Sports Redux: C's Take A While, But Find It

There was a little panic at 7:17 at the Garden last night. And not the usual panic that ensues when the Jumbotron finds and displays someone inhaling a tray of nachos, either. No, this panic came about when the C's came out to play Indiana without Kevin Garnett in the pregame layup lines. They never announced what had happened at the game (flu? traded to NY for Nate Robinson?), but turns out KG's thigh was bruised and they didn't want to aggravate it. It's not related to the knee problems he had last year, and he'll probably be ready for Christmas in Orlando. Whew.

Without KG, and even with the Pacers missing Danny Granger, this was a struggle from beginning to 1-minute-till-the-end. The C's, with shaky defense and some terrible shooting - dug themselves a 15-point hole in the first half. Paul Pierce couldn't buy a bucket, Rasheed Wallace (moved into the starting lineup) looked overmatched at times by Roy Hibbert, and Brian Scalabrine (moved into both Sheed and Shelden Williams' bench minutes for some reason we are having real trouble seeing) was, well....eesh.

Luckily, the Pacers are young, untested, and prone to similar spurts of ineptitude, and their second half defense and shooting let the C's back into it. Ray Allen's 3 with 4:45 gave Boston its first lead of the game, the teams played close for a while, then Pierce finally woke up, scoring 14 of his 21 in the fourth quarter as the C's pulled away. Kendrick Perkins deserves a star for his yeoman's work keeping his team's heads above water, but if you want to see the difference in the ballgame, it's that the Celtics hit 37 of 40 free throws. It's that simple.

Mike Reiss, who moved from the Globe to ESPN, has a pretty good mailbag in which he dissects everything that's wrong with the Patriots and does his best to talk Pats fans into not fretting their way through Christmas. Did it work? You tell us.