It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was a game of wisdom, it was a game of foolishness; it was a game of hustle, it was a game of mistakes; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to the victory, we were all going the other way.

Yes, Charles Dickens best sums up the latest up-and-down win by our beloved Celtics (and no, it's not often I can put my English degree to use).

The Boston Celtics narrowly avoided snapping their winning streak tonight, sneaking past Miami 92-91.  The Celtics came out flat, got it all together grabbing a 15-point lead, then did everything they could in the 4th quarter to lose the game.  Fortunately, the Miami Heat would not cooperate and let Dwayne Wade run down the clock before bricking a 22 foot jumper to seal their fate after Pierce put Boston up by one on the previous play.

Bi-polar is the only way I can think to describe the Celtics play tonight.  They'd run three or four straight possessions where they'd move the ball around, make the smart extra-pass and get open, quality looks.  Then, they'd scrap the whole "let's play basketball like professionals" scheme and just start chucking up the ball the first chance they had.  They played similarly on defense.  They'd have a couple shut-down possessions before they'd play frantically or leave a man open underneath the hoop.  It was frustrating to say the least, and maddening to say the most.

The bench, with the exception of Posey and Pollard (who only ran 7 minutes) was a complete waste of tank tops and white shorts.  Davis, Powe and Pruitt all achieved DNP's, and none besides Posey logged 10 minutes of court-time.  Pollard was able to snag 5 boards in his 7 minutes along with 3 points.  Mr. Posey put up 13-5-2, including 3 three's.  However, his biggest contribution to the game was on defense.  I don't know if he used to guard him during practice while he was with the Heat, but Posey was able to lock Wade down in the fourth quarter (as well as Wade can be locked down).  Posey was incredibly quick, keeping infront of Wade, and was long enough to disrupt his shot.  Just a beautifully well played game by Posey.

The sequence of the game goes to Brian Scalabrine.  During the closing minutes of the 3rd quarter Scalabrine received the ball up top.  Attempting to swing the ball around to Posey for a wide-open 3, he managed to get the ball deflected and turned it over.  On the very next possession (the last the Celtics had in the 3rd), Scalabrine had a wide open 3 and literally shot an air ball.  As if that wasn't bad enough, the Celtics had the ball to begin the 4th quarter and Rondo attempted to make an entry pass to Scalabrine who FELL DOWN giving Miami a fast break on the turnover.  For those of you scoring at home, his final stat line read:  0 pts 1 reb 0 ast 2 turnovers on 0-3 shooting (including an airball) and one tumble to the parquet.  Like the wife said, "What an [expletive deleted].  Get him outta there!"

MVC:  If Tommy Heinsohn was controlling my brain, this award would go to Posey.  Luckily he's not, because in the 4th quarter an Anchorman quote was played over the PA system.  You know, where Ron is standing above his pool and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention. I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen... Cannonball! "  Well, let's just say that Tommy actually thought that there was some urgent news and stopped to listen.  If anyone out there was able to record this and post it on youtube, please let me know!

Anyway, this award could (and probably should) go to Garnett.  He did manage to put up another double-double, going for 26-11-4 on 10-14 shooting.  However, my hero of the night was Rajon Rondo.  He contributed 9 points, 7 rebounds and 10 assists on 4-7 shooting.  He was able to drive past Jason Williams at will (he should have done it more) and made some beautiful passes to his open teammates once the D collapsed around him.  He really won the award with 2 plays tonight, though.  Play number one happened in the first quarter with 3:30 left.  Ray Allen missed a three and with 5 people hanging around the rim, Rondo came flying out of nowhere, grabbed the rebound over Udonis Haslem and put the ball right up for 2.  Classic Tommy Point play.  The second play was far more important.  With less than 2 minutes to go in the game Rondo snagged a defensive rebound and hustled down the court.  About 17 feet out along the baseline, Rondo was hit with the pass, and with Jason Williams in his face, Rondo buried the shot.  Beautiful hustle, beautiful shot and spewing with confidence. 

Lastly, maybe it's just me, but did anyone see Smush Parker's hair tonight?  For a second there I thought I Yahoo Serious played for the Heat (and you can file that under Things That Are Only Funny After Midnight). Seriously though, we can take solace in the fact that Boston is 8-0, but their offense has looked out of synch for a couple games now.  There was no flow and Doc didn't seem to be a plan of attack when Boston had the ball.  I'm not too worried about it -- we did win -- but when we start playing those Western powerhouse teams we need to come with something a little bit better than we did tonight.  Push that all aside though, and rest easy tonight, for Richard Jefferson's name remains "LIAR".