2:32am - 30,000 feet above Grand Junction, CO
We may as wellbegin here.
At least before the Broncos sign Peyton Manning today and take any attention the Celtics-Nuggets game tonight was about to get and drive it deep into the C-block of Sportscenter.
The numbers from theSacramento game Friday night are fresh in the air. Or more to the point, not-so-fresh. So before we get there, let’s remember hownumbers can sometime paint a spectacular picture of a body of work that whilecelebrated, remains one of the more under-appreciated in the 21stCentury of over-appreciating almost-everything.
Tonight inDenver, Kevin Garnett will pass. Often,as he has for 17 years. But this time when he does, and someone, maybe a futurefellow-Hall of Famer, makes a shot, it will mean something.
Something prettyamazing.
Kevin Garnett’snext assist, as we covered in Thursday night’s blog, will be the 5,000thof his NBA career.
It will give him20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 5,000 assists.
Two guys have akey to that club. One is KarlMalone. The other is KareemAbdul-Jabbar.
Kevin Garnett alsohas 1,500 steals. Kareem does not.
Kevin Garnettalso has 1,500 blocks. Malone does not.
And then, therewas one.
We have a greatdeal of difficulty it seems shuffling current players into the existing deck ofthe greatest to ever play. We tend tohyperbolize for the sake of the moment, or be too reverent of the players wegrew up watching. It’s a difficulttarget to hit. But sometimes, liketonight, the numbers do it for us.
Debate where hefits as long as you want. But when thehall of fame breaks off into the VIP room, with the very best of the best? Kevin Garnett gets a bracelet. End of story.
(He’s also leadingthe 2012 Celtics in plus-minus, leading the leaguein that category over the last ten games, all the while playing center for thefirst time in his career, two months before his 36th birthday.)
But tonight, amile above sea level, Kevin Garnett breathes air no one else ever has.
*******
And then therewas the Sacramento game.
There have beenmany truly spectacular nights for the Rivers’ family. And undoubtedly many, many more lie ahead.
Friday, was notone of them.
Just minutesafter Austin Rivers’ Duke Blue Devils became the 5th 2-seed in NCAATournament history, and the second of the day, to get upset by a 15-seed, hisfather’s Celtics put forth an effort that might not have won them a game in theNIT.
So let’s justget the bite-the-cold-sore, self-inflicted pain out of the way and up on thescreen so we can all just move on.
Ready? It’s like bad turbulence on the plane. You just have to go through it. Here we go.
In the first 365games of the New Big Three Era, the Celtics only had one 25-point loss, theEaster Sunday massacre in Cleveland in 2009. One...in 365 games. It’s nowhappened twice in the last seven.
20-POINTLOSSES – NEW BIG 3 ERA (REGULAR SEASON)
32 - @ PHILADELPHIA – MARCH 7, 2012
Next, we havethe 27-point deficit. In the first fouryears of the New Big Three Era, the Celtics had fallen behind by 26+ pointsfour times. That’s it. That would be an average, hang on let mecheck the math…yeah, that would be an average of once a year. Friday night was the 5th time it’shappened in 43 games this year. And the4th time in the last 13 games. From once a year, to once a week.
25-POINT DEFICITS – NEW BIG 3 ERA (REGULARSEASON)
37 - @ PHILADELPHIA – MARCH 7, 2012
At the start ofthe night, I posed the following question “how many NBA fans could name theKings’ leading scorer off the top of their heads?” That number is a lot bigger today. MarcusThornton became the 12th man to score 36 against the New Big Three Celtics.(Wade, LeBron (5 times), Kobe, Monta (2), Caron Butler, D-Rose (2), A.Stoudemire, John Salmons, David West, Dirk and Durant). But Thorntonwas the first to get at least 35 points and 5 steals. It hadn’t been done against Boston since Kobe Bryant went for 38 and 5 steals in February of 2007.
Let’s not forgetJason Thompson, who enteredthe night averaging 8 points and 6 rebounds a game. His 21-point, 15-rebound night was the 16th time this year a Celticsopponent has grabbed at least 14 rebounds. A Celtic has done it exactly once. And that Celtic, was the point guard. Rajon Rondo’s17-rebound, epic triple-double against the Knicks two weeks ago.
And just forfun, only once in the first 41 games had the Celtics given up 51% or betterfrom the floor. Golden State andSacramento did it in consecutive games.
But let’s pointout the following…in Thursday night’s entry here I made note of something Ithought was interesting, and even adding in the horrific numbers from Fridaynight, it still looks like this….
Team A: 28-27 (+0.6 differential)
Team A is the2010 Celtics from Christmas Day on. The team that had a double-digit lead inGame 7 of the NBA Finals. Team B? The 2012 Celtics from Christmas Day on.
Just saying.
(The Team A/TeamB thing is of course copyright Matthew Berry of ESPN, who I’m still not speaking to after Ilet myself buy in to the Michael Vick fantasy strategy last fall even though myhead said not to…life lesson.)
Anyway, thepoint is that the Celtics enter Saturday just 1½ games behind Atlanta for the 6thspot and Philadelphia for the division lead. With the Pacers bad loss in New York, they’re only 2½ in front of theCeltics. That means a 15-8 type close tothe season for the Celtics? And afterall these ugly numbers, they’d not only avoid Miami and Chicago in round one,they could easily end up with home court.
And if there’sever been a day to believe in lower-seeded teams, this would be it.
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