Day 4 of 170: The Celtics are Frighteningly Good

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Boston Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers
Posted on: October 31st, 2009

Bill Simmons told me so…

Line of the Night: At halftime of the Bulls/Celtics game, if you had told me that Paul Pierce (0.91) was going to end up with the best fantasy line of last night, I would have slapped you across the face with a fish. But when the third quarter started, Pierce came out firing from three (thanks in part to Rondo setting him up Misty May) and when the dust settled Pierce had 22 points (going 5-7 from three and 8-12 overall) with 8 boards, 4 assists and 3 steals as the Celtics dominated the Bulls in every way possible, 118-90.

The Pierce/Rondo connection, translated into women’s beach volleyball

Honorable Mentions: I’m not sure what else Chris Bosh (0.78) had to do to impress Basketball Monster*, but his 37 points, 12 boards and 2 blocks look like a winner to me. He even chipped in a three; Steve Nash (0.74) dropped 20 assists on the hapless, zombie-like GSW (it was the 6th 20 assist game of his career, so please don’t call him old); Paul Millsap’s (0.74) return to being a bench player extraordinaire has been successful so far, mostly because Millsap is some sort of machine. He had 23 points (off 9-12 shooting) and 9 boards in 25 minutes off the bench for the Jazz.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: This just in: The Suns like to run. And against the Golden State Warriors, the Suns predictably ran up the score in a 123-101 rout. Nash is mentioned above and Suns “center” Channing Frye (0.90) had the second best game score of last night by putting up a line almost identical to Pierce. Frye was 6-7 from three, adding 22 points, 8 boards and 3 steals. Frye is currently owned in 39% of Yahoo leagues and should be a necessary add for any team looking to get a bunch of threes out of their center.

If anyone in your league dropped Boris Diaw (0.46) after his piss-poor first game, I you might want to snatch him up after a 17/11/6 (admittedly double-overtime enhanced) line from the Frenchman. Diaw certainly lacks consistency, but don’t forget he averaged a 15/6/5 for Charlotte last season; and for those of you in super deep leagues, Eddie House (0.36) exploded last night for the Celtics, scoring 22 points and hitting 4 threes in their win. With Marquis Daniels joining the team this season, House can do less dribbling and more shooting, which plays to his one strength as a basketball player and will likely lead to more lines like last night.

The Biggest Loser: In a night lacking that one truly scary performance, let’s take the opportunity to point out that Jose Calderon (-0.31) has as many turnovers as assists yesterday (3). He still scored 15 points with good percentages, but Calderon owners can’t be happy with 3 assists.

Correction (I need to learn how to correctly query information from a database): Three of the five Bulls’ starters. Luol Deng (-0.50) and John Salmons (-0.32) had horrible shooting nights and Derrick Rose (-0.36) was Rondoed. On the plus side for the Bulls, Joakim Noah looked pretty good.

Injury of the Night: We’ll break this category out once in a while when a notable player goes down with an injury. And yesterday we had two. Vince Carter (0.22) rolled his left ankle on Devin Harris’ foot in the first half of his return to New Jersey. He limped off the court and did not return, although the good news is that the swelling was minimal and he’s optimistic about a quick return (no, really); and Caron Butler (-0.28) bruised his knee and sat out the second half of the Wizards’ game against the Hawks. Like Carter, he’s also day-to-day.

All Eyez on Me: Seven games today, including:

Portland (1-1) at Houston (1-1) – The Blazers look to recover from their epic loss to the Nuggets, by traveling to Houston, a place where they’ve lost the last seven games. While the verdict is still out on Oden, who has been in foul trouble in both of his games, it’s clear that the Blazers need to do a better job of getting him involved in the offense.

Dallas (1-1) at Los Angeles Clippers (0-3) – The Kidd/Marion connection looks like a big winner so far. You’re a better man than me if you took a chance on Marion going into the year.

Detroit (1-1) at Milwaukee (0-1) – Time to see if Brandon Jennings has an encore act in him. The 20-year old fell 1 board and 1 assist short of a triple-double in the Bucks’ first game against the Wolves. Regardless, I think this is the last we’ve seen of Luke Ridnour.

* Thanks to Basketball Monster for letting us grab these daily stat lines and scores. “Gratitiute is often a better payment than money”, is a phrase my grandmother never said, but sounds like something she might say.

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