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From a Celtics Press Release

Boston Celtics All-Star guard Ray Allen will team up with the Boys and Girls Club of Boston's Jordan Club in Chelsea and the Boston Centers for Youth and Families to provide children in need of a holiday boost with gifts this Saturday afternoon at the Natick Collection.

A Giving Tree with 450 ornaments will be set up in the mall, each ornament will have a wish list item printed on it and shoppers who pick an ornament will have the opportunity to buy the gift for the child. 200 wish items will come from children at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston's Jordan Club in Chelsea and 250 wish items will come from children at Boston Centers for Youth and Families. BCYF will work with different community centers to include children in the most need of a holiday boost from all over the city. As part of the season of giving Allen will be on hand to sign an autograph as a thank you for each gift purchased.

WHEN: Saturday, December 19, 2009
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
*Shoppers can begin at 10 a.m.

WHERE: The Natick Collection
The Holiday Giving Tree is located in the Infinity Pool Court (lower level near Apple)
1245 Worcester Street
Natick, MA

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Via Hardwood Paroxysm

Lion Face: Rajon Rondo
In case you didn’t remember, Rajon Rondo is 23 years old. He’ll be 24 in February. Think about that for a second. OK, now stop thinking about it and hum the theme to Growing Pains for a bit. Now go back to thinking about how young Rajon Rondo is. He’s arguably the best defensive point guard in the NBA, right? At the age of 23? Think about how difficult it is going to be to score against him when he’s 27. You can say that he can’t shoot. And you can say that he isn’t a good enough scorer to be considered elite. Or go ahead and talk about how he wouldn’t be this good without his Boston teammates around him. But none of that matters because he’s basically Agent Smith in Matrix. He can bend the laws of physics to be quicker than you. Maybe someone will come along someday that proves to be his Neo but until that happens, he’ll just be wrecking shop in the NBA and shutting every point guard down who is arrogant enough to think they can score on him. He’s insane.

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I was going to write this article, or ask one of our authors to tackle it, but it seems as though Frank Dell'Apa at the Globe beat me to it.   Particularly in the last few games, Paul Pierce has put the team on his back and pulled them to victory.   That's not going to surprise anyone, we've seen Paul do this for 11 years now. 

Just looking at the games this week, friday against the Raptors, Paul had 18, 5 and 7 in a balanced Celtics attack, but put down a dunk that made Chris Bosh look like he really was a used car salesman.   The game before that against the 76ers, Paul put up 27, 6 and 6.   Sunday against the Knicks, even though it was KG who hit the winner, it was Paul that won the game for the Celtics as Paul's line for the game was 33, 9 and 6.  For the season he's averaging 20, 5 and 4, right around his career totals, in two fewer minutes per game. 

Dell'Apa made some great observations on Paul's shooting numbers this year.

And Doc went about as far as one can in highlight Paul's great play

Jimmy mentioned it in the comments of the recap, it does seem as though Paul is dunking a lot more this year.   That's probably a good sign.  

More photos » by Darron Cummings - AP

I'm unhappy too, Sheed.

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Well that was gross.   The vaunted Celtics defense gave up 113 points to the Pacers.   The second unit that could supposedly start on other teams was largely ineffective.   Altogether, that was pretty disappointing and the Celtics now have a losing streak.

After making a big deal about the Celtics poor rebounding this season earlier this afternoon, the Celtics killed it on the glass, grabbing 9 more rebounds than the Pacers, but still lost the game.   So much for that theory, at least for tonight.

Give credit to the Pacers.   They made shots tonight.  Danny Granger is a fantastic player and Dahntay Jones had the game of his Pacers life. 

I would be remiss if I didn't add that Joey Crawford is a terrible human being.   This is just to Joey.   Joey, no one watches basketball to see you officiate so stop acting like you're the star of the show.   NO ONE would miss you if you were gone from our NBA lives.   For clarity, Joey and the rest of the officials were not the problem tonight, so don't write in the comments that I'm blaming this on them.   I just really really dislike Joey Crawford.

Box score after the jump

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KG's rebounding numbers are a tiny bit off from his averages in the last few years, but is that enough to drop the Celtics towards the bottom of the league?

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I had a stats class at the start of my MBA program.   There was a final project in the class where each student had to pick a topic and create a statistical model.   My topic - what are the characteristics of a winning NBA team?   It turned out that rebounding was the most important quality in a championship team.   The intuition behind this was rather simple to me, more rebounds creates more possessions for you and less for the opponent, and therefore will lead to more points and wins.  

Last night the Atlanta Hawks dominated the glass, out-rebounding the Celtics by 16 boards (47 to 29), including 16 offensive boards (to the Celtics 6).  It seemed that there were some rotation issues that resulted in the Hawks, particularly fan favorite ZaZa Pachulia, getting a few cheap offensive boards.  Wednesday night, the Celtics were out-rebounded the Jazz by six, and importantly the Jazz also collected 17 offensive rebounds.  

So far this season the Celtics game-by-game total rebound differentials are  +6, -2, +6, +3, +5, -4, +3, -3, -6 and -16. The offensive board stats are even worse: 0, -4, -6, -1, -4, +2, +5, -6, -5, and -10

This is not a good sign for banner 18 hopes.  Today the Celtics are 28th in the league in offensive rebounding and 19th in defensive rebounding.   While its early in the season and this is a small sample size, the Celtics will need to improve considerably before playoff time.   In the 2008 championship season the Celtics were the 17th best offensive rebounding team and eight best defensive rebounding team.  Last year's team was eight best offensive rebounding team and third best defensive rebounding team on a percentage basis - and that was without Kevin Garnett for roughly half of the season.  

So why are the Celtics under performing on the glass this season?

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More photos » by Bill Kostroun - AP

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How did the Celtics respond to their first loss of the season?   They threw up a stinker in New Jersey.   Thankfully for the Celtics, the Nets can barely dress eight players and had to start Trenton Hassell.   I know, I was surprised he's still in the league too!   

This was just a bizarre and awful game.   It was played a snail's pace, and while it seemed like the Celtics couldn't shoot - mainly Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (up until Ray made a couple late to ice it), the Nets had lineups out there that probably haven't even practiced together.    The Celtics were fortunate that these unfamiliar Net lineups turned the ball over 23 times - 20 of those TOs were actually Celtics steals.   Marv Albert (I had the Nets broadcast) informed me that is a league high so far this year.   The turnovers really were the key to the victory tonight.

The Celtics have now played three sub-par games in a row.   Hopefully they get some much needed rest and practice time before the Jazz come to town.

More photos » by Jim Mone - AP

Wolves are pesky!

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The Celtics were flat tonight.   How flat were they?  In case you missed it, Tommy Heinsohn, Mr. Celtic, the homer announcer that every non-Celtics fan absolutely loathes on league pass called the Celtics elderly.   Elderly.  He said this in the context of the second night of the road back-to-back.    Hopefully, Tommy is wrong and the Celtics are still working on their legs, but clearly  they lacked a bounce in their step tonight - for example, Eddie badly air-balled a rhythm three at the start of the fourth and Paul's turn-around with 20 seconds to go to ice it was woefully short, barely scraping the front rim.

Not to take anyting away from the Timberwolves.   They came out with energy and basically had an answer for every Celtics run.  It's a pleasure to watch Al Jefferson.   Jonny Flynn seems very much legit (I still don't get the Rubio pick).   Ryan Gomes is just a solid NBA player - except for that ill-advised three with 50 seconds left.   Oleksiy Pecherov has some interesting hair, and a better jumper.   Wolves fans might be upset with the tie up call with six seconds to go, but honestly, what is career 38% shooter Corey Brewer doing with the ball there?  

The Wolves really controlled the game, up until the middle of the 3rd quarter when they decided to stop guarding Rajon Rondo.   Rajon found a few creases down low, made the bunnies and carried that energy into his defense with a few steals.   He sparked the team tonight.   With an "elderly" core (in basketball sense) the Celtics are really going to need to lean on the young legs of Rajon and Marquis Daniels to carry the team at times this year. Rajon did that tonight for the Celtics.   He pushed this team over the hill.  

Box score after the jump.  

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