Five on Five: Celtics fall to Thunder

By Gary Dzen

March 31, 2010

2 minutes to read

Five comments — one for each player — for the five most noticeable players in tonight’s heartbreaking Celtics loss to the Thunder.

5) Kevin Garnett

What a game. Garnett played 31 of the most dominant minutes he has played all season, recording 18 points on 9-of-13 shooting, to go along with 6 rebounds and 4 assists. If these are the minutes the Celtics get out of Garnett during the playoffs, it won’t matter if he can go for 40 minutes. He’ll help the team just fine in this capacity.

4) Rajon Rondo

He came into the game with 703 assists this season — just 12 shy of Bob Cousy’s single-season record of 715, set in the 1959-60 season. Rondo was well-aware of that stat before the game, cutting an interview short to tell a reporter he was going to go work on his passing.

Rondo finished the game with 11 assists, but he has nothing to hang his head about. His 16 points came on 8-of-12 shooting, and he added 5 rebounds to go along with those 11 dimes.

He’ll break the record Friday. He did all he could tonight.

3) Russell Westbrook

“Other Rondo” had 11 points and 4 assists in the first quarter — on 5 of 6 shooting — to help the Thunder to a 30-23 lead. The young Thunder point guard maintained his play throughout the game, finishing with 21 points and 10 assists.

2) Rasheed Wallace

Maybe Wallace will look at the stat sheet of the first half of tonight’s game, watch the tape, and a light will come on. Maybe it will all click: 10 points, 5-of-5 shooting, and no three-pointers attempted. That’s ZERO threes. None.

He might even watch film of the second half and pause the tape, just to admire his hustle. He could especially focus on the replay at the 8:02 mark of the fourth quarter: There was Wallace — boxing out — to take a defensive rebound away from the Thunder and draw a foul on Nick Collison. Wallace missed the free throws, but he went right back into the post on the next possession, drawing Collison’s sixth foul and hitting the freebies this time.

‘Sheed played like a seven-footer against the Thunder (well, like a non-Kevin Durant seven-footer), giving the Celtics offensive punch off the bench. He smartly avoided the three-point line, a place where he’s only hit 28 percent of his shots this season. He eventually took two threes and made one. Most Celtics fans will gladly take that.

1) Kevin Durant

When these teams played in December, Durant had 36 points in a game in which Doc Rivers said the Celtics “defended the hell” out of The Durantula.

If holding Durant to 36 is good defense, then the Celtics played good-defense-plus-1-point in holding Durant to 37 points tonight. The Thunder star finished 10-of-20 from the floor, but his perfect 15-for-15 at the line kept Oklahoma City in the game until they were able to steal away the lead at the end. He’s a superstar, plain and simple, and the Thunder don’t win this game without him.