| Rondo Leads Celtics In Romp Of Revenge Authored by Andrew Perna - December 4, 2008 - 1:34 pm
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Doc Rivers and his players had the opportunity to sit back and watch the Pacers battle the Lakers at Conseco Fieldhouse on Tuesday night, a game that ended with a buzzer-beating putback off the fingers of Troy Murphy.
"They are awfully difficult to beat," Indiana coach Jim O'Brien said of Boston less than twenty-four hours after facing Los Angeles.
The Pacers hung with the Celtics at TD Banknorth Garden for roughly 30 minutes on Wednesday night until Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo took over and pushed Boston's lead to 24 points before a home crowd couldn't even properly applaud each highlight-worthy slam dunk and made three-pointer by Ray Allen.
In the end it was the interior defense, rebounding and tenacity of the Celtics that did the Pacers in.
Boston outrebounded Indiana 54-31, attempted 32 foul shots (against just 13) and hit 50% of their shot attempts (against 44%). Rarely, if ever, will you see a team lose when posting such strong numbers in each of those three categories.
"Go down the list. What do you want to talk about?" Indiana's Marquis Daniels said. "We didn't do a lot of things right."
The combination of Garnett and Kendrick Perkins manhandled every big man that O'Brien threw their way. Rasho Nesterovic, Roy Hibbert, Jeff Foster and Murphy combined for 33 points and 18 rebounds.
Garnett and Perkins combined for 42 points and 24 rebounds.
Rondo, who looked like the best player on the floor, tallied 16 points on 5-for-10 shooting, 17 assists and 13 rebounds. Sure, he had 4 turnovers, but his assist-to-turnover ratio was still an astounding 4.25.
"It seemed like there were three Rondos out there tonight," Garnett said of his point guard.
The effort marked Rondo's first career triple-double, and established a new career-high in assists.
He outplayed T.J. Ford, who strangely played just 27 minutes. Ford scored 15 points on 5-for-11 shooting and dished 8 assists. Four of those dimes came in the first quarter, the best period of the night for Indiana.
"Once he gets into the paint, he's very effective and very dangerous," Ford said after the beating. "He's under control ... You've got to give him his credit. He's a hell of a player."
Indiana tried to chip into Boston's lead at the start of the fourth quarter, but there would be no magical comeback on this night.
O'Brien went small, which helped the Pacers trim Boston's lead quickly, thanks in large part to a pair of three-pointers swished home by Granger, but Rivers quickly counteracted Indiana's small-ball strategy by putting Garnett back out on the floor.
Once he interjected his intensity back into the game, Boston ran away with it and earned their eighteen win of the still-young season.
O'Brien, who has now coached three games against last season's NBA Finals participants, doesn't have a crystal ball, but wouldn't be surprised if we saw Boston and Los Angeles battling it out for the NBA championship once again in six months.
"They are two of better teams in the league," O'Brien said of Boston and Los Angeles. "Boston proved they are the best, and the Lakers want to take that away from them.
"It's not out of the realm of possibility that the two of them could be in the Finals again this year."
Andrew Perna is a Senior Writer for RealGM.com. Please feel free to contact him with comments or questions via e-mail – Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com. |
