After every game, we'll take stock of how each individual performance affects the player's overall value.
Starters
Rajon Rondo: 17 career triple doubles and counting. His fourth this season could have been much bigger than the 18/17/20 craziness he put up yesterday. He shot 6-13 at the rim, which is odd. There were also a few assists that probably should have been finished off. He could have easily had a 26-17-24 game.
Paul Pierce: Suddenly, Pierce has gone from head-scratchingly off to ming-blowingly great. The switch was so sudden, it still makes me wonder if something was wrong… but I'm just glad it's all right now.
Ray Allen: He only took 9 shots. He only scored 12 points. But he didn't let that affect him late in the game, nailing a clutch 3 with 3:30 in OT to give the C's the lead for good. Huge.
Kevin Garnett: KG checked in with his 3rd straight 10 rebound game. He's hit double digit rebounds in 7 of his last 9 games. Over those 9 games, KG is averaging 18.2 points and 10.3 rebounds. I suppose I owe him an apology for prematurely declaring his career over.
Brandon Bass: Rondo makes history, Pierce goes off for 34, KG hits for another double double… meanwhile Bass is sitting here with an 18 point, 4 block night going "ummm… I contributed too." He did, shooting 6-11 and hitting all 6 of his free throws while contributing nicely on the defensive end. It's almost too bad all those other guys had big nights… Bass deserves a little more praise for what he did.
Bench
Avery Bradley: Just 5 minutes of action for Avery, which isn't all that surprising considering what Rondo was doing.
Keyon Dooling: He did something… which is more than nothing. Baby steps
Mickael Pietrus: Couple of flashed from Pietrus in tihs game but otherwise not much to get excited about..
Chris Wilcox: 6 points and 3 boards in 17 minutes isn't bad. But it's not great. This game was clearly a starter-driven win.
JaJuan Johnson, Marquis Daniels, Sasha Pavlovic, Greg Stiemsma: These guys might not play much the rest of the season.
Coaching
Doc Rivers: He's tweaking the rotation but still keeping KG's minutes down. He's going to rely more on the starters, who already know how to execute many of these plays. He's keeping Bass in the starting lineup to keep the floor spread and he's moved KG over to the 5 where he can take advantage of his speed. He's pressing all the right buttons right now
Overall
4 wins in a row is 4 wins… I don't care who they came against. The Celtics play two of the next three games at home… but then they play 8 straight road games. They've moved to within 2 games of the division leading Sixers, but the true test is about to come.
Enjoy this now, because the rest of this month will be quite interesting.
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