Ray's Trey Moves C's to 11-1

11/25/2007

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Imagine that. A Celtics game with no double-digit leads - by either team. A Celtics game with more than 20 lead changes. A Celtics game where - gulp - the Celtics actually trailed in the fourth quarter and went down to the last shot.

All of that transpired last night at Bobcats Arena. But no one could have forecast the ending. Down 2 points with 4.7 seconds left, the Celtics came up with an implausible steal, which in turn led to a winning 3-pointer at the buzzer by Ray Allen, who prior to that had missed 11 of his 14 shots. The shot, which gave the Celtics a 96-95 victory, stunned the already-celebrating crowd of 19,201, as well as the Bobcats players and coaches, who stood in shock as the Celtics players hoisted Allen on their shoulders and pranced joyfully to the locker room.

It was an amazing final 5 seconds. Paul Pierce missed a jumper from the foul line and Ray Felton got the rebound. Allen quickly fouled Felton, but the Celtics were not over the limit, so the Bobcats had to put the ball in play. Jason Richardson tried to inbound the ball to Jeff McInnis, but Eddie House got his hand on the ball and it deflected into the air to Pierce. In the past, Pierce might have wheeled and tried to shoot. This time, he saw Allen, all alone, near the top of the key.

"My thought process is, he's wide open," said Pierce, who finished with 23 points. "He's Ray Allen. He's one of the best 3-point shooters in NBA history. There you go."

Allen, who also made a game-winner at the end of the second game of the season in Toronto, was mobbed by his teammates and carried off the floor by Glen "Big Baby" Davis. He finished with 14 points, but the final 3 cut the heart out of the young Bobcats, who had played gallantly without leading scorer Gerald Wallace (calf strain). They thought they had the game won after Pierce's miss.

"We were going to foul them if they got the ball in the play, but first you want to go for the steal," said House. "I got my hand on it, P [Pierce] found Ray and it was curtains."

It was probably the most unlikely victory since Milt Palacio's famed game-winner in New Jersey back in the Rick Pitino regime. Pierce was there that night. "This one ranks right up there with Milt's," he chuckled.

The will-he-or-won't-he status of Wallace dominated the pregame conversation and was still up in the air right until tipoff. Doc Rivers, told that Wallace was out (which turned out to be true), wasn't buying any of the "woe is me" stuff for Charlotte. "Wounded animals are dangerous," he said of the injury-plagued Bobcats.

Charlotte coach Sam Vincent was in the "all hands on deck" mood beforehand, which meant the first NBA start for former Boston College star and last year's Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, Jared Dudley. That allowed Rivers some leeway; he went for a stretch in the second quarter with Garnett, Allen, and Pierce all on the bench - and the world as we know it did not come to an end. The Celtics actually led, 31-30, when Garnett and Pierce returned with 8:02 left in the half.

But at the end of the first half, the Celtics looked a lot like the teams they had been beating this season. Boston shot 40 percent. The Bobcats shot 51.2 percent. And Charlotte led, 53-48. Yes, sports fans, for only the second time in 12 games, the Celtics trailed at the half. The other occasion? Last Sunday in Orlando.

And it would have been worse had it not been for Garnett, who, almost single-handedly, accounted for a handful of points when the Bobcats were nursing a lead of 7-10 points and no one else was doing anything for the Celtics. Garnett exploded with a second-chance dunk, growling at the fans after the slam. Then he calmly made the free throw to complete a 3-point play. That snapped a 9-0 Charlotte run.

Later, Garnett tried to collect a missed Pierce free throw and his determination resulted in a loose ball foul on Primoz Brezec. Charlotte was over the limit. Two more points via free throws. Garnett then fired a Brady-esque bullet to Rajon Rondo for an easy 2 and then raced down to collect a Pierce pass for a layup on Boston's next possession.

At that point, the Celtics led, 46-45, with 57.5 seconds left in the half. But the Bobcats got a 3-point play from Dudley and, after a Rondo layup, scored the final 5 points of the half on a runner by Walter Herrmann and, after a Rondo turnover, a 3-pointer by Richardson with 1.8 seconds left in the period. Richardson led all scorers at the half with 15 points.