How we see it goin’ down: Cs – TWolves

Tip: 7:00pm    Court: Target Center    Watch it:  CSN    Hear it:  WEEI

Referees:  Ken Mauer, Kevin Cutler, Courtney Kirkland

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The Matchup

Record: 50-21 (1st Atlantic, 2nd East)	Record: 17-56 (5th NorthWest, 15th West)
On The Road: 21-13	At Home: 12-24
Streak: Lost 2	Streak: Lost 6
Leaders	Leaders
Buckets: Pierce (18.6 ppg)	Buckets: Kevin Love (20.3 ppg)
Boards: KG (9.0 rpg)	Boards: Love (15.4 rpg)
Dimes: Rondo (11.4 apg)	Dimes: Luke Ridnour (5.3 apg)
For the Stat Geeks:	For the Stat Geeks:
Offensive Rating: 106.4 (18th NBA)	Offensive Rating: 104.4 (23rd NBA)
Defensive Rating: 99.8 (1st NBA)	Defensive Rating: 110.4 (26th NBA)
Pace: 90.5 (22nd NBA)	Pace: 96.6 (1st NBA)

Last time

The Celtics put forth a typically terrible effort against a horrible team and nearly lost.  They escaped with the 96-93 win, despite Kevin Love's 24 rebound game

This time

Get it to:  Paul Pierce

Yes, again.  He's still the C's best offensive player and their best chance at getting to the rim and drawing fouls against Kevin Love (if he plays).  

Gotta stop:  Michael Beasley

Even if Love is in there, I'm going to bet he'll get his.  Beasley, though, can be a killer.  He scored 19 against the C's in January… and he's scoring almost 22 in wins.  

The Wild Card: Rajon Rondo

You could make him the wildcard every game at this point.  I'll stand by it: As Rondo goes, so go the Celtics.  Passive Rondo will make us pull our hair out.  Aggressive Rondo will make this easy on all of us.

How we see it goin' down

I so desperately want to say the Celtics will send a message just to shut us all up, but I can't.  Not the way they're playing right now. 

So I expect another typically terrible effort against a bad team.  But I will give the C's the win just because Minnesota is that bad.  The C's will get crushed on the boards. They'll turn the ball over a million times.  And they'll look bad offensively.  But Minnesota will look just a little worse, and the C's will win a frustrating one 89-85.