Sports Redux: "It's Just One of 82"

So says Doc, and it's a little easier to say now, after the Celtics withstood an early barrage from the Cavaliers and came back to win their season opener, 95-89.

The teams were sporting new looks - Rasheed and others for the C's and Shaq et al for the Cavs. Both teams were missing key second bananas, Cleveland was without Delonte West (DNP-Felony) and the Celtics without Glen Davis (DNP-Stupidity). Both teams felt that it could and should have been them in the Finals last year instead of Orlando. And now only one of them is undefeated.

It looked ugly early, though, as Cleveland harnessed the crowd's energy and rolled out to leads of 13-2 and 21-7. Shaq was abusing Kendrick Perkins inside, LeBron was dishing it off to everybody...it was ugly. But the retooled Celtics bench stopped the bleeding and set the C's up for a six-point halftime lead, as Sheed and his new muffin top hit a couple threes, and new bench guys Shelden Williams and Marquis Daniels joined with Eddie House to keep things going.

The second half reverted to the starters, and it was Paul Pierce who wound up leading the team with a pretty quiet 23, but may have gotten the play of the game when he took a charge from LeBron to kill some late Cleveland momentum. KG added 10/13, Ray Allen 16, and Rajon Rondo kicked off his contract year with some sweet moves and steals.

It's bigger than one game, in a sense, because the Celtics hadn't won in Cleveland since 2004 (conversely, the Cavs haven't won in Boston since 2007). It's big in that the defense quickly figured out that isolating James and making him do it all himself can work (sometimes, we add quickly). It's big because you have to make an early statement against a team you'll see down the road. "It's great psychologically to go in here and get a win," adds Paul Pierce. But it's just one of 82.

There was a little more fallout to L'Affaire Big Baby. Owner Wyc Grousbeck said, "This was an unauthorized activity resulting in the team losing his services, and he’s going to have to pay for that," and is still talking suspension. Doc had a heart-to-heart with Glen, and said, "Baby’s not a bad person. He made a bad mistake and he made a bad judgment. Unfortunately it only takes one second or five seconds to make a mistake, and you have to live with it, but he’s not a bad kid." Most of the rest of the team is publicly non-judgemental. Which leaves that job to us.

Also, apparently there's a baseball game tonight, but whatever, baseball is so three months ago.