After every game, we'll take stock of how each individual performance affects the player's overall value.
Starters
Rajon Rondo: 17 points, 11 assists and 4 steals. No one else in this game got more than 5 assists. My knock on Rondo last night, though, was the jumper he took with the Spurs up 1 with 5:09 left. He seemed to get too caught up in the moment. I know this might be a bit of over-analysis, but in a 1 point loss, those things matter.
Paul Pierce: I don't think last shot was bad. Paul Pierce makes step-back jumpers in his sleep. The fouls though, especially his fourth, were a problem. Maybe I'm being too hard on him, but that fourth foul was just stupid.
Kevin Garnett: 16 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists is a decent night out of KG… but his jumper was off (7-19 fg) and Duncan grabbed 16 rebounds. I know KG can't do everything out there, but a little more boxing out would have been nice.
Ray Allen: It's not shocking that he struggled after returning from an ankle injury. He had some good looks early and the shots didn't fall. The 3 at the end was huge, though. It's still way too easy to drive on Ray. Danny Green looked like an All Star out there in stretches.
Brandon Bass: He needs to take more than 6 shots. And missing 3 free throws? C'mon. He did have a stretch where he played some great defense, though.
Bench
Avery Bradley: He slashed his way to a game high 19 points and played his usual stingy D. His emergence has been amazing. He has found a way to be effective and play to his strengths.
Greg Stiemsma: I honestly can't remember a single thing Stiemsma did last night. Probably because he only played 8 minutes and only had 2 rebounds and an assist in his line.
Sasha Pavlovic: 5 points and 3 steals in 13 minutes is a fine emergency contribution.
Keyon Dooling: He only played 10 minutes.
JaJuan Johnson, Marquis Daniels, E'Twaun Moore, Ryan Hollins
Coaching
Doc Rivers: I'm still not sold on the Ray starting thing. Bradley played great off the bench, so it's hard to sit here and say "well, Ray's going to help the bench scoring." Ray is just not where he used to be defensively, and where he used to be was "adequate."
That said, I liked having Bradley off the bench last night because it matched Bradley up on Manu Ginobili and that worked out very well. Maybe it will be a situational thing? Maybe I was just wrong about starting Bradley.
Overall
The Celtics lost to a team that is now a game away from the top spot in the West. The Spurs are deep team with a lot of weapons… and the C's didn't give up. They came back from a big hole and had a chance to win at the end. So in that regard, you can look at last night's game positively.
But the Celtics got crushed on the boards (again) and they shot 6-13 from the line. That's where the game was lost. And in this regard, you can view last night's game quite negatively. Pavlovic and Bass are shooters, and they combined to go 3-8 from the line. Rondo went 0-2, which is frustrating but not out of the ordinary.
The Celtics had a chance to win last night and they flat out blew it.
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