The Celtics never led in this game, while Orlando's largest lead was 25. The Celt's defense and energy was awful. You could see it right away. They continually allowed dunks and lay-ups for the whole first quarter. Don't quote me on this, but I don't think Orlando hit 1 jump shot for the entire first quarter. That is not Celtics defense and is definitely not championship defense. Orlando is an outside shooting team. If you allow them to get off to a hot start and get easy baskets, then they will burn you later on. And they did. Orlando set a franchise record by shooting 59.1% from the field. They outscored Boston 23-10 on fast break points, and dominated the paint. Then they got on fire and lit the Celts up. Plain and simple. No defense and they looked soft. The offense is not always going to be there. But there’s no excuse to not play defense. Unacceptable….we’re all disgusted…
Pierce played aggressively and was 14 of 14 from the line. Rondo played well adding 15 points and 6 assists but did not attack and dominate like I thought he would have. Problem is it’s tough to fast break when you keep giving up easy baskets. Thankfully Eddie stayed hot and knocked down 15 points. But Ray is still having a tough series, going 3 of 13 and Big Baby was only 2 of 6. I still like the Celts in this series, and Ray Allen can easily snap out of this and kill opposing defenses like we have seen him do so many times. But last night was a tough one to watch as a Celts fan.
Rashard Lewis was unstoppable and Turkoglu was right beside him hitting key shot after key shot, killing any chance of a Celtics comeback. DP was right when he said that the power forward position is the key match-up. Lewis v/s Davis. And we all know who’s getting the better of that one. He was on fire last night, going 9 of 17 and 3 of 7 behind the arc. Big Baby can’t defend him. And Scal has been playing well but Lewis is too good and can do so many different things on the offensive end. Turkoglu added 24 and Howard had 17 with 14 boards. Courtney Lee had a nice comeback with 11 points, but the biggest surprise was Anthony Johnson. No one thought he could step in, myself included, and play as well as he did last night. But he was a true veteran and was an extremely efficient point guard. I’m not really sure what happened with him and Stan Van Gundy but it was hysterical, especially given the fact that no one on Orlando even listens to Van Gundy. Just watch one of their timeouts. But he played really well in the absence of Alston and Orlando is sadly up 2-1. However, it’s a long series and I can’t imagine the Celtics could play any worse than they did last night.
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