Celtics vs. Hawks: Avery Bradley, Bench Perform Valiantly in 97-92 Loss to Hawks

The Boston Celtics were without Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Mickael Pietrus tonight against the Hawks, but it didn't seem to matter for the majority of the game.

Sure, in the end the C's would end up losing to the nearly full strength Hawks, but considering starters' minutes were given out to normal bench warmers like Ryan Hollins, Marquis Daniels and Keyon Dooling, this game can hardly be considered a loss.

If anything, the Hawks should be the team worried after this game. Even though they moved closer to getting home court in a potential playoff series against the Celtics in the first round, they had trouble doing so against the Celtics' subs. And barring some terrible disaster, the Hawks will not be seeing a starting lineup with Sasha Pavlovic, Greg Stiemsma and Keyon Dooling from the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

In fact, between Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett and Pietrus, the Celtics were lacking nearly 70 points of offense, which is roughly 76 percent of their scoring per game. The offense didn't skip a beat in terms of scoring though (for the season, the Celtics average 92.1 points per game and tonight they fell short of that average by merely one tenth of a point).

The majority of that scoring was made up by the ever-improving Avery Bradley, who posted a career-high 28 points to go along with his four steals (including one steal when he pretended to tie his shoe then jumped into the passing lane).

Other players in double figures for the Celtics included Dooling, who was solid with 17 on 7-10 shooting, Marquis Daniels, who was big down the stretch with a few key buckets and Brandon Bass, who actually struggled to get his 10 points on 4-15 shooting. 

For these players, this game was a great opportunity for them to show their talents, and for the likes of Bradley and Bass, prepare for the time they will get in the playoffs. And for the most part, they played wonderfully and likely pushed the Hawks into panic mode because if the Hawks had trouble beating the Celtics' second unit, then they will likely have a lot more trouble with the starters.

And Garnett, Rondo, Allen, Pierce and Pietrus were all probably licking their lips watching this game knowing that the Hawks, who were having trouble handling players the Big Four would likely school regularly at practice, would in all likelihood be the team that they would play in the first round of the playoffs.