Boston Celtics: Yes, they won. But they also failed to hold onto a 17-point lead and barely held on to win at home. That didn't exactly instill me with a lot of confidence, even if Ray Allen's jumper finally came home.

The Boston reserves: It was shades of 1987 all over again. No, Larry didn't steal the ball. I'm talking about the lousy bench. The Beantown auxiliaries were "good" for 3 points (1-for-5), 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 turnovers, and 4 fouls in 30 minutes of...you know what? That doesn't even count as lack-tion. Bravo to Sam Cassell for avoiding a two trillion by throwing the ball away once. Still, that wasn't as bad as...

Eddie House: E-Money must have been munching on magic mushrooms before the game, because he transformed into -- jrrp jrrp jrrp --Super Mario! (Five Basketbawful bucks to any reader who can come up with a better phonetic sound effect for the Super Mario transformation.)

Rajon Rondo: The kid had a great floor game (13 assists, only 1 turnovers) and active hands on defense (4 steals), but his shooting was sucksational: 3-for-14. And those numbers are actually worse than you think: He was 0-for-4 on jumpers and only 3-for-10 on layups. Greg Kite is a bigger scoring threat for the Celtics. And I don't mean the Greg Kite from 1984, I mean Greg Kite right now.

Kevin Garnett: It's hard to pick on a guy who scored 33 points (11-for-17) and hit the game-clinching freethrows, but I think I'm up to the challenge. Here's what KG during that last desperate stretch when the Celtics almost choked up their lead. 6:48 - Turnover. 5:51 - Turnover. 5:08 - Missed jump shot. 4:04 - Two made freethrows. 3:32 - Two made freethrows. 2:38 - Missed jump shot. 0:18 - Missed jump shot. 0:03 - Two made freethrows.

So basically, in clutch time, KG was 0-for-3 from outside and bobbled the ball away twice. He did add four important freethrows, as well as the two game-clinchers off the forced foul...but still. That wasn't exactly a clutchtastic performance.

Not-so-fun fact: Hoffman from Ballerblogger has pinpointed KG's Achilles' heal. And while it's not "I've grown a second, evil head!" shocking, the numbers are pretty revealing. "KG has attempted more shots (68) than any other Celtic in the Conference Finals. He's also leading 'Boston’s Big 3' in field goal percentage (.515). But 55 of those 68 shot attempts have been outside of the paint. Fifty-two percent is a good shooting percentage but it pales in comparison to the 69% (9-of-13) KG is shooting from inside the paint. This is why Kevin Garnett was the Defensive Player of the Year and not the MVP this season. He's either incapable or unwilling to impose his will upon games and lead his team to victory on both ends. Someone needs to remind Garnett that he’s a power forward!" Incapable or unwilling? Well, we know what Bill Simmons has to say on the subject...

Detroit Pistons: They once again waited a little too long to start playing with a sense of urgency. Do you realize how often that last line could have been used for this team over the last few years?

Rasheed Wallace: 'Sheed got his sixth technical foul of the playoffs -- a seventh will mean an automatic one-game suspension -- and then went supernova on the officials after the game. "All that (expletive) calls they had out there, with Mike (Callahan) and Kenny (Mauer) you've all seen that (expletive). You saw them calls. The cats are flopping all over the floor and they're calling that (expletive). That (expletive) ain't basketball out there. It's all (expletive) entertainment. You all should know that (expletive). It's all (expletive) entertainment."

You know, that last quote could be the first-ever Rasheed Wallace Mad-lib. Just replace every "expletive" with a funny word, like "fart" or "vagina" or "Magellanic Cloud." NBA Action: It's (expletive)-tastic!

Man-love insert: Basketbawful reader Charles spotted 'Sheed going in for a grabful of A-cup Allen. I'm sure that cat was just floppin' though...


Rodney Stuckey: The kid's not here because he shot 3-for-9 and missed all three of his layups. He's here because he accidentally made a freethrow he meant to miss with four seconds left and his team down three. Who knew that missing a freethrow could be so hard. And the look on his face was classic. Can anybody find a picture or some video of that?

Antonio McDyess: In Game 4, he hopped in the WABAC Machine, returning to his 1997-98 form for a 21-point, 16-rebound performance. But he apparently came back to the future last night: 4 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 turnovers and 6 fouls in 28 minutes. I guess he really did leave it all on the floor in Game 4.

Theo Ratliff: He did about as well as anybody could hope for last night: 2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 foul in almost 14 minutes. But that's not good enough for some people (and by "some people" I mean "everybody who's rooting for the Pistons"). And so stopplayingtheoratliff.blogspot.com was born! (Thanks to John L. for the link.)

Yahoo!: This just in: The Celtics are going to the NBA Finals! I mean, they won Game 6 last night, right...? Oops. (This message was brought to you by the eagle eyes of Sky Flakes.)

Labels: bench play, Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, fan submissions, Kevin Garnett, man love, NBA playoffs, Rajon Rondo, Rasheed Wallace, Worst of the Night