It doesn't take long, does it? All the Sox needed were three chances to whup the Mariners, and the bitter taste of the sweep in Anaheim is gone. True, the Sox did clock a little overtime yesterday, but the end result was a satisfying 6-3, 12 inning win. The Sox loaded the bases in the top of the twelfth on an Ellsbury single, a JD Drew walk, and an error. Mike Lowell brought two home......

It was about a week ago when we noted that the Bruins were in 6th place in the Prince of Wales Eastern Conference, which was a decent place to be, thus drawing the winner of the weak-sister Southeast Division. In that week, the B's have solidified the 6th spot, but are now officially in spittin' distance of bigger and better things. They've won blowouts this week, they've won shootouts, they've won at home, they've won......

While the Celtics are floundering out West, the Bruins have just finished an honest-to-goodness stampede through the South. And attention must be paid. Last night, the B's finished off a 4-0-1 Southern swing with a 5-3 win at Tampa Bay. Glen Murray scored twice, with Milan Lucic and Mark Stuart also scoring early. P.J. Axelsson took a Glen Metropolit pass and scored a shorthanded goal to put the Lightning away for good. Alex Auld wasn't......

So much for the idea that the thrilling shootout win over Buffalo would spark the Bruins. They followed up that great win with an official stinkeroo last night, turning a 3-2 lead into a 6-3 embarassing loss at the hands of the Panthers. Zdeno Chara, Glen Murray (yay!) and Marco Sturm scored for the B's, but then the defense broke down and Tim Thomas stopped looking like himself for a while. Bad news all around.......

Poor Chicago. True, the Bulls could have made things interesting at the TD Banknorth Garden on Friday night if they'd actually shown up ready to play. But we imagine that they knew, as they sat in the locker room before warmups, that the Celtics weren't going to let anyone speculate about Boston's ability to bounce back from a loss. The guys in green were going to come out hard against anyone they faced - and......

This won't work all the time. There are going to be nights when lollygagging it in the first half, then turning it on in the second, won't be enough. Last night was not one of those nights. The Celtics came out in the first half sluggish, especially on defense. "Their biorhythms are off," said radio announcer Sean Grande, and it sure looked like he was right. The Sixers, struggling all season and trying to welcome......

That's right; we almost had to go in the closets for a rare winter activation of the Panic Button. The Patriots were struggling on offense, dropping passes left and right. The defense really struggled, allowing Raven Willis McGahee to run amok for three quarters. Don Shula was up in the booth with corkscrew in hand. But somehow, the game stayed close. And Tom Brady had a chance to go up the field with 3:30 to......

As tempting as it would have been for the Bruins to come out swinging last night, playing back the Flyers for Patrice Bergeron's concussion, that's not how they roll. And they needed the two points even more than they needed the visceral satisfaction of seeing the Flyers laid out like the wounded soldiers in Gone With the Wind. The 6-3 shellacking wasn't exactly a tea party, though. Defenseman Andrew Alberts left the game after a......

We already know they must hate us in Minnesota. Once, they had David Ortiz, Randy Moss and Kevin Garnett. Now they don't. But they must really hate us in Denver these days; less than two weeks after their Colorado Rockies were vaporized in the World Series, the Nuggets came to Boston and fared just as badly. The Celtics (who said they'd need time to adjust to one another?) annihilated Denver almost from the opening last......