That one hurt

This was a tale of two halves, the first half was amazing, while the second was a virtual nightmare.  I thought Rondo was phenomenal in this game.  He drove to the basket, constantly abusing Mo Williams, and anyone else that attempted to guard him.  If he wasn't finishing at the rim, he was kicking it out to open-shooters, great stuff.  Rondo took a serious beating, paying the price for going into the paint on several occasions.  I thought in the thrid and fourth quarters Rondo had a difficult time playing with those 4 fouls, forcing him to become less aggressive, and allowing Mo Williams to catch fire and ignite Cleveland's run.  Kevin Garnett looked great tonight (18 points, 10 rebounds), but should have continued to post-up Jamison in the second half.  I love KG for being unselfish, but sometimes I wonder if we'd be better off if he was.  Paul Pierce started out strong, then proceeded to go ice-cold when we needed him most, that simply can't happen again.  Finally, the bench was atrocious tonight.  Big Baby, where were you?  And don't even get me started on Rasheed.  If I'm Doc Rivers, not only do I not give him any meaningful minutes, I would demand that he physically leave the team for the remainder of the season.  Just go home, and come back in October, if you feel like actually producing.  The referees were extremely biased in the second half, but hey, it's the NBA.  Cleveland was bound to make a "run", and with a little help from the officials it turned out to be deadly for the green team.  There were a couple of downright brutal calls, but over the course of the series, they pretty much always even out.  Oh, and how's the elbow, Lebron?  What a friggin diva that guy is.  The status of that stupid elbow is the biggest non-story in the history of sports.  Just another way for this attention-starved baby to have the cameras on him.  What a jerk.  You're the best player on the planet, and in my opinion, the most dominant force the game has ever seen, drop the unneccessary antics, and just play.

I'm still stewing over this loss, and we are almost 12 hours removed.  It's going to be excruciatingly painful waiting for monday night's tip-off, and even more difficult for the team, who have to be thinking that they should have a 1-0 series lead, with home-court advantage now on their side.  Not only that, but the team has to stay in Cleveland, which isn't exactly Miami or La-La.  I don't know this for a fact, but I'm guessing there are high rates of depression and suicide in that midwestern cesspool.  I will say this, in the first half Cleveland must have been uttering a collective "Oh sh*t, this definitely isn't the same Celtics we saw in the regular season."  Many fans are now writing the Celtics off, because of their seeming inability to close out this game, but I'm not giving up yet.   We can play with this team, and I'm pretty confident this series is going the distance.  Keep the faith ya'll.