And I thought the Celtics looked bad when Kevin Garnett wasn't on the floor. They look like a bunch of lost puppies right now without Rajon Rondo. Not only on the offensive end with him running the show, but Rondo is missed on the defensive end as well. Right now, the Celtics are playing a KISS style of basketball -- keeping it simple stupid.
However, they're only down nine points, which is incredible considering how poorly they've been playing.
* So far, so good for Leandro Barbosa. In his first start since 2010, he has 10 points and 2 assists while running the dumbed-down version of the offense. Barbosa is attacking the left side of the rim at will, and he looks very quick tonight.
* As expected, the Celtics put one of their long-lost big men in during the first quarter. Doc's choice? Jason Collins. Collins is doing what he was brought here to do: play tough-nosed defense, use up his fouls, and make life difficult for the opposing bigs. He'll never light up a stat sheet, but he'll do all the dirty work necessary to win, and he's doing that so far.
* The biggest problem with the Celtics right now is rebounding, and in particular offensive rebounding. As was the case last night, the Celtics got killed on the boards in the first half. The Nets have 15 offensive rebounds to the Celtics 6, and they're outrebounding Boston overall 26 to 17. The beatdown did not really begin until Reggie Evans and Andray Blatche entered the game. They have 5 offensive rebounds combined, one less than the entire Celtics team. The Celtics have done a very poor job of boxing out -- something so simple yet so vital if they want to at least be respectable on the glass.
* If that foul by Keith Bogans on Leandro Barbosa is not a flagrant foul, then I don't know what is. It'll be interesting to see if the Celtics retaliate.
* Following up on that last point, the referees are doing a bad job tonight. An easy example to show their poor performance is on the first Celtics possession of the game, Paul Pierce pump-faked from the right elbow, got Joe Johnson in the air and made contact with Pierce, but no foul was called. Near the end of the first half, Deron Williams made the same move on Jason Collins and Collins was called for a foul. After the play, Doc Rivers yelled to one of the officials, "Call it both ways!" And he's right. Come on, guys. Consistency is key.
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