Sports Redux: It's Getting Worse and Worse

If NBA games were 30 minutes long, we're pretty sure the Celtics would still be talking about 72 wins.

But they're not. And we're not. We're feeling all sorts of conflicting emotions about this team right now, but rampant overconfidence and optimism aren't among 'em. Because the Celtics (sing along if you like) built a big lead, and then watched it go completely to hell as the faster, hungrier, just-plain-better Cavaliers raced past them and turned it into a blowout.

The C's did their everything-looks-great act in the first half, when Rajon Rondo was leading the offense (technically, that should read "Rondo WAS the offense") and scoring 10 of the team's first 12 points. When he wasn't scoring, he was dishing out assists, and the defense was forcing Cleveland into bad shot selection. That was good.

Then, Cleveland made adjustments at halftime, and we're going to guess that in the other locker room, Doc was telling his team that all their puppies were just put to sleep, because the C's came out looking like they didn't want to be there. Throw in a couple key Mo Williams 3's, a crowd that was ready to turn on them and did, and a total lack of defense, and you can see why Cleveland roared to a 60-32 second half and a 108-88 win. And why they really think they're playing into June, and why we're looking forward to seeing the Nets come to town.

At least...at the very least...the C's seem self-aware. "We went from being a team with stops and attacking to the team being attacked," said Doc Rivers. Kevin Garnett added, "I think the second half we were just off. I know you guys are tired of writing it in your columns, I apologize for that." Well. Thanks for the shoutout, KG. Rasheed Wallace, who personifies this team's Jekyll-and-Hyde, frontrunning nature, wasn't available for comment. As he doesn't seem available to score when the offense isn't flowing. There; we got that out of our systems.

So it's two weeks before the C's play another team that knows it will be in the playoffs (that's 3/14, at these same Cavs), and there's no reason (especially if Pierce gets healthy) that they can't rattle off a winning streak, but we're not feeling that great even so. At least it's been brought to our attention that the C's have touch psychology on their side. So we've got that going for us.

People say newspapers are in trouble, but if the Globe can afford to send Dan Shaughnessy to Florida so he can report that the Red Sox offense wants to do well this year, things can't be that bad. The Red Sox also announced that they're going to build themselves a new spring training field in Fort Myers that will look like Fenway.

Here at the Redux, we know there are a lot of sports out there that we don't know a lot about (e.g., soccer, cricket, darts) or care a lot about (e.g., auto racing, golf). But we're still pretty impressed by this gallery of awesome sports photos on Boston.com. If more of our secondary US sports involved knife fights or rampaging livestock, we'd be more likely to get into that.