Over the past year and a half the Celtics played nothing short of intense, defensive championship basketball. They cruised into the 2008-2009 season ready to defend their championship. The championship hangover was expected but instead the Celtics won 19 straight games and were running on all cylinders. However, the Celtics had played the most games of any team going into December 2008 and were running into teams that were playing their best/reckless basketball. On Christmas the Celtics had a 27-2 record as they entered Los Angeles to play the Lakers. Once they lost to the Lakers the stretch of basketball that followed was ugly and had two different losing streaks. The three things that Celts lacked in the waning days of 2008 were; Energy, Rondo not running the team efficiently and poor bench play. The big three ran out of steam defensively in the fourth quarter, Rondo dipped in production by forcing passes, House missed every three he took for two weeks and the Celtics lost to teams like the Knicks, Warriors and Blazers. Now they were 29-9.
The good news is that the Celtics have now fought their way out of the poor play. They have played better Defensive through intensity, dedication and rotation. This allowed them to play better in the second half, Rondo started to drive more in order to create opportunities and the emergence of Scal, Pruitt and Powe the Celtics didn’t hurt. It will be interesting to see what unfolds over the next few weeks…
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