Pay attention, this is not a blog by yours truly. Today we bring you a special treat. This is a blog by Graham Brunell and he is a talented writer for Celtic 17.

Here are some outtakes.
Why Rajon Rondo wasn’t an All Star, and Why he WILL be in the future.

Rajon Rondo, one of the best point guards in the NBA today, was not selected to be an all-star. Why, you ask? We’ll just have to find out.

The Eastern conference: The East was just too good this year. Too good for the coaches to even argue whether his numbers (11.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 8.1 assists) show the true player he really is. Think about it: Ray Allen, Mo Williams, Mike Bibby, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, David Lee, NOR Andre Iguodala made it.
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His offensive skills will make him a triple-double machine: Wait are we talking about Jason Kidd or Rajon Rondo here? That’s right folks, Rajon Rondo has rebounding skills whether you like it or not. His passing skills are sneaky, yet accurate, and he can get to the basket almost any time he wants to. If he can develop a 15-foot jump shot, or possibly a three-point shot, which would be a miracle, he could be right up there with point guards like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Devin Harris.

His speed leaves most defenders in the dust: There is no denying it, Rajon Rondo can run. His speed lets him get ahead in the fast break, run the baseline freely, and blow by defenders to get an open lane to the basket.
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His basketball IQ and his leadership are at a high level: Being a point guard on the ego-filled Boston Celtics isn’t easy. One night during an interview Doc said that the reason he loves Rondo is because he has the confidence to say “no” to superstars each and every single night.
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So sorry Rondo, but this year you won’t be in Phoenix (at least not on the floor). Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of chances. PLENTY.

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Kevin Garnett could not be stopped by Rasheed Wallace, even with Rip Hamilton’s help

Image details: Detroit Pistons v Boston Celtics – Game Five served by picapp.com

Ok, ok, we expected Kevin Garnett to play much more aggressive in game 5. You know, we discussed that in our last writing, but where in the heck did Ray Allen and Kendrick Perkins come from?

Boston Celtics 106, Detroit Pistons 102

Kevin Garnett

The Big Ticket came to play.

“We knew the significance of this game,” said Garnett, whose 33 points were his most in the playoffs this year. “You don’t win this game, you put basically yourself in a corner. … They’re experienced, and they’ve been in a lot of pressure situations. Now it’s up to us to go up there and try to get one.”

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Kendrick Perkins comes alive

Kendrick Perkins killed the Pistons.

Pistons trail 52-46 at halftime. They had the lead for much of that half, but the Celtics closed the half on a 16-4 run The Pistons only basket in that run was a three from Wallace, and he’s leading the team with 12 points. But being beat on the boards 28-11 and allowing the Celtics to shoot 51.3% is not going to get it done. I mean, 28-11? That’s just mind-boggling. The Pistons need more from just about everyone. And again, less from Kendrick Perkins.
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Ray Allen finds his shot

Ray was once again nailing shots from the outside.

Ray Allen scored 29, hitting a long 2-pointer with a minute left after Detroit came within one point, then he and Kevin Garnett each made a pair of free throws down the stretch as the Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons 106-102 in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night.

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Allen added consecutive 3-pointers midway through the third to turn an eight-point game to a 14-point lead.

Rodney Stuckey is no longer a rookie

Rodney came to play.

Saunders kept Stuckey in the game when McDyess went out, a small line-up with Prince at the four. And Stuckey just drew a foul and knocked down two free throws to make it a three-point game. Can we even call him a rookie at this point?

• To answer my previous question… I’d say no, we can’t. He just hit a three, which isn’t even a great shot for him. And the Pistons trail by one point with 1:17 left. All the pressure is on the Celtics now. They’ve blown a huge lead, they’re in their own building, and they know they’re supposed to win this game. I honestly did not see this coming.
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The return of Chauncey Billups

Chauncey is looking more and more like the leader that the Pistons need to win this series.

Billups (26 points) was banged up and bruised, but he continued to look more like himself. After Hamilton’s scoring barrage, Billups scored nine straight fourth-quarter points — a triple, a lay-up and four free throws — that cut Boston’s lead to 98-94.
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Game 6 is Friday at the Palace.

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Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett – will this matchup determine the series?

Image details: Detroit Pistons v Boston Celtics served by picapp.com

The Boston Celtics present certain matchup problems for the Pistons that other teams do not.

Detroit Pistons

Before discussing the Detroit matchup problems, we should discuss the opposite problem for Boston and all other NBA basketball teams. The Pistons put four guys on the court that always present a matchup problem for your favorite team. Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, or Rasheed Wallace will be matched up with someone they can consistently beat or if you try to double anyone, Antonio McDyess will drill a set shot from 15 feet.

Boston Celtics

Rajon Rondo will not impress Chauncey Billups. Chauncey will chew on him most of the time, eating him alive. Chauncey is just too strong. It is like when Karl Malone used to play for Utah, he is just one size larger than you are. Rajon will get his points and bring energy, but Chauncey will win this matchup. The wild card here is Chauncey’s hamstring. Can it take a beating?

Rip Hamilton and Ray Allen should have a battle royal. Both of them live on jump shots from mid range and further with Rip usually closer to the basket and both are from UConn. Ray Allen has been cold during the playoffs, but Rip will have him fired up to play.

Tayshaun Prince will be matched up with Paul Pierce and Paul has been winning this matchup in the past by not only scoring, but shutting down Tayshaun. The difference here is that Tayshaun does not always see himself as a scorer or needing to score. Prince has been hot during the playoffs, but expect the points to come a little harder during this matchup.

Rasheed Wallace will not always be matched up with Kevin Garnett. The Pistons do not like Rasheed to get into foul trouble. McDyess will often cover Garnett with Jason Maxiell sometimes helping out as well. Kevin Garnett has the ability to step out and hit the 15 to 17 foot jumper and if you go out on him, he will take you to the hole. Garnett can also post up as well. He cannot post Rasheed Wallace. Wallace is too strong, but you do not want Wallace running out on Garnett to stop his jump shot.

This matchup of Garnett and Detroit will determine the series.

Wallace loves playing against the best, so he should be keyed in against Garnett, who averaged 24 points per game against the Pistons in the regular season. They’re similar players: emotional, defensively sound and able to score from inside and out. Wallace has taken more than a third of his shots from three-point range in the playoffs. Garnett is especially adept at hitting midrange jumpers. His knock is being too unselfish, especially late in games.

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Keep in mind, Garnett cannot stop Wallace down low, but how motivated to stay down low will Rasheed be in this series. That is always a question.

To stop Garnett the Pistons do have one secret weapon and it is not Amir Johnson. Kevin Garnett schooled Amir early in the season and Amir may not see much time in this series. No, the Pistons will call on aging veteran Theo Ratliff. Theo has the length and the smarts to give Kevin some problems.

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The Pistons were playing the Philadelphia 76ers in game 4 of the NBA Playoffs. All of the momentum was with the 76ers. They are a young team that does not know enough to fear the Pistons. Their coach, Mo Cheeks, has them believing in themselves. Their slogan is “Come Run With Us”.

And run they did, picking up every missed shot or loose ball by the Pistons and taking it the length of the court for the early lead in the game. At one point in the second quarter they led by 13. Things began to look bright for Philly and dismal for the Pistons.

This Piston team had been to the Conference Finals 5 years in a row. They are expected to play the Boston Celtics and Kevin Garnett for the Eastern Conference crown. They are not expected to lose to the 76ers.

Then halftime came. Coach Flip Saunders of the Pistons made an inspiring speech.

“I said, ‘Are we having fun yet?’ “Pistons coach Flip Saunders said.”Because we weren’t. I said, ‘Guys, right now, we’re playing really tight. We’re playing like we’re afraid to take a shot, we’re afraid to make a move.’

“When you’re playing like that and thinking too much, you’re going to make mistakes. I said, ‘Relax, settle down, we’re a good basketball team. Let’s get into some flow and go out there and have some fun.’ ”

They listened.
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The Pistons, led by Rasheed Wallace, came out and blew the 76ers away in the third quarter. There were very few loose balls, very few missed shots, and very few Philly offensive rebounds. Without all the turnovers and missed shots the game was reduced to a half court battle, the type of game that favors the Pistons. Suddenly the Pistons were chasing the loose balls and offensive rebounds.

Detroit woke up.

Billups, the Pistons’ starting point guard: “We were playing hard, but we weren’t playing that smart (in the first half). I think we were a little too excited. We wanted it a little too bad. At halftime, we just said, ‘Listen, settle down. Settle down. We’re going to get what we want. Slow down on offense and speed up on defense,’ and we did that.
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The series is tied 2 – 2, but the momentum has swung back to the Pistons and 2 out of the next 3 games are in Detroit.

During halftime, Chris Weber, former Piston, made the comment that Joe Dumars, the GM, will come down into the locker room at halftime and say something like, “Don’t know how ya’ll think you are doing, but you can be traded before this game is over”. It was funny, but Joe has shown himself to be no nonsense guy in running the franchise.

NBA Basketball special comment Detroit has started to play and when they do, they can impose their will on most teams.

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The Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers took over the Western Conference lead going into the playoffs with one game to go.

Western Conference
Team GB
1. y-LA Lakers —
2. x-New Orleans 0.5
3. x-Houston 1.0
4. y-Utah 2.5
5. x-San Antonio 1.5
6. x-Phoenix 2.5
7. x-Dallas 5.5
8. Denver 7.5
9. Golden State 7.5

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Kobe got the job done.

MVP candidate Kobe Bryant had 20 points, five rebounds and five assists before sitting out the fourth quarter, and the Lakers routed the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs 106-85 for their seventh win in eight games.

“It was a big game for us,” Bryant said. “It was another step in the right direction. Going into the playoffs is all about momentum. Now, we just have to take it up another notch once the playoffs start.”

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Kobe Bryant taking it to the hole on Tim Duncan

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If the Lakers beat the Kings in their last game they will assure themselves to be the Western Conference Champions. They have the tie breaker over New Orleans and Chris Paul.

The Lakers are playing excellent basketball right now as the San Antonio Spurs and Tim Duncan found out.

The Lakers also won the Pacific Division with the victory.

How strange to see the Boston Celtics on top of the East and the Los Angeles Lakers on top of the West. They have not met in the finals since 1987.

NFL Basketball special comment Winning the West has to help Kobe Bryant’s quest for MVP of the NBA.

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The Nuggets are upset, because they just lost to the Utah Jazz in Utah.

They shouldn’t be.

As your intrepid author predicted two days ago, Denver would lose to Utah, while Golden State would probably beat the Clippers at home. Denver is still safe. Denver has the tie breaker.

Golden State is on the road with the Suns and home with the Supersonics. Call that one loss and one victory.

Denver has two home games remaining. One with the Rockets and one with the Grizzlies. Most likely they only need to beat the Grizzlies to limp into the playoffs.

Over in the East

Meanwhile, Atlanta failed to beat Boston due to a hot Sam Cassell and thus failed to clinch a playoff spot.

Atlanta would have ended the NBA’s longest playoff drought with a victory, because Indiana lost to Charlotte earlier Saturday. The Hawks remained two games ahead of the Pacers with two to play, lowering their magic number to one for the right to face the Celtics in a first-round series.

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Even is Atlanta clinches, they are nothing more than mince meat to the Celtics.

Here are the Eastern Standings.

Eastern Conference
Team GB
1. z-Boston —
2. y-Detroit 7.5
3. y-Orlando 14.5
4. x-Cleveland 20.5
5. x-Washington 22.0
6. x-Toronto 23.5
7. x-Philadelphia 24.0
8. Atlanta 27.0
9. Indiana 29.0

source

Good Luck, Atlanta. At least you will be in the playoffs, which is a big step.

NBA Basketball special comment Don’t these last few games just seem to drag on?

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Chauncey is averaging 2 and 1/2 less minutes per game this year

The roll continues for the Pistons and they are doing it by taking advantage of one of their team strengths, depth.

That’s right, depth. The Pistons are playing a lot of players and it is paying off with early dividends.

Last year the Pistons looked tired physically and weary mentally in losing to the Cav’s and LeBron in the Eastern Conference Finals. In an effort to prevent that from happening again, the Pistons are playing a lot of young players and will continue to play a lot of players, period.

Unlike recent years, this season the Pistons don’t have any players ranked in the top 50 in minutes. With their solid bench contributions and string of winning games long before the late moments of the fourth quarter, Pistons coach Flip Saunders has been able to cut his starters minutes back to the low 30s — just as Dumars hoped would happen this season. source

The latest result was for victory number 8 in a row. It happened to be a back to back with the Indiana Pacers.

Chauncey Billups had 17 points, reserve Jason Maxiell scored 12 and Rasheed Wallace finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds to help Detroit (23-7) complete the home-and-home sweep over the Pacers.

“It’s not that odd to play a team back-to-back, you get that every once in a while in this league,” Wallace said. “You still have to go out there and hoop.” source

Even with all the young guys playing the Pistons struggled a little bit with the back to back.

Mike Dunleavy’s 3-pointer cut the deficit to 96-92, but the Pacers couldn’t get any closer.

“They made a few more plays down the stretch, but we had our opportunities,” said Granger, who finished with 15 points. “We put ourselves in position to win the game, which is what you always want to do.”

Billups wasn’t surprised by his team’s ability to hang on at the end.

“We got everything we wanted in terms of plays down the stretch,” he said. “We came together when it really counted.”

There are still a lot of games to play before the playoffs, so you will have to watch and see if this strategy continues to help the Pistons, but right now they are a rested and confident team.

Eastern Conference Finals here they come.

NBA Basketball Fan Question Can the Pistons merge in the youngsters for the playoffs?

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The long and short of it

Dwyane Wade had 48 points. Unbelievable!

Dwight Howard had 29 points and 20 rebounds. Amazing!

The Magic won the game over the Heat 121 to 114.

But here is my story for the game. Shaq sat out the game. And so it begins.

Is there another player in the league that can create so much impact in a single game? The Shaq is still the Shaq. How you defend him determines how you will play the Heat. Do you double all the time? That leaves someone open on the perimeter or maybe Haslem is open. Do you double him after he begins to dribble? That often means the double is too late creating all kinds of havoc.

Wait you say, the game was the story, not Shaq? Oh, it was a fantastic game.

“It’s a little demoralizing to play my most complete game yet and to really have a feeling that we were going to win this ballgame,” Wade said. “To lose it in overtime, it hurts.”

Van Gundy ordered the Magic to trap Wade constantly in overtime, and it worked. Wade didn’t get a shot off in the extra 5 minutes.

“You can tell Pat and Dwyane, right off the bat next game, we’re trapping him the minute he walks out of the locker room,” Van Gundy said.

He was laughing when he said that.

The Heat found nothing worth laughing about. source

Yeah, Dwyane Wade and Dwight Howard may compete with Kevin Garnett for the MVP, but Shaq needs his rest. Hey, the sleeping bear will wake from hibernation in time for the playoffs and don’t tell me you don’t fear the Shaq.

Shaq better be careful with his middle of the season nap this year. Miami is in dead last of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference. Shaq may actually have to play most of the season to get Miami into the playoffs.

Shaq has managed to sit large amounts of recent regular seasons as he has aged. It takes a lot to carry around all that size, to put it politely.

Yes, Wade may toil, but he will have to keep Shaq awake if the Heat are to challenge this year!

NBA Basketball Fan Question Are the Heat cooked?

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Tayshaun Prince

The story was not in the victory over the Warriors on this wintry Detroit day.

No, the 109 – 87 victory was nice, but under the circumstances, expected.

The real story is that the Pistons are on a roll and rejuvenated. They play a lot of youth and still have that menacing mix of Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, and, of course, today’s hero Tayshaun Prince.

Boston may be getting all the press clippings, but Detroit has quietly begun to play great defense and great offense. This had led to a lot of winning, despite injuries and a lot of road games to begin the season.

But how about that game in the snow storm?

Even though the snowstorm kept half the announced sellout crowd of 22,076 away from The Palace Sunday (10,050 fans actually walked through the turnstiles), and the schedule-makers may have hamstrung the Golden State Warriors by making them play a matinee after flying across the country on Saturday, the Pistons didn’t care about any of that.

“That happens,” said Chauncey Billups, after the Pistons ran roughshod over the Warriors, 109-87, raising their record to 17-7. “We are going to get it later on when we have to make a short trip to Phoenix on a back-to-back. Everybody has that. They came out not being aggressive and running and gunning like they usually do, so we tried to take advantage of that.” source

With Tay and Dice playing tonight’s important roles, Chauncey Billups explains how it works in the new all offense NBA.

Tayshaun Prince and Antonio McDyess accepted that challenge. Prince led the way with 23 points, hitting 8 of 14 shots. McDyess, who only played 25 minutes, produced 14 points on 7-for-9 shooting, with 11 rebounds.

Prince and McDyess combined for 17 points in a 35-point second quarter.

“A lot of teams like to play small and fast and shoot a lot of 3-pointers,” said Billups, who produced 19 points and six rebounds. “That’s OK. We just stick to our guns and play the same way. We can do that because our bigs are pretty agile and they can stay with the smaller forwards. If you go small on us, we are going to punish you every single time.”

Look out NBA; the Pistons are coming to get you!

NBA Basketball Fan Question Will the Pistons win the Eastern Conference?

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The Miami Heat are in a world of hurt.

Pat Riley admits they are not very good right now.

They need to get Dwyane Wade back as soon as possible.

Shaq is no longer able to handle the load on his own.

That is why a recent practice was so important.

Dwyane Wade’s surgically repaired knee survived its first real test with no setbacks. During Wade’s first full-contact practice this season with the Miami Heat, rookie center Joel Anthony threw his 6-foot-9, 260-pound body toward the 2006 NBA finals MVP as the guard headed toward the basket. …

The good news for the Heat was that Wade reported no problems related to his left knee or left shoulder — both of which were operated on May 15 — after practice Monday.

The bad news for the franchise is that Wade still doesn’t know when he’ll be ready to return to the Miami lineup, which could clearly use a boost after a 0-3 start. source

In the wide open and in many cases weak Eastern Conference, the duo of Shaq and Wade would still like to comment on this season.

NBA Dwyane Wade factoid – One of Wade’s more memorable collegiate moments came in the 2003 Midwest Regional Final in the NCAA Tournament in Minneapolis. Against heavily favored, top-ranked and top-seeded Kentucky Wildcats, Wade recorded a triple-double with 29 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists.^[11] His triple double was just the third ever in NCAA Tournament history.^[11] Wade’s accomplishment helped lead Marquette over the Wildcats 83–69 and into the Final Four. source

It has been a tough road back for one of the NBA’s brightest stars.

Wade dislocated his left shoulder in February and missed most of the final two months of the regular season, plus was hobbled by the condition called “jumper’s knee” when he came back for Miami’s short stint in the playoffs.

So he had both conditions repaired at the same time in mid-May, being told the rehabilitation process would take about six months — meaning he’s actually a bit ahead of schedule.

If Wade comes back at full strength then Miami will be a factor in the East, but they can not afford to keep piling up losses in the meantime.

The Heat need Wade and they need him now.

NBA Basketball Fan Question With Wade can the Heat win it all?

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