PORTLAND, Ore. - Doc Rivers is not a fan of afternoon games, especially on the road, but he wasn't all that upset about having to play the Blazers at 3 p.m. yesterday.
"We've had some strange starting times this year, but, the middle of the afternoon? But, you know what? I kind of like that because we play back-to-back and I like it that the first game is the early one," Rivers said. "That'll give us a chance to get to LA [last night] and more than 24 hours to recuperate."
Then, contemplating his lads enjoying a night on the town in Britney/Lindsay Land, Rivers said, "come to think of that, strike that last remark."
Well, the Celtics earned whatever they wanted to do in Los Angeles last night after yesterday's 112-102 dispatching of the Trail Blazers. They just waited a while to earn that right.
They trailed by 16 after one (scoring just 16 points in the process). They trailed by 17 midway through the second, en route to what looked like it might be a fourth straight loss on this trip. Already they had lost as many games in four days as they had in the first two months, they were winless since Kevin Garnett returned to duty, and they were getting out-everythinged by the young, frisky Blazers.
"They were excited. They attacked us. We didn't handle it very well," Rivers said.
That would be an understatement. They were getting overwhelmed. And, as Rivers noted, "It's dangerous to get down on the road."
But then the Celtics' big guys finally showed up, as did the one common denominator of Boston's excellence all season - the heretofore missing defense. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, who were a combined 5 of 25 in Phoenix Friday night, awoke offensively and Garnett anchored a defense that held the Blazers to 70 points over the final three periods on 41-percent shooting. "After that first quarter, I thought our defense was phenomenal," Rivers said. Had the Blazers not enjoyed a Tommy Heinsohn-infuriating 26-15 advantage at the free-throw line, this one would have not have been as close.
"We figured out what they were doing," said Garnett. "As the game went on, the defensive pressure got better."
Garnett, who had 10 points and 7 rebounds in 31 minutes, said he still doesn't have his legs after missing nine games with an abdominal strain.
"I'm in no rush," he said. "I don't see myself as one-dimensional. I can affect a game in many different ways and I know that."
And because he can, and does, that is not good news for the Celtics' opponent.