I'll be honest here… I'm happy to be wrong about this: I expected Ray Allen to go off against his old team and put up 40 points or so… and I expected the rest of the team to be in on it.
But Ray didn't go off. In fact… he shot 4-13 and he finished with 10 points. The big gun in this game was Paul Pierce… who shot 5-7 from long distance and finished with 37.
Why am I happy about this? Because it shows that the Celtics, even on a night where they might want to placate one of their stars, are approaching every game the same way… and no one is putting their selfish desires before the team's success. I'm sure Paul and KG would have been OK with giving Ray more than 13 shots… but that's not how it worked out… and they didn't force it.
I think the extra minutes from the Sacramento game really showed in this game. The C's settled for a lot of jumpers early in the game… and despite the 104-96 final… this was really a 2 to 4 point game the whole way. The C's, behind a scorching second half from Pierce, pulled away in the 4th… but this was closer than it should have been.
By the way… the Celtics are still undefeated on the back end of back-to-back nights. That's EXTREMELY hard to do…. but it helps that those second night opponents have been New Jersey (twice), Charlotte, Miami, Chicago and Seattle… who now have a combined record of 47-91.
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