Cause and effect? While the Red Sox were jetting off to Toronto, they found themselves a half-game closer to first, because the Rays blew an 8-6 lead and lost to the Twins. So as long as we're not playing the team we're trying to catch, maybe we can catch them. Sound right? You've probably already heard that Curt Schilling isn't signing on to write a fawning biography of Manny Ramirez. The big guy told WEEI......

OK...did everyone take a deep breath last night? The parade is over, there were no vital basketball events to watch last night, and we just have to bide our time until Opening Day when they raise the banner. Opening Day, by the way, might be the first time Kevin Garnett puts down the trophy. So let's check in on the Red Sox; you remember them. Of course, the Globe, which has an ownership stake in......

CelticsBlog and Adam at Universal Hub have pointed us to plenty of reading material today. We thought we'd spotlight some of our favorite bits: -- "Garnett, close to tears, said to Russell, 'Did I make you proud? Did I make you proud?' Russell said, 'Yes, you did.' Garnett embraced Russell even harder, leaned in close to his ear, and said, 'I got one of my own. I got one of my own.' I bet I......

This was just about as sweet as anything could ever be. Was there a time when we wondered if Danny Ainge knew what he was doing when he swung the Ray Allen trade on Draft Day? (Well, yes, we did.) Was there any worry that three guys, who were used to being the big dog, would learn to share the ball? Was there frustration and terror after being pushed to the brink by a neophyte......

Photo by Paul Keleher on Flickr The Celtics trounced annihilated embarrassed thrashed conquered crushed routed creamed defeated vanquished obliterated beat L.A. to make it 17. Our thesaurus didn't have enough words. Basically, we won. Big. Get off the internet and start celebrating.......

Objectively, the Celtics are right where we want them. They did their job and took one in LA, and have two chances to finish the Lakers off at home. Realistically, though, the C's had a golden opportunity - just waiting there - to snatch another game, and thus the series, away from the Lakers last night, but just couldn't finish it off. The Celtics did themselves no favors by digging another monster hole in the......

Gino, oh Gino! Someone finally found out who the guy is who appears on the Jumbotron every Celtics game. Sadly, Gino has gone to that great big dance floor in the sky. The Wall Street Journal found that Joe Massoni, "American Bandstand" dancer extraordinaire, died of pneumonia in 1990. We were a little surprised that the identity of "Gino" would so captivate the stodgy WSJ, but they did some serious legwork. If only he......

One quarter of the way there. And in the matchup of the MVP versus the defensive team of the year, the Celtics shook off some first-half shakiness to put the defensive hammer down on LA, flummoxing Kobe Bryant and company and taking Game One of the Finals 98-88. As electric as the Finals atmosphere was (most of the drunks and pink hats seemed to have been replaced by actual basketball fans), the Garden was treated......

We wish we'd thought of this first: the perfect metaphor for these Eastern Conference Finals. Everybody's exhausted, everybody keeps fighting, and everyone streaming out of the Garden last night felt like they just went 15 rounds with a giant chicken. Yes, really. But in the end, it's the Celtics with a 3-2 lead after last night's 106-102 knock-down, drag-out, stomach-punch Game Five. And with the Celtics' bench almost completely useless, they had to turn to......

Let's start with the good news. Manny Ramirez finally broke out of his home run slump, and cracked career shot #499, a three-run shot off Seattle's Miguel Batista. Um, that's about it. The bad news is that Seattle won, 4-3, on a Jose Lopez single off Mike Timlin in the ninth. Julio Lugo got tossed for arguing a check swing, and Terry Francona was dismissed early when he came out to challenge it. "'Bout time,"......

And just like that, the epic story of the Celtics' postseason road failures is over. The C's built a big lead, survived a Detroit run, built another big lead, survived another Detroit run, and walked out of the Palace of Auburn Hills up 2-1 with a 94-80 win. Home-court advantage is back, the haters and doubters are quiet, and all is more or less right with the world. Until we get to the Sox, that......

Kinda feels like we stole one, doesn't it? The Celtics were supposed to be drained, physically and emotionally, from two long series and an emotional, close Game Seven win over Cleveland. The Pistons - bloodless, businesslike, and used to this - were well-rested after dispatching Orlando back in late February (seems like it anyway). Instead, the Pistons played like a rusty old team with a banged-up superstar, and the C's dispatched them 88-79. Or maybe......

This was borderline ugly. And for about fifteen minutes, there was no borderline. For much of the first half, the Celtics looked like every dire prediction about them was going to come true: they were bound to let a home game slip away, nobody had the guts to take a shot, LeBron was eventually going to step up and start carving through them. But late in the second quarter, Ubuntu kicked in. Rajon Rondo, who......

It might be important to remind yourself this morning that the Celtics have home-court advantage, and they could still go 16-12 in the playoffs, 0-12 on the road, and still hold up a trophy in June. But the sad and sorry fact remains that they're 0-4 on the road in the playoffs, and last night they committed the worst sin of all: they were defensively rotten and just plain uncompetitive. With LeBron James still way......

There were four multi-time All-Stars at the Garden last night. The three heads of Ghidorah, you know about already, but with Cleveland in town for Game One, LeBron James and all his accompanying hype and presence were there too. Four All-Stars, two MVP candidates, probably a great game, right? Um. No. Kevin Garnett was the only one of the marquee names to live up to the billing (28 points, 8 rebounds); in fact, KG was......

Well...that was fun. If anticlimactic. Pushed to Game Seven by a hungry Atlanta team - or dragged to Game Seven by their sporadic ineptitude, depending on which you believe - the Celtics turned on the gas and utterly annihilated the Hawks yesterday, 99-65, at the Garden. This was in every way what a big game between a 66-win #1 seed and a sub-.500 #8 seed should have looked like. It was thorough, and it was......

We honestly don't have much new to say about this afternoon's game. Win, and everything's forgotten and it's 0-0 against Cleveland. Lose - the unthinkable - and God only knows how ugly it's going to get in this town. Doc needs to coach like he's NOT being mugged, coaching a playoff game and watching his house burn down at the same time. Pierce needs to be smart and not give the refs a reason/chance to......

With their backs against the wall, responsible for a sudden regionwide crisis of confidence, the Celtics responded with one of their best, most balanced games of the season to punch Atlanta 110-85 and regain control of the first-round series. The C's put on a virtual clinic of how to spread the ball around, rely on your stars, let the bench guys contribute, and never really let the other guys into the game. Garnett set the......

It wasn't a very good night at all for Boston teams playing south of the Mason-Dixon line. Not a very good night at all. We'll start in Atlanta, where the Celtics again brought their C+ game to the playoffs, and were shocked and discouraged to see the Hawks playing way above their heads to take Game Three of the first round. Atlanta was doing everything right - running a fast, efficient transition game, draining long-range......

Maybe, in retrospect, it's not the best idea for a guy to mouth off before a game everyone know he's going to lose. In four years, remember, Freddie Mitchell went from Super Bowl trashtalker to disgraced Indiana substitute teacher. Who knows what the future holds for Atlanta Hawk point guard Mike Bibby, but you've got to wonder why he's still talking while he utterly and completely fails to back it up on the court. Not......

Someday, when Johan Santana and Jacoby Ellsbury are on the same Hall of Fame ballot, we're going to think back to the time when one was almost traded for the other. And then we're going to remember nights like last night, and no matter how many wins, K's and Cy Youngs Santana racks up over his career, we're going to thank Theo Epstein for keeping Ellsbury in Boston. Jacoby ruled the day last night in......

If we had to pick one favorite moment from the Celtics' rout of Atlanta last night... Contenders would be Pierce's opening flurry of 3-pointers, or Ray Allen confidently taking over in the third quarter, or Rondo's patented "huck the ball off the other guy while falling out of bounds" move. Or any of numerous blocks, dunks, defensive shutdowns that made the 104-81 final not really even as close as that. But the greatest moment of......

They worked hard enough in Game Two to go to OT. Last night, they took it a step further, as the Bruins beat Montreal for the first time since about 1982 in a thrilling 2-1 OT win at the Garden. It started with a Milan Lucic goal in the first period, giving the B's their first lead against the Canadiens since about 1995. Tom Kostopolous evened the score late in the second. So much for......

Even the most pie-eyed, green-blooded Celtic optimist didn't think it was going to be this good. No team since the Kings did it in 2001 has traveled the fabled Texas Triangle without at least a nick and a scratch. Maybe no team since then has really been as good as the 2007-08 Celtics. And last night was tough; make no mistake. The Mavericks, even though they haven't gotten all the attention of some of their......

Radio guy Sean Grande said it at one point in the second half; there were a lot of bloggers and NBA experts ready to go on the Internet and write that the Celtics really weren't for real. After the first quarter, they'd have had a serious case. The C's couldn't hit the broad side of the barn, and their vaunted defense was being repeatedly torched by Tony Parker and company. This looked bleak. The Celts......

Give Seattle some credit. Going nowhere, ready to board a long flight home after an extended road trip, they hung around with the Celtics for six or seven minutes. Which is six or seven minutes more than we expected, frankly. Once the initial six or seven minutes ended, though, the Celtics put down the hammer and commenced blowing the overmatched Sonics out of the building. Garnett had 18 (and was immortalized in bobbleheaded glory, as......

Passionate baseball fans like to know the ins and outs of their teams, the little things that may come to play roles in final scores and performances. But we'd hoped that we'd heard the last discussions about a Red Sox player's sleep schedule last year, when we learned that Dasiuke Matsuzaka was having a tough time transitioning from Japanese beds to their American counterparts. Instead, 2008 has brought with it the Josh Beckett SleepWatch, and......

Does anyone remember what the preseason over/under for the Celtics was? Because we're pretty sure it was about 48 wins, but it seems like all evidence has been scrubbed from the Internet. If anybody thought back then that Ghidorah would take a few months to get used to one another and the C's would struggle, they sure wouldn't want it on their record now. Because last night was win #50 for the Green, who look......

A year ago, the Celtics and the Memphis Grizzlies were nervously eyeing one another for ping-pong balls. Neither team was going anywhere, and both were playing out the string fully aware that getting too good would kill their lottery chances. As it turned out, neither team had a lottery chance, as the Fates punished both franchises by withholding Oden and Durant. The Celtics, as you may have heard, took the blow as a chance to......

Movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn once famously said of preachy movies, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union.". Well, Western Union is now out of the telegram business, so the Celtics had to send a message to Detroit some other way, playing stifling defense, fundamental offense, and grinding out a win that - well, that sends the message - that they just might actually be the best team in the East. Everybody chipped......