That's what the mainstream media is trying to get us to believe, at least. The new-look Denver Nuggets showed the C's up on defense, and had a crazy 16-0 run in the fourth quarter, on the way to an easy 75-89 win over the Celtics. But did this game show that Denver is a better team without Carmello, since they're 2-0 since he left for New York? Was the acquisition of Wilson Chandler and company actually a genius move for the Rockie Mountain squad? Or, were the Celtics just not in this one from well before the tip off?
The C's dressed just nine players after shipping of Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson, Semih Erden, Luke Harangody, and the injured Marquis Daniels off somewhere else at the trade deadline. With all of those guys gone, the remaining Celtic players were a little emotional, and didn't seem to have the game on their mind. KG said, "Tough day to play basketball. Very tough day to play basketball, to even concentrate. Just being bluntly honest. You feel like you lost a family member today. Tough day." Popeye Pierce said, "It was very emotional, especially for me being that I had chance to see Perkins grow up from day one, fresh out of high school, coming in here and seeing the level he got to, a championship team. It's definitely emotional. I had a chance to talk to him a little bit this afternoon, he was definitely hurt. The guys around the lockeroom were definitely hurt to see Perk go."
Pierce went on to talk about how losing Perkins would have a negative impact on team chemistry, on and off the court. Despite that, Pierce drilled a three pointer with 6 minutes left in the game to give the C's a 75-73 lead. And then? The Nuggets decided to pull away, and crushed the Celtics with a 16 point run to finish the game. Sad stuff. No effort at the end, blowing a chance to close things out. I guess when you have just 9 guys on your team, you kind of run out of energy when there is 6 minutes on the clock.
The Celtics shot 39% from the field, 18% from the three point line, and got out-rebounded 38-52. Speaking of that length that we're now missing... Glen Davis scored 11 in his new starting role with 6 boards, Pierce led the way with 17, KG had another double double with 14 and 13, and Delonte West tried to make up for the underrated loss of Nate Dawg with 10 points for himself. No spark, though, and the post-game quotes about the inability to concentrate and focus, clearly showed up to be true with the on-the-court product last night.
Hopefully anyone with half of a brain can see that the outcome of this game says nothing about the "goodness" of the new Nuggets, but rather shows the way that a big roster dump can impact even one of the best teams in the league.
But, let's not cry too much. We're 41-15, still lead Simon and Heat-funkle by percentage points (still + .008), and have a night off before our huge rivalry game against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Blake Show are going up against the Lake Show tonight at Staples, and hopefully they will be beat down and tired when they welcome the C's to town the next night. It's a huge game for us around the LSF, and hopefully newbie Jeff Green will make a quality impact.
It's game time: Let's clip the Clips.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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