April 18,20122:55am
You know what’sa bad idea?
Starting ablog at 3am. But hey, doubling down on Carmelo and giving J.R. Smith and SteveNovak open looks at threes is also a bad idea.
So bad, infact, it made history.
And that’sreally what I’m doing here at 3am, and what you’re doing there, likely early inthe morning, maybe putting off the work that you left sitting in your cubiclewhen you went home last night. Because, hey, if it could wait overnight, it canwait another few minutes.
Besides, it’dgoing to be a long, long time before we see another one like that.
At 6pm, asthe Celtics were preparing to leave their hotel in midtown Manhattan, an SUVpulled up in front of our bus. A few seconds later, from the back, emerged oneWilliam Martin Joel.
In New York,and the rest of the word, but reallyin New York, everyone calls him Billy.
He once said,in a song he considered a real next-level breakthrough for him, that it’seither sadness…or euphoria.
And it’s ashame that “It’s Fantastic!” was just so darn catchy, because the NBA couldhave easily adopted that as its slogan instead.
It’s been aremarkable second-half for the Celtics. Their 21-9 record is one of the NBA’s best, tonight on their home floorthey can clinch their 5th straight division title, the defense hasbeen the league’s standard and they’ve put together a string of outstanding nightsand quality wins that with the playoffs approaching have made people thinkabout what’s still possible.
This…was notone of them.
Big picture,the 118-110 loss to the Knicks Tuesday night may end up just a footnote on adivision championship season with the truly memorable moments still ahead inthe playoffs.
But thesewere some remarkable footnotes.
One impress-your-friends-with-a-dazzling-display-of-geek-triviafact after another. Here they are…
· Ithad been over five years since anyone made seven 3’s in a game against theCeltics. Tuesday, J.R. Smith and SteveNovak both did it. Anotehr way; 427games, no one did it. Tuesday, two guys did. The last to do it by the way was aguy named Kobe Bryant, with at least some of the Garden crowd chanting MVP for him, on January 31, 2007 (game 13 ofthe 18-game losing streak).
· Nogreat surprise, but the 19 threes by New York were the most ever against theCeltics. There had been before tonight, 1,823 Boston Celtics games since thethree-point shot was adopted in 1979. In none of them, had either the Celticsor their 1,823 opponents made 19 threes. None of them.
· TheCeltics shot 55% from the floor, their 3rd best shooting night ofthe 62-game season, and lost by eight.
· CarmeloAnthony’s was the 4th 35 point game against the Celtics thisyear. He has two of them. The season-high37 on Christmas Day in the opener and 35 on Tuesday. LeBron James and MarcusThornton…yes Marcus Thornton, have the other two.
· Thathappens, when you let a team shoot 57% from the floor, and of course an obscene19-32 from three. It was just the third time in the 390-game New Big Three Erathat a team and shot that well against the Celtics, and the first in thier 196road games.
OPPONENT FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE – NEW BIG 3 ERA
.580- VS. TORONTO – JANUARY 23, 2008
· Lookingfor streaks getting snapped? We’ve got plenty, take your pick. By getting outshot (and barely as it turnedout), the Celtics streak of 18-straight games outshooting their opponent cameto an end. It was the longest streak inthe NBA this year and the longest for the Celtics since January of 1991. Their startingcenter that night? Robert Parish. Chief played 32 minutes that night, he’d playsix more years and finish his career in the NBA’s top-ten all-time in minutesplayed. A spot he would own…
· …untiltonight. In the first quarter, Kevin Garnett, who’s staggering statisticalaccomplishments are just now hitting home over the last few months, reached45,705 minutes played in his NBA career, bumping Chief from the top ten. Ahead of Moses. Ahead of Hakeem. Ahead ofShaq, Jordan, Russell, Ewing and so on down the line.
· Anotherstreak that ended? The Celtics had won 13 straight games when scoring 100 points.The Celtics are now 13-4 when scoring 100 points this year…but 0-2 at MadisonSquare Garden. Speaking of which…
· …it’sthe first time in 12 years the Celtics have failed to win a game at MadisonSquare Garden. 1999-2000, the last time the Knicks were defending EasternConference Champions, was the last time the Boston went winless at MSG. Including the playoff series last April,Boston had been 18-4 in their last 22 games in New York. Go on, read that again, that’s 18 wins..and 4losses...on the road. And that includes nightswhen the Celtics Big Three was like Pierce, Blount and Davis.
Buthere is the one we’ve been waiting for.
· OnFebruary 15, 2006, Paul Pierce scored 50 points in an overtime loss to LeBronand the Cavs. That year, it seemed like he was a threat to score 40 everynight. He had done it three times already that year. But he wouldn’t do itagain. In fact no Celtic would do it again for a very, very long time. Saturday night in Newark, the Celtics played their500th consecutive game without a 40-point scorer. Sunday in Charlotte, was their 501st.They entered the game Tuesday at Madison Square Garden just seven games shy ofthe NBA record. They would not reach it. After 501 games, and 74 months, thestreak ended with Paul Pierce’s 43.
(Now please, for theless-than-one-percent of you who do this every time and for the love of allthings Twitter, please, please stop tweeting us about Paul Pierce’s 41 in Game7 against the Cavs in ’08 and Ray Allen’s 51 the next year in Chicago, both in theplayoffs. The record, as we’ve said a million times, is a regular season record.I mean, I love you guys dearly, you know that, but I have to tell you, I wasthere, courtside, they happened right in front of me. “Eddie House stole the balland it it over at the Garden, Game 7 is history…in every way there is”? “Jesus Shuttlesworth! Is Ray Allen on firetonight”? Yeah, that was me. Just saying. I realize I’m getting old and rapidly losingmy mind, but I do remember them.)
The streakwas remarkable. For a variety of reasonsbut the short version is this. The nightPaul scored 50? The Celtics lost that game. They split the aforementioned playoffgames and they lost tonight. It’s not a coincidence that this streak took offduring the most dominant Celtics era in a quarter-century. It’s an Unbutu stat if there ever wasone. Here was the final tally ofnear-misses in the 501-game streak…24 times a Celtic reached 35 points, butnone got to 40, until Paul Pierce Tuesday night in New York.
CELTICS TOP SCORING GAMES – SINCE LAST 40 POINT GAME
39 –PIERCE @ L.A. LAKERS – FEBRUARY 26, 2006
So there youhave it. In the big picture
But thebiggest victim of all? The recap of ourSaturday night second half visit from WWE legend and NY Times best-sellingauthor Mick Foley, which would have occupied this space were it not for all thehistory on Tuesday.
Damn you,Steve Novak. No wonder you wear that fake title belt around your waste. (By theway, at less than $1 million in salary, I’d suggest that Novak as the NBA’sleading 3-point shooter, is the truediscount double-check.)
One crazynight in New York. But 24 hours later, the Celtics get another chance to wrapup the Atlantic Division and take a big step towards home-court advantage inthe first round. In other words, the Celtics go right back to work.
Feel free todo the same.
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