Half the team is hurt. Much of the other half is brand new. But somehow, this bunch of strangers wearing Bruin black and gold managed to squeeze out a win over Nashville, 3-2. The first two goals all came from Bruins vets (Michael Ryder and Patrice Bergeron), but the game winner, Steve Begin's first Boston goal off an assist from Daniel Paille, was all n00b. "Most important thing is we won the game but it's great to get my first goal out of the way," said Begin.
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He looked fine, and he said afterwards he felt fine. Tom Brady played almost the whole first half, threw two touchdowns, and kept his knee in one piece in the Patriots' preseason opener in Philadelphia.
Well, Junichi Tazawa got his first major league win in his first major league start. All he had to do was touch off a series of events that landed somewhere between "difference of opinion" and "international incident", hang on for the minimum five innings, and wait for Mike Lowell to swoop in and save the day.
Sometimes, it takes a little while to remember how tense playoff hockey can be. When the Canadiens tied the Bruins 2-2 late in the second period last night, it all came back to us. Phil Kessel and David Krejci had staked the B's to a 2-0 lead late in the first.
It's never a good idea when a hockey team turns introspective and scared. But that's what happed to the Bruins last night, as they lost a 2-goal lead, a game (in OT, and we'll take every point we can at this point) and almost any shred of confidence they have left after their nightmarish last few weeks.
Complaining about the refereeing after a loss is a little ungentlemanly. Complaining about the refs after a win, however, is allowed and in fact encouraged after a game like last night, when the Celtics were legitimately going 5-on-8 down the stretch, but still managed to outdefend and outhustle Cleveland for a 105-94 win that helped throw the top of the Eastern Conference standings into a tizzy.
These injury-rattled 2008 Patriots may have finally settled on an identity. And it's not one that's going to please the kind of people who are only pleased by blowouts and offensive explosions. But football purists and fans of efficiency have to be pleased by the Pats' 20-10 win over Buffalo. It was a masterpiece of clock management, a triumph of minimalism.
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.
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 all the pain would be worth it.
Two Red Sox may have moved themselves off the "what's wrong with this guy?" list in Kansas City last night. Well, nothing's really been wrong with Tim Wakefield; although he went into last night 6-8, he's gotten miserable run support and has had to deal with the constant emotional roller coaster that is the lot of the knuckleballer. But he was awesome last night (6 innings, 4 hits, 1 ER, 6 Ks), even though Royals skipper Trey Hillman threw knuckleballs to his terrified charges all day to get them ready. Didn't help, as the Sox won 8-2 again.
CelticsBlog and Adam at Universal Hub have pointed us to plenty of reading material today. We thought we'd spotlight some of our favorite bits:
If you were with us all last night, you know what an intense game it was. The Celtics struggled at first, then spent the middle two quarters blowing LA off the floor, before getting silly and sloppy and watching LA take a 24-point lead down to two before Pierce and Posey iced it, 108-102, from the free throw line.
Hey, remember when the knock on the Celtics was their depth? Remember when everyone assumed Ghidorah would play great and then all hell would break loose when the second unit came in? Think Cleveland is remembering those predictions wistfully?
With their backs against the wall, responsible for a sudden regionwide crisis of confidence, the Celtics responded with one of their best, most balanced games of the season to punch Atlanta 110-85 and regain control of the first-round series.
If we had to pick one favorite moment from the Celtics' rout of Atlanta last night...
We'll just say pitching was a factor in the Sox-Yankees game last night in New York. To be more specific, the Red Sox pitching - and complete breakdown thereof - allowed the Yanks to run amok, and while the Sox got plenty of offense, it wasn't enough, as the Sox got smacked 15-9.
One of the few remaining regular-season goals left for the Celtics is checked off. They've seen every NBA team; they've beaten every NBA team. The Hornets were the last stragglers, winning in New Orleans last week. Last night, they found out what 2008 Celtics basketball is really all about. The game was close at halftime, but the C's clamped down the defense, completely took out the Hornets' stars, and rallied to their 2nd straight 20-point win over one of the West's best.
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 on the road. They've done everything but beat Montreal. Now we see 6th place as little more than a nice springboard.
On the way out of the TDB Garden last night, we weren't completely thrilled about the Celtics' victory over King James and the Cavaliers last night. It was a kind of sloppy game, Paul Pierce was way off-target all night, and the effects of jet lag were obvious. Then we stopped for a second and remembered where this team was a year ago. In one season, we've gone from plummeting towards ignominy, to beating the Eastern champs while clucking about aesthetics. We'll take that deal.
The All-Star Break couldn't have come at a better time for the Celtics. It's a few extra days of rest for KG, of course, but after last night, almost everyone over 6'8" is in agony this morning and needs some time off. Brian Scalabrine fled the court with a groin pull very early, then Glen Davis went down VERY hard in the second half. He was in so much visible pain that they didn't immediately kick it to the dancing idiots on the Jumbotron. What happened to him is being called a "strained left quadriceps".
Look outside the window. Grimace. Then realize that somewhere, in a magical land known as Florida, spring is only one day away. Pitchers and Catchers Day is almost here, which means that spring is creeping closer to our frozen city. Ballplayers will be ready to welcome in the season when they finally get back to Fenway. The journey just happens to take them to Florida, Japan, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Toronto before spring finally reaches us. Why do we live in New England again?
The good news for the Celtics is that the Timberwolf portion of their schedule is in the history books. After surviving a 1-point game against Minnesota at home a couple of weeks ago, the C's went to the Twin Cities and pulled out a 2-point win.
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 defense and better-than-expected offense to close the Clips out.
Super Bowl Media Day is the professional football equivalent of the annual family reunion. A bunch of people get together, often traveling long distances, for the purpose of catching up. There's little that they have in common, but since they sort of fall under the same name, everyone has to make nice. The hijinks on display makes for a hilarious time for those not directly involved. People make nice and dumb down the stories of what they do and who they are in order to appease the extended family, and the whole thing would be much more enjoyable for all involved if alcohol was part of the equation. Someone (or, rather, many someones) wind up doing something dumb that seemed like a really good idea at the time, but is really foolish in retrospect.
In a sense, it's comforting. The Celtics went to battle against one of the other good Eastern teams without Kevin Garnett, and almost beat 'em. On the day of the C's' long-awaited return to national afternoon TV, the script ran eerily similar to the first game in Orlando; the Magic jumped out to a big lead, the Celtics clawed their way back, but ran out of gas at the end. Orlando's the only team to get a 14-point lead on the Green all year, and they've done it twice.
Who is that swinger-lookin' 70s dude that the Celtics insist on flashing up on the Jumbotron during games? Why, that's Gino--the unofficial team mascot who is capturing the hearts of players and fans alike!
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...
The Celtics are pleased to announce that they've added an extra level to the bandwagon, and it's poised to start its run tonight at the Garden against Washington. This is the original bandwagon, mind you; not the auxiliary bandwagons the team expects to roll out over the course of the season. Naysayers (and there are some) point out that the supporting cast around Ghidorah is untested and unreliable. OK, whatever. So their starting point guard,...