As far as I'm concerned, March is all about college basketball. The NBA might as well take the month off. So while I will be keeping tabs on the Boston Celtics, I can't say that I will be living and dying with every possession.
I recorded tonight's Celtics game against the Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center and I'm so glad I saw plenty of Tweets about the game and score. The Sixers (23-17) handed the Celtics (20-18), their worst loss in the Big 3 era, 103-71.
I'm happy to report that I didn't watch a second of it. Normally, I view everything be it a blowout win or loss but I couldn't pull the trigger on this one. I guess I needed to save some brain cells.
In this condensed 66-game season, perhaps no team benefits more than the Sixers. They're young, athletic and deep. That's why they'll overachieve during the regular season then in all probability come back to reality once the playoffs begin. They're more suited to this insane schedule than an older team like the Celts as everybody and their mother knows.
Boston's five-game win streak went out the window as they suffered plenty of embarrassment including not making a single 3-pointer. With the victory, Philadelphia gained a full game on the Celtics in the standings; the Sixers lead by two although the Celts have two games in hand. I guess playing two overtime games in a row and on back-to-back nights, not to mention traveling to the far away city of Philly was too much for the C's to handle.
Evan Turner led Philly with a career-high 26 points and nine rebounds. Showing how much of a blowout it was, the Sixers' next three highest scorers all came off the bench: Elton Brand (18 points, 9 rebounds), Lou Williams (15 points) and Nikola Vucevic (14 points, 12 rebounds) each put up nice numbers. Andre Iguodala had 10 points, eight rebounds and seven assists while Jrue Holiday had 10 points and six assists.
Paul Pierce (15 points) and Brandon Bass (12 points) along with JaJuan Johnson (10 points off the bench) were basically the only Celtics with any semblance of pride.
These teams will meet twice more, maybe Boston will opt to show up for one of those. That would be a treat.
The Portland Trail Blazers (19-20) visit TD Garden on Friday night. It is a pivotal game for Boston and basically a must-win since after that they depart on a season-long eight-game (really) road trip that stretches across the West Coast and takes up most of March.
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