Celts Scary Good

November 1, 2008

On a night for scary sights, the Celtics and Bulls did their best to maintain a ghoulish theme. So frightfully one-sided was the alleged contest that Stephen King should be called in from the Red Sox bullpen to write this game story.



You shouldn't, however, necessarily blame the Celtics for their gory, 96-80 victory. They were just doing what a defending champion is supposed to do, but they did it with a brutal sort of precision, performing surgery with an ax. They didn't just play basketball. They did the Monster Mash (taking a cue from the late Bobby ``Boris'' Picket, pride of Somerville).

The now 2-0 Celts didn't even consider trailing during the game's final 46:46. When Paul Pierce took a feed from Kevin Garnett and rolled in on the left baseline for a layup a little more than a minute after tipoff, this was essentially over.

The final score may look reasonable, but the numbers lie. The game operations people couldn't show the Gino video on Tuesday because the season opener with Cleveland remained too close, but he could have been dancing during the pregame show last night. With Tyrus Thomas unable to stop himself from shooting - and unable to get his GPS locked on to the Garden strings - the Bulls couldn't get out of their own offensive way.

Thomas was just 2-of-17 for the night, missing nine straight (mainly jumpers) in one stretch, while he and his mates combined to bag 25-of-84 shots (29.8 percent) overall.  One thing is for sure: The guys from Chicago won't be going trick-or-treating at the Celtics' house anymore.

Garnett led the C's with 18 points, being more assertive with the ball than in the opener. He and Kendrick Perkins pulled in 10 rebounds apiece to lead in that department. All Celts starters with the exception of Perkins (eight) scored in double figures.

After Luol Deng hit two free throws to give Chicago a 2-1 lead to open the game, the C's scored 12 of the next 14 points, interrupted only by two free throws from top overall draft pick Derrick Rose.
The C's were getting easy access to the lane, and it had to be comforting for them to see Ray Allen's first jumper go down after he went 2-of-9 in the season opener.

Rajon Rondo and the rest of the starters had four points each in the frame. Can you say balance? The most emphatic points came when Perkins slammed home a Rondo miss.

That the Celtics came out of the period with a 24-13 lead wasn't surprising at all when you saw the flow of things. But it was a little odd that it wasn't a bigger margin when you consider the C's hit 52.9 percent from the floor and the Bulls canned a paltry 17.4 percent.

Chicago missed its first eight field goal attempts, not getting a hoop until Perkins goaltended a Drew Gooden shot at 6:19. The first Bulls bucket that actually found the strings came almost a minute later (a Deng jumper).

The Celts kept it going in the second quarter, beginning with a 7-2 run.
A microcosm of the situation came a few minutes in when Leon Powe missed inside and Glen Davis outfought four Bulls for the rebound. Davis missed the putback, but Tony Allen got to the carom and fed Powe for a slam.

If the Bulls didn't already know it was going to be a difficult night, they did then.
The visitors were better in the second but still fell further behind, trailing 49-31 at the half.