Last night was one of the strangest games we've seen in a while at the TDBG. With the unremarkable Clippers in town, the second quarter had a playoff-like intensity to it, with technicals, an ejection, and some really scrappy play. The fourth quarter showed a surprising lineup, as Doc left the second unit (House, Powe, Davis, Posey, Tony Allen) in for almost the entire time. Most surprising of all - the bench played some fantastic......

The San Diego Chargers are hoisting their macho flag in the sky. One player who has the first name Igor (no joke) already boasted that the Patriots are more worried about the Chargers than the Chargers are of them. Can Igor do math? A perfect record is nothing to sniff at. Bostonist heard on ESPN that Coach Norv of the Chargers told Igor to shut his trap. No sports action last night, but tonight the......

There's lots of ways to look at it. After 32 good games, we were due for a stinker. Every NBA team is competent and capable of winning any game (well, the Knicks, but you know what we mean). We had serious letdown potential after the Detroit high. Ray Allen and Big Baby were in street clothes. If any of the above consoles you, it shouldn't. The Celtics looked just God-awful last night, and suffered their......

Amazing when you think about it: everyone who's played the Celtics this season has a losing streak against them right now. The C's' three losses have all been avenged; first Cleveland, then Orlando, and last night in Detroit, in a fantastic game that served as a serious test of how good this 28-3 team really was. Ray Allen continued his struggles, Kevin Garnett got in early foul trouble, so it was Paul Pierce and -......

Today has all the anticipation of postseason award announcements, with all the anxiety of a Law & Order episode. This afternoon, George Mitchell's going to go public with his steroid report. There's all kinds of stuff in there about making improvements to testing and recommendations for ways to keep this from happening in the future, but all anyone really cares about is the "naming names" part of the process. Who will be implicated? Sources say......

TO: The Rest of the NBA (address not shown) FROM: The Little Nine (littlenine@celtics.com) RE:Remember Us? --- Hi everyone. It's the Little Nine here. You know, the "supporting cast" that was going to be the one thing holding the "Big Three" back from romping all over the NBA this year? Almost to a man, the papers and the Internet said that Pierce, Allen and Garnett would play well, but they had no support and no......

Celtics coach Doc Rivers would have been entitled to skip last night's game in New Jersey. Spending the day at his father's funeral, 1000 miles away from the Meadowlands, he was fully prepared to call it a day and watch his team on TV. But his mom told him that Dad would have wanted him on the sideline, so Doc caught a charter flight and walked into the C's locker room an hour before game......

We sure hope Josh Beckett found time during yesterday's off-day to watch High Noon. If you haven't seen it, the plot is that Sheriff Gary Cooper has one day left until retirement, and a pack of mean outlaws are coming to town to wreak havoc. He tries to round up a posse to meet them, but everyone in town has a dentist appointment, or their hair is drying, or they don't roll on Shabbos, or......

It's always a good sign when the only two elements of suspense to a ballgame are (1) will we get to the fifth inning before the rain comes, and (2) will the starting pitcher's arm get stiff from sitting in the dugout for a long time while his offense scores bunches of runs. Fortunately for the Sox last night, the answers were yes and no, respectively, as the Sox pummeled the Devil Rays to a......

There's an old saying in baseball...well, there are a lot, like "Take two and hit to right", or "Don't bunt to break up a no-hitter", but there's an old theory that when you get lots of men on base, it's in your best interest to drive them in. A little crazy, to be sure, but it's a piece of wisdom that the Red Sox have been ignoring for some time. Not last night. The Sox......

Weren't we told that losing the Lottery wasn't a big deal? Since this was the most loaded draft in years, the story went, the Celtics would happily grab a good player with the #5 pick that would complement Paul Pierce and the burgeoning youth movement, and join in on the team that would compete soon and for years to come. Yeah; not so much. Like a rube on a carnival midway, Danny Ainge fell for......

So, the Celtics have been drooling over Kevin Durant, but, if they play badly enough, they might have another juicy prospect option - Glen "Big Baby" Davis of LSU is foregoing his senior year to join the pros. "Big Baby" is big indeed and sends visions of Shaq dancing in coaches heads. Danny Ainge may have put himself under house arrest to make sure he doesn't get too close to Davis' mother. Danny Ainge also......