the third quarter and never found enough to rebound from such a large deficit.
Even after playing horrible for 45 minutes the Celtics still had a chance late in the fourth quarter to possibly come away with a victory. A Ray Allen three point basket with 2:09 remaining on the clock cut the deficit to six points. Allen had another chance the next possession to cut it to a three point game but fanned on the opportunity. The next trip down for the Nets, Kris Humpharies sealed the deal with a awkward layup that put the Nets up by six with very little time remaining.
Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, and Courtney Lee led the way for the winning squad with 25, 23, and 21 respectively. For the first time this season the Nets looked somewhat like a real basketball team and a lot of this can be attributed to the way the Celtics allowed them to play. The Celtics were lazy, not just one player but the team as a whole. They went into this game thinking it would be an easy win, then when they realized they would have to actually play it was too late.
If there was any positives to take from this game it would have to be the play of Kevin Garnett. He arguably had his best offensive game of the season with 26 points and 9 rebounds, too bad for him the rest of the team did not match his effort. Nate Robinson also seemed to be playing with a lot of energy today and hit a few shots that kept the Celtics within a reasonable distance from the Nets. He ended up with 13 points on 6-13 shooting off the bench.
Well folks I’ll end by saying this: It really happened, the Celtics really did lose to the Nets. All we can really hope for is that this is a wake up call for the guys who sport the green and white uniforms. They are now 36-21 on the season and look to rebound Tuesday night in Detroit against a team that has already beat them once this year.
Photos via Yahoo Sports/Getty Images