The C's took a step back in the right direction last night, as they just completely crushed the Atlanta Hawks 99-76. Playing back to back games on the road, the Celtics looked like an amazingly fresh squad, as they jumped out to a 39-13 first quarter lead, and cruised from there on out.
With Rajon Rondo off to injury, Nate Robinson had to fill in, and did he ever! Donkey had 16 points and 10 assists, doing his best Rondo impression. All of that, along with Atlanta missing five of six shots to start the game, led to the C's getting a double digit lead before the game was even 4 minutes old. After falling by a single point to the Raps the night before, the Green Army were out to make a statement. This was the third time this season that the Hawks have been routed at home by a team coming in off a game the night before. That's a serious problem, eh boys?
Shooting 53% from the field and 45% from beyond the arc, the C's were doing just enough to put a big run on Atlanta. We also were +20 rebounds on the Hawks, and that helped maintain possession and maintain the flow of the game. KG was the man in charge last night, leading the team with 17 points and 11 boards, looking at the top of his game. He was joined by Pierce (13), Shaq (13 and 11 boards), and the aforementioned Nate Dawg (16) in the double digit zone. Adding to the studliness of the starters, the bench busted out with 31 points to lead us onward to the blowout.
At 10-4, the Celtics lead the division by 4 games over the Knicks, and in the conference we're #1. The 0.5 game lead over the Magic is tight, but the lead over the Miami Mega Heat (2 games) has me feeling pretty happy. Speaking of feeling happy about being better than others, the 2-13 Clippers are in last place in the West (11 back) and 8.5 back of the big Green Army in the greatest rivalry in all of sports. The Celtics have a +10 point differential per game, ranking 12th offensively and 6th defensively. Our SRS is a nice +7.33 (4th out of the 30 NBA teams), all while our PACE (estimate of the number of possessions per 48 minutes by a team) sits at a subpar 90.6 (26th).
With Rajon Rondo resting that strained left hammy, we've got a little PG controversy on our hands, eh? Nate Robinson tried to put an end to it with his impressive play last night, but wouldn't it be cool to see Delonte West come back and lead this team while Rajon is out? Let's compare our two point guards ready to take command.
Points per game:
Robinson- 7.9
West- 7.5
PER (Player Efficiency Rating, where 15 is league average):
West- 16.9
Robinson- 15.5
WS/48 (Win Shares per 48 minutes)
West- 0.158
Robinson- 0.139
USG% (estimate of percentage of team plays using a player while on the floor):
Robinson- 23.9
West- 17.5
Assists per game:
Robinson- 2.2
West- 2.0
So, it's kind of a toss up. With Delonte being the new guy, thanks to his return to the Celtics, I guess Nate gets the nod as we've seen so far. But, it's tough to argue with those PER and WS/48 numbers when the PPG and APG are so close. I just wish West could get a shot for one game so we could see what he's able to do these days as a starter. But, that's why Doc is the coach, and I'm not.
Maybe Delonte will get a shot at the starting point guard role tomorrow night against New Jersey, if Doc Rivers reads the blog. The 4-9 Nets come in with Brook Lopez leading the way, and for some reason a team 5 games under .500 with a girl as their leading scoring doesn't make me intimidated.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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