"We can beat anybody in this league and we can play against anybody, obviously," says Zdeno Chara. And who's going to argue with him? The Bruins finished off the Best November Ever by sending the Stanley Cup champ Red Wings home, as they've sent so many other teams home lately, sad and unfullfilled. So the month ends with the B's 11-1-1, picking up 23 out of a possible 26 points. Blake Wheeler and Phil Kessel......

Were you still feeling sleepy after all of that turkey (or Tofurkey) on Friday? The brutal beatdowns delivered by Boston teams at the Garden were a jolt to the senses, a kick to the systems, and otherwise just dominating displays of athleticism. We'd say that neither the Islanders nor Sixers saw what hit them, but we saw those fights on the ice. There was no mistaking who was doing the hitting and what was being......

What were Boston sports fans thankful for yesterday? We were thankful for the Celtics escaping the Garden with a win on Wednesday against an athletic, young, unpredictable Golden State team - the only kind of team that seems to have success against the C's lately. We're thankful that Rajon Rondo somehow just keeps getting better and better. We're thankful that the Bruins' loss in Buffalo on Wednesday seems like just a hiccup in a great......

The Canadians, almost as unaccustomed to this Bruins approach to winning as we are, were determined not to let the (now in FIRST PLACE) Boston Bruins swoop into the Bell Center and keep the good times rolling. So what did they do? They play the emotional card and schedule Patrick Roy Night, seeming to assume that the Canadians would never consider giving Roy a less-than-stellar tribute. But the organizers failed to factor in our hockey......

If you're going to have a triumphant homecoming, it helps when you're playing the Timberwolves. That's the lesson from last night, as Kevin Garnett played his first game back in his old arena, and clearly illustrated the difference between NBA Champs and a miserable team, as the Celtics cruised to a 95-78 blowout. KG missed the game in "'Sota", as he's always called it, last year with an injury. But he was there last night,......

Nothing is getting to the Bruins right now. Nothing can disturb their calm, shake their confidence, rattle their cages. Buffalo jumps out to a 3-1 lead in the first five minutes? Pfffft. Just nod grimly and get back to work. David Krejci scored to make it 3-2. Manny Fernandez got beat for the fourth and final time. Then Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller faced the wrath of the Bruins, as Marc Savard got him for another......

No local games yesterday. The Celtics spent yesterday catching their breath, and in Brian Scalabrine's case, wishing the fans wouldn't single him out so much. Top draft pick J.R. Giddens, who hasn't been seen on the court yet, is on his way to Utah to get some minutes with the Celtics' D-League team. The Bruins still feel good about themselves even after their winning streak was snapped. "It wasn’t like the circus was back in......

Two local teams in action last night, two overtimes. As usual, we'll start with the one that ended well. And at least it ended well. The Celtics, trying to avoid a disastrous two-game losing streak, took a decent second-half lead in Milwaukee and almost squandered it. Nobody in green could buy a basket. The depleted Bucks (no Michael Redd, no Charlie Villanueva) clawed back to tie it at the end. "I'm not going to lie.......

One local team hung on to first place. So let's start with them. Bostonist was dismayed at the volume of Montrealers wandering around Quincy Market around dinnertime. Bostonist recommends that locals go buy tickets to all the upcoming Bruins-Canadiens games at the Garden this year. You'll get to see good hockey, and you'll hopefully get to see some crestfallen Quebecois, as there were last night, as the Bruins kept their red hot streak alive by......

The Hawks are real. We knew they took the Celtics to seven inexplicable games last year, and we knew they were undefeated when they arrived at the Garden last night. And then the game started last night. Sans star Josh Smith, Atlanta relied instead on killer shooting and some crisp passing, hung 31 on the C's in the first quarter, and built a 16-point lead at one point. So it was time for Ghidorah to......

Did everyone have a nice Veteran's Day? Maybe spend a little time outdoors, or get some chores done, or quality time with the loved ones? Good, because forget it for the next couple of days. All three of our local wintery teams take the field/court/ice in the next 48 hours. And they're all pretty big games. We'll start tonight, where the Bruins are taking their winning streak on the road to play a Blackhawk team......

This has been a nice little homestand for the Bruins, hasn't it? Last night, they followed up blowouts of Dallas and Toronto with a spirited, come-from-behind 3-1 win over Buffalo that launched them into a flatfooted tie for the Northeast Division lead. It took a little time for the B's to find their rhythm after falling into a fairly quick 1-0 hole. But find it they did, as Dennis Wideman launched a slapshot past Buffalo's......

The Bruins have a nice little streak going on, don't they? After pasting Dallas, 5-1, about a month and a half ago, the Bruins went back on the Garden ice and handed Toronto a 5-2 beating, mostly courtesy of Blake Wheeler's hat trick. Wheeler changed his jersey number before the game (from #42 to 26; sorry, Douglas Adams), and put in goals in all three periods to celebrate. So far, we've had hat tricks this......

It took a little while for the Celtics to find their rhythm yesterday. Maybe it was the tough Houston game, maybe it was getting used to a new arena, maybe it was recovering from the whirlwind afternoon tour of Oklahoma City. We may never know. But even though the C's started off a little (OK, a lot) flat, they turned up the D when it mattered and wound up pretty much cruising to a 96-83......

If you were worried about the Celtics seeking motivation for a repeat, worry no more. Rajon Rondo blogged: "We have to repeat, because we have to go back to the White House to meet Obama." It may not have been the biggest win anyone recorded in the nation last night, but the Celtics took a step towards that next White House visit. They recovered from their stinker in Indiana to beat a Houston team that's......

"We want to be greedy," said Claude Julien. And why not? After successively blanking the Oilers and the Canucks on 1-0 scored, the Bruins were hungry and ready to go for the Western Canadian sweep in Calgary. And when Patrice Bergeron caught Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff out of position for the quick 1-0 lead, Coach Julien's green looked like it might be rewarded. Alas, it was not. The Flames finally got to Tim Thomas, twice......

Paul Pierce has been here through it all. He slipped to #10 in the draft, becoming such an obvious pick that even Rick Pitino couldn't screw it up. He survived a stabbing. He and Antoine Walker mad-bombed their way into an improbable Eastern Finals appearance. He played through the agony and misery of the dismal mid-00's, always giving it all, always wearing his heart on his sleeve, always waiting for the day to come when......

Tonight the New Garden will get a taste of what things used to be like at the Old Garden. The pomp, the circumstance, awe and jubilation coming together as a banner rises to the rafters. The Celtics will officially kick off their quest for back-to-back championships tonight, hosting Cleveland, but the game won't get underway until the Celts have a party 22 years in the making. The rings, the banners, the biggest Celtic celebration since......

The Bruins have had bad news this young season, and some eh news. Last night, though, they nabbed an unqualified success, as Milan Lucic notched a hat trick and the B's overcame some early slugginshness to beat Atlanta, 5-4 at the Garden. Stephane Yelle got things rolling for the B's three and a half minutes into the second to cut the lead in half. Lucic tied it at 5:57, and David Krejci retied it at......

Apparently, you're supposed to let the MCL surgery heal before you reconstruct the ACL. It's starting to sound like Tom Brady's been seeing Dr. Nick Riviera, as grim accusations are starting to fly about what exactly is going on with his knee. The Patriots are a little miffed that Brady got the operations done in California. On Tom's website, he says everything's going swimmingly, but that's as of last week. The worst case scenario seems......

With all the practice the Bruins have gotten in shootouts this young season, you have to believe they're going to win one at some point. For the third time, they had to accept one point from the OTL while their opponent (in this case, Buffalo) got the extra. "You almost feel like Groundhog Day here," said coach Claude Julien, which makes us realize we haven't seen that in a while. The B's grabbed an early......

Well. This is fun, isn't it? Left for dead, the Red Sox are now in the enviable position of needing one game to move on to the World Series, and Jon Lester on the hill. There were moments of drama last night - would TBS get its act together? Was B.J. Upton's 74th home run of the postseason a sign that Beckett was cooked? Will all the umpires survive? - but they were erased, and......

You want to look on the bright side? OK, we'll play along. The Red Sox have a seven game ALCS winning streak when faced with elimination. There, we said it. Now all they have to do is get a sterling effort from Dice-K tonight, credible efforts from their other shellshocked pitchers, and some semblance of a competent offense, and the Sox can maybe run that streak up to ten. Games Five have been particularly good......

If last night left Red Sox fans feeling punchdrunk, this morning we're nursing the hangover. Last night's game would, if possible, be best left unspoken of, unremembered and, if we could figure out how to work that time machine we've been working on, unplayed. And yet today is here, the Sox are down to the Rays two games to one, and Boston fans are turning their eyes and hopes to Tim Wakefield. While it's not......

If you made it through last night, go ahead on Monday (or Tuesday) and tell your boss you put in extra hours and deserve time-and-a-half. The Sox and Rays played for six and a half hours, eleven innings, time enough for players to get in and out of slumps, and almost time enough to forget that Josh Beckett's pitching has become a big red flashing question mark. The Home Run Derby portion of the game......

It wasn't one for the history books. But the Bruins, while integrating some new faces and welcoming back some old ones, got the better of Colorado and opened the 08-09 season with a 5-4 win. The Bruins got early goals from Phil Kessel and Blake Wheeler (in his debut; welcome aboard, kid!), but the Avalanche's high-flying style got to Tim Thomas, and the B's trailed 3-2 midway through the second. Marc Savard's power play goal......

The Red Sox didn't just win a series the other night. They may have destroyed a Major League franchise. The Angels, winners of 100 games and the best record in the bigs, spend the entire flight home to California boo-hooing about how this never should have happened. "I'm pissed off. I'm just upset, and it's going to be with me for a while," said Torii Hunter. John Lackey, who was bettered twice by Jon Lester,......

We were worried? Remember, last season the Bruins were 0-37-1 against Montreal in the regular season, and still managed to force the Habs to seven games in the playoffs. 1-8 against the Angels in the regular season? Pfffft. As long as we're comparing Game One of the ALDS to hockey, there aren't a lot of games where it's easier to pick your Three Stars than last night in Anaheim. It's just putting them in order......

It feels as if there is something in the Massachusetts water these days. We are still shaking our heads about the manner in which the Pats decided to lose (without the least bit of grace) to the Dolphins on Sunday; on Monday, the Red Sox decided that they wanted to delay post-season celebration by a day. There is no other way to put it: the Indians didn't win on Monday night as much as the......

There's not enough lipstick in the world to cover up this pig. It's been a long, long time since we've had to report on a Patriots game that was this hard to think about, let alone write about. The Pats welcomed Miami to Foxboro with open arms, a red carpet, and a map to the end zone, and as a result are 38-13 victims. The story of the game was the Miami offense, which left......