Ray Allen Wins It At The Buzzer

The Boston Celtics’ faced off against the young, but explosive Charlotte Bobcats on the second day of a back to back after handing the Los Angeles Lakers a loss in what many were considering to be the renewal of the once great Celtics & Lakers rivalry. To start things off in the game against Charlotte, it had looked like the hype surrounding the Celtics game against the Lakers had taken a toll on the team, as they came out flat on offense, and continually allowed the Bobcats to control the tempo of the game, and the Celtics’ defense looked incapable of finding a way to stop Charlotte’s Jason Richardson who dropped 25 points on the Celtics, and went 5-5 from behind the arch, and Raymond Felton and former Boston College star and Bobcats rookie Jared Dudley also contributed combining for 29 points, and Dudley looked like he would have been the hero of that game when he pulled down a late fourth quarter offensive rebound that he was able to put back up for an easy two points, it even earned him one of Tommy Heinsons famous “Tommy Points” something that an opposing player rarely has the privilege of recieving. The former BC star and ACC player of the year, Jared Dudley, in his first career NBA start due to the fact that Gerald Wallace was out due to injury, finished the night with an impressive statline for a rookie, 11/9/3 and even had a monsterous block against Celtics’ bigman Kendrick Perkins, it looked as if Jared Dudley would be the story of this game.

The Bobcats seemed to be doing everything right, they out rebounded the Celtics 41 to 34, and as a team shot 48.6%, the highest any team has shot against the Celtics’ defense this season, and compared to the Celtics’ 43.6% the Bobcats for the entire game looked like the better team. Paul Pierce continued to distribute the ball well, continually proving that he’s okay with being the second option on a team filled with stars such as Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, as Pierce racked up 7 assists, just one night after posting 9 assists against the Lakers. Garnett also continued his strong play, although once the fourth quarter came along he seemed to dissapear, but was still able to finish off the night with 23/11/5, and continues to state his case for Defensive Player of the year as he was also able to contribute on the defensive end with 3 blocks, one of them which is sure to give Emeka Okafor nightmares for the next week, as well as leading the Celtics’ with 2 steals. Ray Allen on the other hand, well let’s just say that he had an off night, infact compared to what we are used to seeing Ray do, he had a terrible night going 4-15 from the field, and just 1-6 from behind the arch, but that one three point shot that he made, is really all that counted at the end of the game.

The Celtics’ where able to close the defecit in the second half and keep it close mostly in part to Celtics’ sixth man, James Posey who had a great night, dropping 14 points, hitting what turned out to be a key three point shot early in the fourth quarter in just under 30 minutes, matching what Ray Allen was able to do on the offensive end in over 40 minutes. But besides James Posey, even the Celtics’ bench looked flat. Eddie House wasn’t able to get any of his shots to go down, Tony Allen left late in the second quarter due to a bruised calf, Brian Scalabrine wasn’t able to get anything done, and I don’t think he’s yet to realize that he’s going to have to start shooting the ball more if he plans on being a key piece to the Celtics’ second unit. Scott Pollard had arguably his best game thus far as a Celtic with 5pts/2rbs and a block in 11 minutes, but other then James Posey the Celtics’ bench looked flat on offense and weren’t able to capitilaze on a questionable Charlotte defense.

There was one bright spot for the Celtics’ bench however. They were able to keep the Bobcats lead within striking distance for their offense, however everytime the Celtics’ would score a bucket, the Bobcats would push the ball and score what seemed to be easy buckets, and that was the problem for most of this game, the Bobcats for the most part were scoring easy buckets, and had complete control of the tempo. When the Bobcats wanted to play uptempo basketball, Charlotte point guard Raymond Felton had no problem pushing the ball up the court, and when Charlotte decided to go into a half court set, they looked like a veteran squad out there the way they got into position and rotated on offense. The Bobcats defense was nothing spectacular combining as a team for only 2 steals, however Emeka Okafor was able to somewhat keep Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins in check with his 4 blocks, but what the Bobcats were able to do was take full advantage of their defensive awareness. Charlotte came away with 24 points off Celtics turnovers, and the entire night were outhustling the Celtics veteran squad. And the game looked over and done with when Charlotte guard Matt Carroll hit a late fourth quarter three, Carroll finished the night shooting 100%, and continues to prove that he’s a perimiter threat that needs to be taken seriously.

So down by two with 16 seconds left on the shot clock, Celtics coach Doc Rivers calls a time out to draw up a play, the balls inbounded and Paul Pierce goes to work on Jason Richardson, he gets the seperation he needs for the clear shot….and comes up short, and with the Celtics’ having one foul to give before going into the penalty, foul immediately and prepare themselves for Charlotte’s inbound pass. So, four seconds left, Charlotte has the possesion, game over right?…wrong. Charlotte inbounds and on an incredible hustle play by Eddie House, he’s able to get his hand on the ball, the ball hangs up in the air for what seems like a minute and lands directly to Paul Pierce who is immediately double teamed. Now if this was a couple years ago, Paul wouldn’t care about the double team, he’d launch the thing up there anyways, clear shot or not, but this for me at least, was the turning point that this is a completely different Paul Pierce. Pierce down by 2 with time expiring dishes out of the double team to Ray Allen, yep the same Ray Allen who couldn’t hit a shot to save his life the whole night, and the Bobcats must have thought the game was already over or something, because there wasn’t a single Bobcat jersey near Ray Allen when he caught the ball, and what happens?…Well out of the 6 three point attempts Allen made against the Bobcats, the only one that goes in, is the one that wins the game as the Boston Celtics advance to 11-1.

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