If you've ever been to a Celtics game with me, you may already know that the one thing I pay more attention to than any other is Rajon Rondo's stat line, and whether or not he has a chance for a triple double. Mid-way through the game last night the scoreboard at the Garden inexplicably stopped working, so I had to keep track myself. Late in the 4th quarter I had a feeling he'd done it, so I texted my buddy and asked him what Rondo's numbers were. He wrote back "10-10-16." Rajon finished the game with 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 20 assists, which allowed ESPN to give us this graphic:
Rondo now has 6 triple doubles on the season; all the other players in the league combined have a total of 9. That means the Boston point guard has 40% of all triple doubles recorded in the NBA this year. He's coming dangerously close to Tebometer level numbers. On Sunday morning I wrote that the Celtics were an even better team than they appeared to be. That evening they proceeded to blow out Philly, a team that had led the Atlantic Division all year, and run Boston out of the building the first two times they met. On Tuesday the C's handed Lebron and Co. just their 4th home loss of the year, only 9 days after humiliating them in Boston. The Celtics also managed to put together the best back to back shooting performances the league has seen in two years.
And then last night they traveled home with no rest, to play an Atlanta team a game ahead of them in the standings who'd been idle since Saturday night. Ray Allen was inactive with a sore ankle, but Mickael Pietrus magically returned from his concussion, even though earlier in the day there was "no timetable for his return." Somehow Boston had enough in the tank to gut out an overtime win, despite three questionable offensive foul calls on their final five possessions. It was the 15th consecutive game they've had a better shooting percentage than their opponents. The C's 34th win of the season also guarantees them a winning record, and the 20th in a row for the four major sports teams in Boston. There is no good reason for why the Celtics won that game last night. And with as angry and motivated as the Heat were, Boston shouldn't have been able to win in Miami the night before either. I'm not questioning them anymore, from here on out I have complete faith in this Celtics team. They are better than everyone else they'll play the rest of the regular season. And come playoff time nothing they do will surprise me. It feels just like when they shocked the Cleveland Lebrons in the second round of the playoffs two years ago. Nobody saw that coming, and from then on they battled to within a few minutes (or a Perk knee injury) of winning the title.
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