As I sat in the lobby of school, with very little to do but poke around the web, I started looking into some Celtics stats. I came across some split stats and noticed that Rondo did overwhelmingly better during the day games, than he did at night. So I dug through it for the whole team to see if it was a trend, and figured in the end that it would probably be best of the Celtics did not have to play a playoff game in the afternoon (if the pattern were to remain constant).

All "afternoon" games I include are anywhere from 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM since those are visually different than an evening game. The stats for the starting 5 during the day were all tremendous. In all three of the major categories the C's did better during the day than at night:

DAY GAMES (Staring 5 only)

Points= 74.5 ppg

Assists= 20.2 apg

Rebounds= 28.5 rpg

EVENING GAMES (Starting 5 only)

Points= 72.1

Assists= 19.1

Rebounds= 27

You don't have to be a math major to grasp the understanding that this shows the Celtics starters scoring 2.4 more ppg, 1.1 more apg, and 1.5 more rpg during the day. Well that is convincing.. Then why would I sit here and contradict myself by saying they shouldn't play during the day?? The record, and the defense is greater than the offensive stats can tell. We have only scratched the surface.

The team started the season out hot during day games. They were 3-0 in games against: Orlando, Toronto, and New York. Since then, however, the painting has not been so beautiful. After letting go of 5 straight day games, the Celtics have slipped to 3-5 during the day. These losses were against: Cleveland, New Jersey, Denver, Orlando, and LA. What is the issue then? Why are they losing these games??

The defense has not been there on the majority of these games. They have allowed 99.6 ppg in all games (including the games they won). In 5 of the 8 games (not necessarily the games they lost) the Celtics gave up over 100 points.

They can score gimme buckets at the end of games, and grab gimme rebounds when the game is all wrapped up for the other team to push their offensive stats up. They can even focus more on their offense (throughout the game) to get these increased day stats. The point is, and it is what we KNOW to be true, everything depends on the Celtics defense. When the playoffs come around they will not be able to outscore teams, they will instead have to stop them. At some point in the playoffs they will have a day game on a weekend, and they will have to get things squared away.

(Photo by Steve Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)