The Utah Jazz came to town on Wednesday evening, and thanks to our newest NESN insider, Dana Barros, I had the opportunity to watch the Green in style. My fiance and I were about 10 rows back when Kevin Garnett came up to the scorers table for his usual pregame routine — a little baby powder on the hands seems to work for all the greats (MJ, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James), so the Big Ticket is no different.
Once the game got under way, I started to notice some similarities that jumped out at me. The Celtics looked fresh out of the gate, but the Jazz matched the home team's intensity. The game was tight throughout the first frame — and this is where I took a trip down memory lane. By halftime, the Green had opened up a 10-point lead, and they never looked back.
I remember the Bulls teams of the late '90s playing with the exact same tempo. They would let teams hang around in the first half — sometimes even the third quarter — but once the fourth and final quarter rolled around, they turned into trained assassins. Paced by Garnett, who tallied 18 points, the Celtics cruised to a 19-point victory over Jerry Sloan’s team.
The Jazz got solid play at the point from Deron Williams , but Rajon Rondo dictated the pace of the game with 14 points and 11 assists. The young floor general, who has really stepped up his game, is showing not only Boston but the whole league that he is one of the premier guards in the game.
Ultimately, the Celtics gathered another win, and now they look toward the future. And with Glen “Big Baby” Davis coming off the shelf in a few weeks, the road ahead looks very promising.
Back to my comparison of the Celtics and the Bulls from their glory days. The way both squads seem to toy with teams is indicative of how good they actually are — they do just enough to keep themselves in the game, and when it's time to drop the hammer, they step up to the challenge.
I'm still not sure if this C's team has the ability to win 72 games, but let me say this: If there was ever a team built to accumulate that many W's, the 2009-10 Boston Celtics are that team. They have too many pieces to their puzzle not to be successful — Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kendrick Perkin and Rasheed Wallace. That sounds like a winning combination to me.
