Vancouver

[opi@unesco.org]

Yeah but the Bulls had to face our "bad" team on an upswing also. The Celts were
winners of three out of four despite the close road loss to one of the hottest (and
most rested) teams in basketball (the Knicks).

Antoine always plays very poorly in front of Sam Smith and his hometown fans. I
wish we had not just beaten but really whupped the Bulls, but what can you do?

One of the strangest streaks right now is that the Celts are 0-7 on Saturday games
(0-9 overall on weekend games). One explanation is that the Celts have played a
bunch of Friday night games on the front end of the back-to-backs, where they are
6-2  (key wins against New York, Miami, Sacramento, Charlotte etc. with losses only
to the Spurs and Bucks).

Our next chance to break the Saturday night  jinx is next week at New Jersey. It's
not a back-to-back game, so hopefully we can get this road win.

If we are hoping for the Celts to get back to .500 by the end of this month (in
time for the stretch run), then they have to treat every game this week and next as
a "must" win. The month ends with six losable games against top teams (Toronto,
Seattle, at Charlotte, at Miami, at Orlando, Phoenix). Combined record to date is
112-84 (.571).

If the Celts go into those games at or above .500, they will have a lot more
confidence and a decent chance for a split or better.

Tonight Antoine has to show he's up to handling Shareef. Vancouver is fundamentally
a poor defensive team that the Celts can beat if they execute well. The "Canucks"
are a strong team on paper and as confident as they can be, having won three of
four on this road trip with wins at Miami, New Jersey and Toronto. But Sacramento
was also hot coming into Boston last Friday, and they are a much stronger team than
the Grizzlies.

Hopefully Vitaly will have a big cheering section of bald men and women tonight. I
hope we can finally recover our post-Adrian team chemistry tonight, after flailing
away for three quarters and counting against the HorriBulls.

Go Celts!


****

"R. Bentz Kirby" wrote:

> And another thing is that we seem to get these "bad" teams when they are on
> an upswing.  Chicago had just won two in a row and got Kukoc back.  Do we play
> Vancouver next?  I saw that they went to Toronto and won.  We need to get
> these teams when they are down.  A break or two.  And then, not to mention that
> Griffin got hurt.