Celtics vs Pacers Preview

To be honest, I'm writing this post at 5 in the morning so I don't know who will be ready or not for the game. I'm going to assume Rondo will play today, I don't think that Doc wanted his 1st games back to be back to back so I'll assume he starts. I don't believe Ray will play and I'll give Jermaine the nod too. So that would make our starters Rondo, Pietrus, Pierce, KG and Jermaine against Collison, Paul George, Danny Granger, David West and Roy Hibbert.

We are 0-2 against the Pacers this year and I hate it. I hate the way that them starting off hot with a 12-5 record justifies David West's decision to spurn the Celtics and join the Pacers. The Celtics however, are a different team than they were a week ago. They are coming off arguably the best win of the season and are playing at home and have their emotion on the rise.

The Celtics struggle on back to back games, but I see a perfect storm of a run coming a long. They have 3 under their belt so far and if they make it passed this game with a win they have Cleveland coming up twice and Toronto.

I think the guard play is the biggest advantage for the Celtics if we get Rondo back. With he, Pierce, Moore and Bradley in the back court they will be able to attack Collison and George early and often. I'm obviously concerned about the energy exuded last night, but like I said from day 1. You can't count these guys out.

Boston 92-85
Tommy Award: Pierce

Celtics vs Pacers Preview

Depth Chart

	Indiana (PPG)	Boston (PPG)
PG	D. Collison 10.5	R. Rondo 15.3
SG	P. George 12.2	R. Allen 20.0
SF	D. Granger 15.2	P. Pierce 16.5
PF	T. Hansbrough 12.7	K. Garnett 13.0
C	R. Hibbert 13.2	J. O'Neal 6.2
View full depth chart: Indiana | Boston

The Celtics are playing the Pacers and enemy number 1 this year David West. The Pacers have a 4-2 record and the Celtics have a 4-3 record. The Celtics have won 4 straight since Paul Pierce returned, yes, they haven't played anyone worth while however, wins are wins.

This game does scare me a little bit as Indiana has a lot of quality big men in Hansbrough, my son Roy Hibbert and David West. West is averaging 12 and 7 this year. I hope KG, Jermaine, Bass, Wilcox, and Steimsma are rearing to go because they are going to have tough match ups defensively.

If Ray Allen plays (he's recovering from the flu) I like our front court against their front court. Collison is good, but if Rondo is smart defensively and not gamble too much and then goes at him defensively, he can be had. Ray Allen can just run Paul George out of the gym.

The match up of the game is Paul Pierce vs Danny Granger. Danny is a tough kid, and he can score in bunches. His weakness is his defense, which Paul will take advantage of for sure. If he makes Danny work defensively that will do wonders for the Celtics.

The Celtics need to stay aggressive and push the tempo offensively.

Score: Celtics 95-91

Tommy Award: Paul Pierce

Not The Best Weekend For The Celtics

It was going to be great, we were going to turn Glen Davis into Brandon Bass (a better player) and Jermaine O'Neal into David West. It was going to be great, we were going to have Dooling, Marquis, Jeff Green, David West and Brandon Bass off the bench, hell that's a better starting line up then most teams. The cool thing about David West is he didn't care so much about making as much money as possible annually and was willing to take less money to chase a championship, he was going to sign a 3 year deal for about 27 million. But wait a minute.....

David West actually did care about making as much money as he could annually, didn't care about chasing a championship and held up the deal to take a 2 year 20 million dollar deal with the Indiana Pacers. He took a deal with less years and 1 million dollars less to sign with a mediocre team.

It really stinks because he was going to give legs to KG and our bigs and even though he's coming off an ACL he consistently scores around 20 and 8 a game. Danny has tried really hard this offseason, plan A with Chris Paul didn't work out, plan B with David West didn't work out, so let's hope he has something up his sleeve for plan C. I don't know what he can do, we can't trade Jeff Green for another 60 or 90 days since we just signed him, and our only trade asset is really Rajon, who I think is going to be our point guard next year, so I just don't know. But one thing I do know is that Danny Ainge has his work cut out for him.