[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="340" caption="Danny Granger gave up his two front teeth for this win. (Photo: Indystar.com)"]
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It's one loss which ultimately means nothing (unless of course you're a clearly-not-over-the-Finals Lakers fan chomping at the bit to stomp on the Celtics even if you know in your ignorant mind and shallow heart that the crap I took this morning carries more weight than this regular season loss to the Pacers). But I am surprised at how soon the Celtics fell victim to the home/road back-to-back games curse which plagues so many teams. Here's Doc Rivers:
"I don't know if it was them or us, but let's give it to them. They just played so much harder than us and that's rare for us. They really moved the ball, which we didn't do, and that's rare for us. One thing we're going to learn is we can't come out flat, because we are going to get every team's best. And, if we come out flat, we are going to get our butts whipped, and that's what happened."
What didn't help was the referees hard-on for traveling. KG was called 4 times and their were numerous others. Ray Allen says it was obvious:
"I just think the crew was looking at that." When you've been around as long as we've been around, the veterans on the squad, you know what certain referees look for a lot of times. They looked for that all night, they called traveling on us all night. It's very rare. I've seen the moves Paul or Kevin made all last year and haven't seen that many traveling calls. So, that was just what they were calling."
Why can't referees be consistent? Call the same stuff against the same players - it's a simple concept. Did Kobe, LeBron and CP3 get ambushed the same way? I'm willing to guess someone of note has been bitching about the Celtics to David Stern for a while and this was the league's response.
The C's can erase all memories of this Indy dungheap by coming out strong Tuesday night in Houston. In fact, I'll go so far to say a pissed off Big 3 will make a statement and the C's will win handily.
Karl Marx John and I try not to get political on the site, but with Election day approaching, I feel it's appropiate to mention which way the Celtics are leaning. According to Rondo, "all but one" player is pro-Obama. And that self-admitted "strong right wing Republican" just happens to be - Brian Scalabrine.
Thanks to the Globe's Marc Spears, we have this gem:
"I'm serious about it. No green."Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic, still bitter about the NBA Finals, insisting to Los Angeles reporters that he will refuse to wear green this season because of the Celtics.
Today's Links: Spears NBA Notes | Herald - Rocky Road | O'Brien Preaching Patience in Indy | Posey Helps Hornets Beat Cavs | Are Knicks Tanking Season? | Vecsey on Trade Rumors