Results tagged “sportsredux”

Today's assignment: make these Jets fans wish they were back in the Super Bowl days of Week Two. That is all.

For the second straight game, the Boston Bruins needed overtime to secure a road victory. For the second straight game, Patrice Bergeron delivered with a game-winning score. Bergeron, who buried a shootout chance and Atlanta on Thursday, beat Buffalo's Ryan Miller 0:47 into overtime, thanks to Zdeno Chara and Marco Sturm, to lift the Bruins to a 2-1 win. Milan Lucic tied the game at 1-1 with his first goal since April 2, according to NESN. Byron Bitz combined with Lucic and Tuukka Rask, who got his first career assist, on the end-to-end highlight-reel rush. Lucic and Bitz, a pair that had a solid outing, couldn't score on a similar play in the third. Rask had 25 saves.

The Bruins won! Sure, they gave up a 2-0 first-period lead, and they allowed Atlanta to tie the game again, 3-3, in the final minute. But Patrice Bergeron beat Ondrej Pavelec in the shootout to give the B's their first win in like forever.

Our long regional nightmare is over! After a five-game local losing streak, the Celtics - finally, eventually - shook off the civic torpor and wound up blasting the Golden State Warriors 109-95.

Kind of a welcome breather yesterday, huh? No controversial coaching decisions. No stymied power plays. No frustrating breakdowns in defensive adjustments. No Laurence Maroney running 11 yards to gain two. No leaving Tim Thomas helplessly out to dry against a flurry of goals. No settling for threes when the lane is wide open. No red zone failures. Nobody lost. Around here, this week...we'll take it.

In ten years prowling the Patriots' sidelines, Bill Belichick has earned all kinds of trust and goodwill and benefit-of-the-doubt. Which is good, because he needs it this morning.

Did you spend all day yesterday watching the rain pour down and hoping that at least things would end well with a Celtic/Bruin doubleheader? If you did, you probably wished you'd gone out and stood in the rain all day instead; you'd feel about the same.

Atlanta's coach Mike Woodson viewed this game as a measuring stick for his squad. The Hawks measured up well with the Celtics and won, 97-86. Atlanta led 72-70 after three quarters and outscored the veteran C's crew 25-16 in the fourth. Former Celtics player Joe Johnson led the Hawks with 24 points. Jamal Crawford added 18 points. Paul Pierce led Boston with 24. Pierce went to the floor once, came up limping, went to see the trainer, and returned with a brace thing on his leg. Boston dropped to 8-2 with their second home loss of the season. Comcast Sportsnet said the second home loss of 2008-09 took place on January 7. If you're wondering how the rag-tag Hawks won, check the box score and look for "Rebounds." Or, go with Kevin Garnett, who said Atlanta simply "beat us."

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when Claude Julien said he was getting tired of hard-fought losses? Well, last night must have exhausted him.

Sure, he may be the most expensive backup catcher in history. And maybe his stats aren't what they used to be, and even those stats aren't what they were a few years ago. But even if Jason Varitek the catcher is past his expiration date, Jason Varitek the heart of the Red Sox and the captain is still around. And still, we hope, worth the $3 million he decided to accept yesterday.

Have the Bruins turned the proverbial corner? After a solid month of alternating ups and downs, followed by a couple of weeks of unqualified downs, the B's finally notched their first honest-to-goodness winning streak of the season, beating the staggering Penguins 3-0 last night at the Garden

Nothing lasts forever, certainly not an unbeaten NBA season. The Boston Celtics lost for the first time this season on Friday, dropping a 110-103 decision to the Phoenix Suns, who lost their first game on Wednesday. For a close game, the Suns were in control most of the way. The NBA's top two shooting teams didn't disappoint the crowd. The Celtics shot 51.7% from the field. Phoenix finished 13-24, or 54.2%, on three-pointers.

It's one point. A shootout loss. One goal. The Bruins will gratefully take it right now. With the offense struggling to even find the goal, let alone put the puck in it, and with swine flu racing towards the team, it's time to think about baby steps.

Let's face it. That was uglier than Minnesota's starting power forward. But if the Celtics are going to make a run at 70+ wins this season (and while PTI and the Globe and others are speculating about the possibility, we say, let's can that talk and let things unfold), they have to win games like last night. Trap games, against young athletic teams, on the second night of back-to-backs. And somehow, finally, the Celtics did.

Superficially, it looked like the old rivalry again. The Sixers have brought back the old logo, the old floor from the Spectrum (more or less) and uniforms that hearken back to the days of Dr. J and Andrew Toney. But the team that Philly put on the floor last night was no match for the early 09-10 Celtics. The '83 Sixers might not have been.

The Celtics are beating good teams by double digits. They're ticking off All-Star opponents. They're 4-0 after dispatching the Hornets last night at the Garden. And most importantly, they seem to have locked up their point guard for a few more years.

Another even-numbered game on the schedule; another win. It's a more reliable way of telling time than waking up this morning and not remembering if your cell phone/computer/alarm clock made the change for you.

When we last saw the Chicago Bulls, it was after the Celtics survived a seven-game street fight of a playoff series. Last night, the Bulls tapped out in about seven minutes. Perhaps that's an exaggeration on the part of Bostonist but the Celtics thoroughly outclassed the team, 118-90.

Eleven games, and for better and worse, the Bruins still haven't been able to put together a two-game streak of any kind. They had a chance last night, and played pretty well, but came away short with a 2-1 loss to the Devils. "This is one of those nights throughout the course of a season where you lose a hockey game only because the other team got one extra bounce going their way," said Coach Claude Julien.

Maybe the results are a little skewed, since the Charlotte Bobcats clearly didn't belong on the same floor or in the same league as the Celtics last night. Or maybe the Bobcats just looked like that because the C's' defense locked them up so tight that Amnesty International was handing out flyers by the end of the game. Final score: 92-59.

So says Doc, and it's a little easier to say now, after the Celtics withstood an early barrage from the Cavaliers and came back to win their season opener, 95-89.

It's hard not to experience a letdown after a 59-0 thrashing like the one the Pats put on Tennessee last night. The schedule makers, though, were kind enough to put another winless patsy in the Patriots' path, and the boys responded, delighting Londoners (well, we like to think so, anyway) with a 35-7 mauling of the Buccaneers.

But that's kind of a big deal, since it matches their season high. The "team goes up...team goes down" Bruins survived a tough beginning to come back and win in a shootout in Ottawa last night, 4-3.

Fans of American Football in London won't see a textbook example of the sport when the New England Patriots play the winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. If the game on display isn't something the league really wants on display - unless the NFL loves potentially one-sided games - then that leaves this year's London game as a means to promote the league through its stars. In other words, Tom Brady. That's what Mike Reiss theory is, and he believes Brady has embraced that theory, too. That would explain the sight of Brady in a suit surrounded by teammates in their casual team gear. It might explain more detailed, emphatic answers to media inquiries instead of the usual Belichick-speak we are treated to.

"It’s the only team that has the word ‘England’ in it," joked Alastair Kirkwood, the managing director of NFL UK. Ah, so that's why the Patriots had to spend last night flying across the Atlantic to get ready for Sunday's game against the Bucs in London.

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.

The Patriots made a lot of roster moves yesterday. A LOT. To the point where we wonder if (a) Bill Belichick wasn't happy with the 59-0 win on Sunday, or (b) they were worried about jettisoning some extra weight for the team flight to London this week. Officially gone are TE Michael Matthews and WR Joey Galloway, who was handed his walking papers and promptly dropped them. Not gone long enough to be forgotten were linebackers Eric Alexander and Tully Banta-Cain, who were released and then promptly resigned, possibly for paperwork reasons. "There’s a lot of different procedures and rules, and I don’t even know if I understand them all," said Belichick, who's a lot more concerned right now with puffing up the 0-6 Buccaneers in his players' minds to make them think the Bucs are the second coming of the '66 Packers.

Some time this winter, you'll no doubt read about a storm that dumps an inch of snow on some Southern locale and sends the entire town to hell in a handbasket. It happens every year; when you don't see it much, you don't know what to do with it, and it's good night, Charlotte. Or Little Rock. Or Nashville.

Technically, the Patriots aren't playing the Tennessee Titans today. In honor of the 50th season of the old AFL teams, the Titans are dubbing themselves the Houston Oilers today in Foxboro. But whatever they call themselves, they're a good (or so we thought) team that's somehow 0-5, and the Patriots are a good (or so we thought) team that's 3-2 and hasn't really looked like itself. Something's got to give.

After starting the year with a 2-3-0 record that, quite possibly, looked worse than the actual record did, the Bruins left Boston looking to play better hockey. Coach Claude Julien actually said it's not that bad. Bostonist will just agree to disagree. One quick trip to Dallas and a complete 3-0 victory later over the Stars, and all is agreeable to Coach Julien and Bostonist. Call us crazy if you wish, but some Bruins hockey was on display in the first two periods. Marc Savard asserted himself with two goals and Patrice Bergeron added the third score. Tim Thomas turned back all 27 Dallas shots for his first shutout of 2009-10.