Court Awareness: The Celtics' Slide, the Lone Granger, and the Rest of Wednesday

There are times when the best cure for an ailing team is adversity—even if conventional wisdom states the opposite.

If you were to ask a team if they’d rather break out of a funk by beating up on one of the league’s doormats in the comfort of their own arena—or doing it on the road, without their best player, and against one of the league’s elite teams—it’s a safe bet to assume they would opt for the latter.

Those were precisely the circumstances for the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night in Boston. The Rockets, playing without Tracy McGrady, had lost six of their last ten games, including their last three.

Meanwhile, the Celtics were hoping some home cooking would be all they needed to halt their own mini-slump. The world champs came into the game having lost five of their last seven, but their 13-game winning streak at home was still alive.

Yao Ming had 26 points and eight rebounds, Ron Artest had 17 points and Aaron Brooks scored 19 points off the bench to lead the Rockets to the 89-85 victory.

It’s easy to say that the loss to the Lakers on Christmas put the Celtics into their current funk, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. If the Lakers did anything, it was take a little shine off of the Celtics and remind the rest of the league that Boston could be beat.

The main reason for the Celtics' poor play of late has more to do with their starting backcourt, lack of bench scoring, and failure to execute down the stretch than anything the Lakers might have exposed.

Since the Celtics don’t have as much depth this season than they did with James Posey and P.J. Brown, teams are beginning to realize that you can allow Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to get their points as long as you limit Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo.

In the Celtics’ six losses, Allen and Rondo have averaged about six fewer points per game than their combined season average of 29—including three games in which Rondo scored only three, five, and six points total.

In the two losses out of the six in which Allen and Rondo combined to score more than 20 points, the Celtics’ bench was outscored 29-9 in one game and 34-19 in the other.

The only issue that should concern the Celtics is that four of the six losses came against teams missing important starters. The Warriors were playing without Jamal Crawford, Corey Maggette, and Monta Ellis. The Blazers were missing Brandon Roy. The Bobcats were without Raja Bell, and McGrady missed the game against the Rockets.

Paul Pierce had 26 to lead the Celtics, who next play against the Cavaliers in Cleveland on Friday night—the same type of “adversity game” the Rockets had in Boston on Wednesday night.



Lone Granger Strikes Again

Danny Granger knocked down a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Indiana Pacers the surprising 113-110 victory over the Shaq-less Suns in Phoenix on Wednesday.

The Pacers led 95-86 heading into the fourth quarter, before both teams decided to start playing defense for the final twelve minutes.

Granger scored 37 points to lead Indiana. Mike Dunleavy added 14 points in 21 minutes for the Pacers in the first game he’s played after missing the first 34 games of the season.

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