Taking Stock: Celtics – Knicks

After every game, we'll take stock of how each individual performance affects the player's overall value.

Starters

Rajon Rondo:  13 points and 13 assists for Rondo, mostly before he got knocked down and nearly got broken in half.  After that, he played like a guy whose back was a mess.  He probably shouldn't have been out there, but he was.  Admirable, yes… but I'm not sure it helped much, especially when he was charge with guarding Steve Novak at the end and he couldn't do it.

Paul Pierce:  Amazing game for The Truth.  He was the only reason the Celtics were in this game.  I feel bad that this performance was wasted in a loss.  

Kevin Garnett:  Has there been a quieter 20 point game this season?  Tells you how crazy the game was when no one is really talking about a 20 point, 5 rebound, 3 assist, 2 steal, 1 block game.  Granted, the rebounding was a little low, but it's still a nice game.   

Brandon Bass:  Same with Brandon, who chipped in 15 and 6.  He had a hell of a time defensively, but he was still a team high +6. 

Avery Bradley: Not his greatest day defensively, but I can't go any lower on Avery because of .

Bench

Yeah, when you get outscored 55-2, I'm not going to say anything nice about you, or am I going to waste time breaking anything down individually.

Coaching

Doc Rivers:  I can't be too hard on Doc.  He didn't have two huge options at his disposal and the options he had off the bench played terribly last night.  What buttons could he push.  It was clear looking at his comments today, he didn't want to double Carmelo Anthony when the Celtics were doing their doubling… but he couldn't get them to stop, either.  I also might have just thrown in the towel in a fairly meaningless game much earlier

Overall

In the end, the Celtics lost a single-digit game to a team that got ridiculously hot from deep… and they lost with a broken Rondo, and no Ray/Pietrus.  They didn't play well, but they didn't give up.  I'm not happy with the performance, but I'm not going to get all worked up about it either.