Opportunity Lost

As Joe Castig would say, it was "a giant squander."

The Celtics lost a winnable game last night. I'm as ticked as I am optimistic, weirdly.

You have to figure that last night was the night the Lakers put on their Sunday best. They were coming home, they were desperate, they had a legendary coach bitching about the officiating and had a great ref crew to rely on. They had everything going their way.

I went to bed angry at the Celtics. With six minutes left, I declared the game lost. Four minutes later (at least in game time), I announced to Mrs. Save Fitchburg that the Celtics are winning this series.

Simply, the Lakers came in last night knowing they needed their A-game. It appears they got a lot of the things that constituted their A-game: Kobe was great, a role player stepped up, they played with aggression (missing: Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol, but I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever play very well for an entire game in this series), and Phil Jackson threw in a puzzling adjustment (Kobe on Rondo).

If this was the Lakers' A-game, it's time to start stitching Banner 17.

The Celtics should have won last night. The offense stunk, and Garnett and Pierce were chief el stinko offenders. Pierce forced every shot he took, I think, and Garnett missed some "bunnies" while taking some bad shots. Ugh. Why didn't Ray Allen get the ball more down the stretch (or, for that matter, why was Eddie House getting contested looks late)? The Celtics played probably a C game (they played an excellent third quarter, and did enough to have a shot late). A B, and they're up 3-0.

The Celtics need to get the flow back to the offense tomorrow night, and they need to find a way to get around this Kobe-Rondo thing. It gives Kobe freedom to roam, and really exposes Rondo. It's almost embarassing to see Rondo passing up 17-footers. Win or lose this series, you know what Rondo's working on this summer. It was an unexpected wrinkle, and one the Cs need to solve before tomorrow night (I'd want Allen to go after Derek Fisher, but that's just me).

I'm taking the optimistic view. I felt going into the series the Cs needed to hold serve in Games 1 and 2, and then take one of the next three. After last night, you gotta feel good about that happening. At least I do, even though I'm pissed they let a golden opportunity to lock this up go by.