The Ticket Chest

Celtics a Different Team Without Kevin Garnett; Bulls Top Celtics 96-83 in Boston

Friday, January 15th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, NBA, Sports | No Comments

The Boston Celtics are a much different (worse) team without Kevin Garnett.  Last night’s 96-83 loss to the visiting Bulls clearly showed that.  Now granted, the Celtics were playing their 4th game in 5 nights so the team was clearly not as energized as they typically are in front of their home crowd at the TD NorthBank Garden in Boston.  But you can see how the absence of Kevin Garnett in the paint really affects the way other teams attack the Celtics on offense.  With no Garnett (and no Rasheed Wallace too), Paul Pierce has to play that much harder on the defensive end of the court (not his string suit).  Minutes also go up for Pierce (39+ minutes) and Ray Allen (35+ minutes).  Over the course of a long NBA season, that can take its toll on the aging Celtics especially with the lack of depth on the team’s bench.

The Chicago Bulls should also be given some credit.  They knew they had to attack the Celtics right from the start (as they did so many times in the epic 1st round, 7-game playoff series that the Celtics won last year).  The Bulls jumped out to a 29-18 1st quarter lead and even though the Celtics continued to chip away at the lead (8 points at halftime; 7 points at the end of the 3rd quarter), the Bulls never let the Celtics get closer than 4 points in the 4th quarter.  Even when that happened, the Bulls rattled off 3 straight baskets to up the lead right back up to 10 points.

It was a total team effort for the Bulls as each Bulls starter scored double digit points.  Luol Deng led the way with 25 points and 4 assists.  Derrick Rose overcame early foul trouble to score 17 points, grab 8 rebounds and dish out 4 assists.  Joakim Noah notched his 19th double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds.  Kirk Hinrich chipped in 11 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists.   Taj Gibson played through his foot injury to score 14 points and grab 6 rebounds.  And in just 17 minutes off the bench, Tyrus Thomas grabbed 7 rebounds – 6 offensive – and had 4 steals.

Don’t look now, but the Bulls have won 7 of 10 games.  At 17-20, they are the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference, but just 2 games out of the 5th seed in a top heavy conference.  If the Bulls can somehow pull off a mid-season trade for an upper echelon player or make a run at one of the top tier free agents in the much-coveted 2010 class (Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Amar’e Stoudemire, Joe Johnson) their could be good things to cheer about for Chicago Bulls fans in the very near future…

Tags: Amar'e Stoudemire, Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Dwayne Wade, Joakim Noah, Joe Johnson, Kirk Hinrich, LeBron James, Luol Deng, Taj Gibson, Tyrus Thomas