I would figure that for Celtic fans, winning is a fresh experience.

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I don't see any way for the Celtics to win the 'ship without better development of Gabe Pruitt. He should probably start in front of Allen.

Don't look now, but the Pistons only trail the Celtics by 3 games. Would home court advantage be a good thing against Boston in the ECF?

Gabe Pruitt didn't even play last night. I'm sure Boston fans are calling for Doc Rivers' head in the forums this morning.

Wow. Maybe I can offer a little perspective here, or possibly just a different take. Amir only plays 2 minutes and suddenly Flip is once again the devil and we have 0 chance of winning the championship? C'mon...look, I thought he played well in his 2 minutes and am also curious why he didn't play more, but I'm not going to say Flip has completely reverted.

Look, Sheed had energy and Dice was a MAN on the boards in the 1st half. So realistically you'd only put Amir in for Max, but hey...let Max try to work through his struggles a little bit. He's earned that right.

Now here's a simple question - forget the teams involved, players, etc. Who is more important to develop - your backup point guard (hardest position in the NBA), or your 4th big man? Well duh, your backup PG. How about some praise from Flip for letting Stuckey play 8 minutes of the 4th quarter, and keeping him in there even as the lead diminished, not bringing Chauncey back until very late in the game? You think he would've ever done that last year? Especially with a ROOKIE?

Listen, I'm all for developing our players, but is doing 1-2 at a time (instead of 3 with amir) really all that bad? Flip is putting Chauncey/Afflalo together and Rip/Stuckey together, and both of those guys got significant time last night. Amir is not in the same position because Max is capable of backing up both spots and there's not a clear difference between PF and C. Anyway, on to the game.

I had fun missing a day and a half of work with the stomach flu (or something similar). So I was soooo excited to have to drive out in this weather. I didn't get to my normal spot to meet up w/my buddy until 7:30, but then Telegraph was closed so he didn't even meet me until 8:40. Simply put, we didn't get to the Palace until halftime, and when we pulled in, there was still a HUGE line to get in!! At halftime there was probably about 3000-5000 fans still trying to get in and park!! I'm glad I missed the first half though.

A bunch of fans moved down to the lower level from the upper, and to their credit they were pretty loud, especially toward the end of the game. It's easy to forget sometimes that the upper deck usually has the louder fans, with the lower bowl usually occupied by people who don't care as much in the regular season. The drive home wasn't as bad, but yuck what a bad night.

Let's look at the positives. Jarvis took better shots and made some, along with making a few good defensive plays. Dice found his shot again. Sheed once again won the game for us and dominated when he had to. Our rookie guards are hanging around for rebounds when often you'd never see Chauncey or Rip in the vicinity. As for the negatives, Rip made a few terrible turnovers, once right before he got pulled for AA in the 3rd, and the other as soon as he came back in the game in the 4th. That, combined with Tayshaun's missed FTs, triggered the Miami comeback. It looks like the Dallas game didn't carry over for JMax. He needs to get in a better rhythm and post up for some shots before trying the jumpers, because they're all clanging off the back of the rim. He's playing solid defense but not grabbing as many boards. He also got screwed on two straight calls (block that should've been a charge on Miami, and a traveling violation when he was still trying to secure the rebound).

All things considered, I thought Stuckey played a heckuva a game. That minus stat in the 4th quarter wasn't really his fault. He wasn't afraid to go right at D-Wade...and if only he made that jumper after the sweet pass fake that totally fooled Wade. Wade drove for a layup, Stuckey immediately came back and got one himself. Stuckey may have gotten grabbed on the block, but I don't think it was bad enough to be an obvious foul...he should've taken another step or two and tried to dunk it, rather than picking up his dribble at the free throw line. He made a nice pass to Dice after driving (Dice didn't convert), had a sweet outlet pass to Jarvis, made some nice defensive plays and had a good steal, and yeah. Wade was told before the game about why Stuckey wore #3, and you could especially see in the 2nd half that Wade made it his personal mission to hound Stuckey. And for a rookie to play decent enough against an Olympian, NBA Finals champion, NBA Finals MVP, and multiple All-Star starter, I'd say that's all you could ask for. He has a 2.27 Assist:TO ratio already and averages nearly a steal a game in only 15 minutes. And last night he proved to himself that while he has a lot to work on, he can at least hang with the Wade's of the NBA.

Anyway, bash Saunders all you want, but he gave a rookie PG 8 minutes in the 4th quarter of a tight game matched up against a superstar, so I'm not going to call for his head because Amir only got 2 minutes.

Oh yeah, and Wade still travels constantly ... the step, then double 'hop-through' is 3 steps buddy. Too bad it never gets called.

lol fickle fans we are..... stuckey got serious burn and if he's playing in the 4th quarter of a close game AA isn't going to be in too... there is development and there is playing like a team rebuilding. I am not sure how bad/good AJ played but he was -6 in his short time on court.

The games right now are a couple days apart at home so there is no issue of being tired, and both starting big men were playing well.

My biggest concern is max, one rebound in all that time... if he doesn't come out of his slump shortly maybe seeing what AJ can do as the first one off the bench might be worth seeing.

But it was a huge trap game, there terrible..... One of the stars of the game just got traded, so they all know there playing for there jobs as nobody is safe and we still won.

Which play do you mean? There was one where Wade blocked his shot. Looked like Wade blocked it from in front.

I don't think they really care about developing players is the thing or how many mins Nash plays. I don't know. You don't want to be here after a loss.

Here is how it went down.

Amir checks in the game...

• Ricky Davis hits a 3-pointer
• Jarvis Hayes turns it over
• Rip fouls Wade (1 of 2)
• Sheed misses a 19-footer
• Alexander Johnson misses, Amir gets rebound
• Amir scores in the paint
• Alexander Johnson makes 20-footer
• Stuckey misses 14-footer
• Wade makes a layup
• Sheed misses a 3-pointer
• Dyess fouls Blunt (2 of 2)
• Rip makes 3-pointer

Amir checks out.

Hog, thanks for the recap, and for adding some perspective too. Sure, I would have liked for Amir to play some more as well, but I had forgotten to bring up Stuckey getting lots of 4th quarter mins even though the lead was disappearing. CB only played 32 minutes for the whole game.

First, excellent hog-cap. And I'm glad you didn't end up in a ditch on either end of the game.

I also noticed last night, maybe near the end of the third, but I forget, Flip yelling at Rip for committing a particularly dumb foul guarding a guy past the three point line and just so happens, right in front of Flip. You don't often see Flip really getting on a guy and I think that's something he probably needs to do more of.

Do you see Tay getting pulled back from the scorer's table twice in the fourth? First Hayes hit a shot and Flip sent Tay back to the bench, then he sent him back again after a timeout and left Hayes in.

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"But first, are you experienced? Or have you you ever been experienced? Well, I have."
Jimi