A Second Look at the One-Point Home Win Over Miami

At the initial Big Three Press Conference, Ray Allen was asked to articulate his goals for the upcoming season.

Make our home court a House of Pain for opponents, like it was in the 1980s, Allen said.

True to his word, the 2007-08 Boston Celtics have inflicted misery on visitors in six of their first seven home tilts, with an average margin of victory close to 20 points per contest. If you remove the one-point win over Miami, then the …

Wait a second.

Did I write that correctly?

A one-point win?

At home?

What the heck happened?

With every home dusting the Cs administer to opponents, the one-point win over the Heat sticks out more and more, and with the Heat on tap for an away game later this week, revisiting the one-point home win might prove educational for a couple of reasons.

The Celtics were up by 15 with 8:12 left in the 4th, a comfortable lead that was ripe to be made larger if the home team had played their cards right.

Instead, the Cs failed to score a point over the next five-plus minutes.

I’d like to tell you that the problem was singular in nature. But, in reality, several factors conspired against GREEN.

First, the Big Three started throwing the ball away. Three of the next 10 possessions ended when Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, or Paul Pierce made an ill-advised pass. Second, Posey and Allen settled for treys on three possessions, throwing up 25-footers and missing them all. Third, two of the Big Three were missing their shots horribly. Jesus missed a four-footer, while the Truth missed everything with an air-ball.

Finally, Rajon Rondo committed an offensive foul, and Kendrick Perkins interfered with a teammate’s shot for a goaltending call.

On the Miami’s side of the ledger, Dwayne Wade and Ricky Davis started heating up. Shaq and Alonzo, now guarded by KG instead of Perk, who was on the bench, used their strength to score easy baskets inside.

Miami scored on eight straight possessions until the bloodletting ended at the 2:24 marker with two Ray Allen free throws, followed by a Rondo jumper, and the game winner by Pierce. Posey’s defense on Flash closed out the victory.

A number of excuses could be offered up.

Paul Pierce was playing with a strained back.

Eddie House was coming of an ankle sprain.

Ray Allen (5-15) was in game 2 of the Shuttlesworth Slump.

But I don’t buy any of these excuses.

The Heat are a veteran team that turned it up a notch coming down the stretch of a game with a conference rival. Thankfully, Ray Allen was smart enough to drive to the hoop and draw a shooting foul on Shaq, which netted us two points at the stripe and stopped their momentum.

To be sure, the game against the Heat was only the Celtics seventh of the season, but the Cs are still playing sloppy at times, prone to turning the ball over more than they should and settling for easy shots when getting to the paint would be wiser.

Oh, and Ray Allen is still mired in a slump.

So to make a long story short, it is hard to say how often the Miami game will repeat itself at home this year, or whether that game will be this year’s version of the Portland Trailblazer debacle that stained the Cs otherwise perfect record in 1986.

In any event, the Cs will inevitably hit rough patches along the way, and the chances that those rough patches will start producing losses may depend in large part on taking better care of the basketball and on Ray Allen getting his eye back.