(Yahoo Sports)

Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks

October 9, 2009

TD Garden

Final Score

Boston Celtics 96  New York Knicks 82

During tonight's preseason game against the Knicks, the Celtics had moments where they played very good basketbal, and moments they played very sloppy basketball. Do you want the good news first or the bad news?

We will start off with the bad news. The Cetlics shot very poorly in the first half of the game, and into the third quarter. The C's ended up shooting 44% from the field but at one point during the 2nd quarter, I didn't think either team was going to score. I guess that isn't too much bad news, we have to remember that is why they call this the preseason. You have to expect that the guys will be a little rusty after not playing in a game for 3 months.

On to the good news, which I think there was a lot of. First, and foremost, I will get the KG issue out of the way. He looked GOOD, not quite the KG from 2007 but I think he is slowly getting there. Before the game Doc explained how he plans to distribute minutes to KG.

       "What I'm trying to build him back to is playing normal minutes in a game, He   hasn't done that in a long time."

Tonight Doc ended up giving KG 22 minutes of playing time, slightly more than what he played Thursday against Houston. In those 22 minutes KG showed no signs of pain in his leg. He scored 10 points and had 8 rebounds.

Other positives tonight included the play of Sheed, Perk, Scal, Ray, and the overall team defense. Sheed came off the bench tonight and scored a double-double with 13 points and 12 boards, most of which came at the beginning of the 3rd quarter. Perk also played very well tonight scoring 7 of the teams first 10 points, while accidently scoring a bucket on a missed alley-oop to KG. He ended up with 14 points and 7 boards. I had to throw Scal in there for his 9 point effort, all of which came from corner three's. Ray also had a fairly decent game, he ended up with 14 points and a 3 point basket to end the 2nd quarter. The Celtic's defense  looked sharp to start the game, I don't know if this is compliments of bad shooting by the Knicks, or great defense by the C's. They limited them to shooting 13% in the 1st quarter.

Hopefully as we keep playing games we notice more and more from this team. I think if we work out a few small kinks we are going to be extremely hard to beat. Next game is Sunday @ home against the New Jersey Nets.