Rajon Rondo did a lot of things in 21 seconds

With a little over 9 minutes to go in the 4th quarter at the Garden on Sunday, I pointed out Rondo's stats on the scoreboard to my buddy.  He figured there was no chance for a triple-double because at the time Rajon had just 6 rebounds.  But after tracking down two in the game's final 21 seconds, he finished with 32 points, 15 assists, and 10 boards.  There's only been 6 triple-doubles in the NBA this season, and Rondo's got 2 of them.

But that wasn't the most impressive thing Rajon did in the last 21 seconds.  He also went 4-4 from the foul throw line to ice the game (extending a 91-88 lead to 95-89 with only 9 seconds left).  You don't expect the Celtics to win games with Rondo at the line, but that's exactly what happened (overall he made his final 6 free throw attempts, and went 10 of 13 for the game).

And that wasn't even Rondo's best 21 seconds.  With 5:28 to go he threw a nice alley-oop to JaJuan Johnson.  Then on the next possession he passed to Chris Wilcox for another with 5:07 left (exactly 21 seconds later).  I don't remember ever seeing the Celtics convert back to back alley-oop dunks before.

This was the 25th straight game that Boston has held their opponents under 100 points.  It's the longest such streak in the league in 7 years, and also the 7th longest streak of it's kind in NBA history in the shot clock era (I find myself always writing "in the shot clock era" when referring to records.  I'm sick of it.  Can we just eliminate that phrase?  The NBA only existed for 5 years, 1950-54, before the shot clock, and it was a totally different game then and not much happened.  So I'm done with it.  From here on out I'm only ever acknowledging the NBA post 1954.  Sorry George Mikan).  Strangely enough the Celtics have never scored more than 100 points themselves during that same stretch.  But, they have scored exactly 100 on three occasions, twice vs Washington and once vs Toronto.

One final thing: the Celtics are 15-12 right now.  I know they have played twice as many games at home as on the road, and I know their schedule in the month of March looks pretty brutal, but their current pace would give them 37 wins for the season, which is exactly what I predicted.

Reflecting on the Superbowl a week later

After the game ended I avoided exposing myself to sports news for a few days.  So it wasn't until about Wednesday that I realized people were blaming Wes Welker for the loss.  That's crazy to me.  As the play in question was happening, I though to myself that the throw was too high, and it never crossed my mind again.  Welker is a tiny guy.  I've met him a couple times, and he's not an inch over 5'7''.  And even though he says he's made that play hundreds of times, I don't think I've EVER seen him have to jump for a pass before.  He catches low balls in traffic over the middle, maybe the best I've ever seen at that.  But he's not Calvin Johnson; you can't expect him to also be the guy who makes running twisting leaping grabs down field.

And that was just one of any number of plays that could have altered the outcome of the game had they happened differently.  In my opinion, the most significant thing was the fact that the Giants fumbled 3 times, but NONE for turnovers (one was taken away by a penalty, and the other two they recovered themselves).  And that's how sports works.  You can't explain everything.  It's random.  It's insane to think that because Brady/Belichik won the first three Superbowls they got to, that they are somehow a failure for losing the last two.  The fact that they have made it there 5 out of a possible 10 years is unbelievable, and defies all odds to begin with.

Which brings me to my main point: as a Patriots fan, I think it's completely reasonable to be sad and disappointed about the loss.  But to be angry and try to assess blame seems totally illogical and unfair.

Headed to the Celts/Bulls game...

So nothing for now, but my one week after Superbowl retrospective is coming up later tonight.  And Jermaine O'Neal and Brandon Bass are both out for Boston, which makes this a great day to debut my Stiemsma shirt!

I've dropped the "blogspot"

Ok, no more messing around.  I'm stepping this thing up a notch.  This site was never really going to look legit with the word "blogspot" in the title.  So it's gone.  I am now officially the owner of lucidsportsfan.com.  If you clicked on the link and it didn't take you right back here, don't worry.  According to google it may take a couple days, and the old address will always keep working as well.  In the short term all this means is I get to spend even more time each day trying to understand the interweb, and many many hours in the near future adjusting to how this page now operates.  In the long term it means I own the name, so nobody can rip it off and pretend to be me once it's gone big time.  I guess I need to order some new business cards.

Have you seen the Coca-Cola "Freestyle" Machine?

I may be way late to the party on this one.  Fast food places in the city are usually much crappier than in the suburbs, and generally the last to get cool new things.  Not to mention it's something I rarely eat anyway.  But I found myself outside of my normal bubble in a Burger King yesterday, and this is what I saw:

This thing is awesome.  It's all touchscreen (although it definitely has some of the same potential flaws as the computers at Boloco and the ipad menus at Temezcal).  First you pick which type of soda you want.  Then you pick which flavors you'd like to add to it.  Everything comes out of the same spout.  There are over 100 combinations.  I went with cherry-vanilla cola.  Yum.  The concept here is really pretty basic, I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long for these to come out.

It wasn't crowded at all when I was there; but if the place got busy I could see this definitely being an issue.  It takes a little while to figure out if you haven't done it before (imagine your grandmother trying to do it), and everybody has to get their drinks from the same machine.

Awesome Old Song of the Week: "If I Had No Loot" by Tony! Toni! Tone!

This single came out in 1993, and I was surprised to find out just now that it only ever made it as high as #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.  I always just assumed that all 3 guys in the group were named Tony; but actually none of them were.  According to Wikipedia (and plagiarized word for word in numerous other places all over the internet), here is the description of where their name came from:

"The group's name is derived from Andy García's portrayal of an Italian American sharpshooter in The Untouchables. In high school, a friend of D'wayne Wiggins joked that the teacher would call him "Tony, Tony, Tony" if they saw the way he was dressed. Originally, the band went by "Tony, Tony, Tony" as a joke, until they realized it had a nice ring to it."


That makes NO sense to me whatsoever, but as far as I can tell it's the only explanation the interweb has to offer.  Also I'm pretty sure the guy in the middle is actually Reggie Miller in 1991.

If you can figure out that quote, or you happen to be friends with Tony! Toni! Tone! and already know why they called themselves that, leave a comment below, email me at lucidsportsfan@gmx.com, or hit me up on twitter @LucidSportsFan.

Right Now the Hottest Team in the NBA Plays in Boston/Celtics May Have 3 of the Top 25 Scorers of All Time

This is a two part blog, but one flows seamlessly into the other.  The Celtics have won 5 in a row and 9 of their last 10, both of which are tops in the league at the moment.  Not only that, but statistically they have the BEST defense in the NBA this year, allowing just 86.5 points per game, the lowest average of any team.  Three weeks ago if I'd told you that Boston would have a better record than L.A. when the Lakers came to town, you'd have thought I was crazy.  But that's the case (Celtics are 14-10, Lakers are 14-11), and Boston has done it behind the resurgence of old guys Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.

Late last month when his team was starting to play better, Doc Rivers said his guys just weren't in shape early in the season.  It's beginning to look more and more like he knew exactly what he was talking about.  In January I wondered myself if KG could even dunk anymore, but his legs looked as fresh as ever on that monster jam he threw down against Charlotte Tuesday night.  Not only that but he seems to have added some range to his jump shot of late, evoking memories of an aging Kevin McHale in 1990.

Meanwhile, Pierce is currently playing as well as he has in a long time.  His 9 assists vs the Bobcats gave him 5 or more for the 12th straight game, the longest such streak he's ever had in his career.  The fact that he passed Bird on the Celtics all time scoring list Tuesday keyed me in on some other very impressive numbers.  Boston's "Big 3" make up half of the top 6 active career scoring leaders in the NBA (the other 3 are Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, and Tim Duncan).

More importantly, this edition of the Celtics could finish the year with 3 of the top 25 scorers of ALL TIME.  Garnett is 19th on the list, and Ray Allen is 24th.  At the moment Pierce has 21,797 career points, and should have no problem passing the the current #25, Clyde Drexler (22,195).  The challenge will come from Tim Duncan, who's got 22,009 career points, 212 more than Pierce.  If Duncan continues to average 13.8 ppg for the Spurs 40 remaining games, he'll have exactly 22,561 at season's end.  Pierce is averaging 18.4 ppg; if he keeps that up for the Celtics final 42 games, he will finish the year at 22,570.  Exactly nine points ahead of Duncan.  Wow.  That should be interesting to watch.