Boston Celtics Opening Night

November 1, 2007

by Dj RyB

Celtics Opening Night 2007 - November 1, 2007

The first game of the season was set to be an emotional night. We all knew that there would be some special things planned to commemorate the life of Red Auerbach. The first game was finally here and me and the boys we were fired up. Here is how the night went down:

I won 4 tickets in section 16 from the radio station WFNX. I don't even remember entering, but it was a nice surprise when I got the call. Me and the 3 "chosen ones" decided to meet up at Sullivan's Tap on Friend Street near the Fleet Center...I mean Garden. Z made it there first and sent me a text reading "FYI: This place is packed and about ten thousand degrees". Sweet. He also failed to mention that it was packed with 95% dudes and it was impossible to get a beer. Great start to the night. We should have known better. One of my co-workers, who just so happens to be a lady, walked in to say hello. I later found out that she had counted a total of 4 girls in the bar and she was one of them! Note to self: Stay away from Sully's Tap if I ever want to meet a girl that likes basketball. This was also disappointing because we were hoping to get some rounds of Pop-A-Shot in before the game. Oh well.

We finally met up with the rest of the crew to head on in to the game. There was a very nice image of the new Red Auerbach logo that was being projected onto the side of the Garden. I thought this was a great image to see as everyone makes their way inside. My first observation of the night was a super hot girl, maybe age 27 tops, with a super tool guy most likely in his 50's. I can't believe that this still happens, no matter how many times I see it. I just hope I have a lot of money when I am 50. We got our tickets scanned and headed towards the escalator. But wait a minute, it's broken! How can this be? You had all season to make sure this worked correctly. Now we have to head for the stairs. Ugh. I should have known this was a sign of things to come.

I rushed to get my first beer at the first visible concession stand. It just so happened to be the "Seafood Shack". To quote Borat, "It's a Nice!" I was thoroughly excited to A) get a beer immediately and B) find a new food option. I don't know how I missed this on Wednesday at the preseason game but it was a nice surprise. How do the choices of Fish and Chips, Fried Clams, Shrimp Cocktail and Popcorn Shrimp sound? I thought so. Only one in the crew turned up his nose at the delectable odors eminating from the "Shack". I think he may have dry heaved or puked in his mouth but it's his loss. All choices were semi-affordable when compared to everything else in the arena. I chose the Popcorn Shrimp later in the night. It goes great with two Bud Lights!

One of the crew went for food in a separate line than where he purchased his beer. This is a big no-no because of the time it takes to get anything at the Garden. We decided to check out the new full bar "The Hub" right around the corner. It looks very nice and the drinks are about $7-$8, as I previously mentioned in the preview. We put our drinks down on the stand up tables. We were then approached by a creepy middle aged man with a bow tie and a deck of cards. "Dan the Magic Man" proceeded to give us his schtick and was mildly entertaining for about 30 seconds. I think he saw the pain in our faces and wrapped up quickly but he seemed like a nice enough guy. I don't know if this was just over the top opening night antics or if they are truly going to be doing extra things like this all year. Let's pray for the former.

Now on to the game! Well, not quite. I wanted to mention that we saw some really cool, yet negative things in warmups of all places. All of the Celtics were pumped to get the season rolling. Gerald Green decided to throw one off the backboard and catch it for a windmill dunk. It definitely got the crowd excited and they wanted more. Instead of just ending it or one of the veterans telling them to take it easy, we suddenly had a dunk contest going on with Green and most of the other youngsters. This is where someone like Pierce needs to speak up. In retrospect, it seemed almost disrespectful and immature. Good teams don't do those things. They just get ready like a professional. At the time it was pretty damn cool. Green is a monster and has ridiculous hops. Who's playing for second in the Dunk Contest, by the way?

For some reason they announced the full teams before the starting lineups for both the Hornets and Celtics. I have never noticed this before but maybe I just wasn't paying attention. As I heard them rattling off the names for the Celtics, I realized that neither Gomes or Jefferson was starting. How could that be? They are the only two power forwards. This was the first sign of the new season. Never underestimate the ridiculous decisions of the Doc. Here is the starting lineup for your 2007 Boston Celtics! Kendrick Perkins (C), Wally Szczerbiak (PF? WTF!), Sebastian Telfair (PG), Delonte West (SG; He also didn't even practice the day before) and Paul Pierce (SF)! Not only did this completely confuse the crowd but I think the C's were a little baffled as well. This team never played together once in the preseason. This was just horrendous.

There was an excellent video montage to remember Red. They also brought out a bagpipe crew to play the um, bagpipes. Paul Pierce then made a very nice speech about Red and what he meant to the Celtics, the NBA and to him personally. He said he will be dedicating the rest of his career as a Celtic to him. Then he got the crowd going with Red's favorite thing; "Let's go Celtics! Let's go! (Clap, Clap).

So let's get the game started already. One of two things was going to happen. The C's would come out and kick the Hornets asses because they were so fired up or they would completely play flat and nervous because of all the excitement of opening night and the emotions from Red. They chose option #2 and couldn't hit the side of a barn. They probably missed the first 8-10 shots and missed badly. Wally bricked everything. Perkins was tight. West looked like he was high off the ganja. Telfair looked nervous in his new city and Pierce was invisible. In the meantime, Chris Paul and West decided to hit every shot they took and completely quiet the crowd right from the opening tip.

I also just want to quickly add that I really like Chris Paul as a player. I have never seen him live and it really did make a difference in my appreciation for his game. Everything about it is ridiculous. He is super fast with, and without, the ball. He plays great defense and is a nuisance to anyone with a sketchy handle (see Tony Allen). He knows when to pass, when to look for his own shot and he can also anticipate very well. Overall the Hornets had a pretty impressive starting 5: Paul, Stojakovic, Mason, West and Chandler. Look out for these guys when they get some team chemistry.

The Celtics finally started to hit some shots but it was still ugly. Pierce was not scoring, but he also wasn't really shooting. He probably had 8 points almost up to the end of the seconds quarter. One stat that he kept piling up was his rebounds. He ended up with a career high 18 boards. This was not what I was expecting and not really what we needed from him. Somehow the Celtics kept it at a reasonable defecit. They could have easily been down by 30 points by the half.

There was a second tribute to Red at the half. Glenn Ordway (who resembles a 4'6" Oompa Loompa) was the MC and he asked some boring questions to ML Carr, Tommy Heinsohn and JoJo White. There is a reason why this guy does mostly radio gigs. He was shorter standing than ML Carr was sitting. Why was ML Carr even there, anyway? He was a bench cheerleader on the Celtics in the 80's. He was never coached by Red. I also couldn't understand a word he said. I think they needed a third speaker, he's local and they KNEW he had nothing else to do. Tommy had the best story involving exploding cigars. I guess Auerbach was a joker back in the day. I was definitely cracking up at the story. I think he was already 3 deep on the Vodka and Cran's. JoJo was boring and I may have fallen asleep when he spoke. The worst part of this tribute was when the Hornets came out of the locker room. West and Chandler started dribbling and even took a few shots as they were still talking at half court. This was just pure ignorance. They obviously had no respect and probably little knowledge of what Red meant to the NBA. The crowd immediately started yelling at them and booing hard. They stopped their antics quickly but it should have never come to that in the first place.

The second half finally began and it was more of the same. The C's looked flat and the rotation got even more out of control. We didn't see the same lineup for more than 5 minutes at a time. Surprisingly, they did start the second half with the original 5, which was not necessarrily a good thing. This is also when we started to realize how bad the officiating crew was performing. One of the refs went down with an injury in the first half. How does that happen? You run forward and backward basically in a straight line. Anyway, these other two refs continued the trend of calling EVERY f'n foul along with some ridiculous traveling calls. Z pointed out that none of these guys looked familiar and they were all fairly young. It looked like we were stuck with some D-League left overs. Anytime the C's started to cut the deficit and get a tiny bit of momentum, another awful foul was called, messing up their flow.

I believe Tony Allen had something to do with killing the momentum as well. He was in the game WAY too long. Almost the whole third quarter, if I remember correctly. He continues to dribble off his knee, make telegraphed passes and reach in for really bad fouls. Gerald Green never even played in the game. Would he really have been any worse? This was extremely frustrating to watch.

Pierce started to hit some shots and it was suddenly a 2 point game. The crowd was back into it and I thought this could be the making of a truly great ending to a special night. No one else was helping him make it happen, however. Pierce even reverted back to his play of 2 or 3 years ago when he would dribble around too much into a triple team trap in the corner and then heave up a ridiculous fadeaway. He hit a couple of these shots and it was clear he would continue to shoot until he missed. I can't blame him though. He wanted to carry this team on his back. It would turn out to be too little, too late. The Celts just weren't going to win this game.

Fans began to leave with about 1:30 remaining, yet they were only down 5. The win or at least a chance to put the game into overtime was still very possible. We just needed a few things to go our way. Have some damn faith, people! I guess they could see the writing on the wall because it just wasn't going to happen. Final score: Hornets 91 - Celtics 87

This was not a good start to the season. There should have been more energy and emotion to win this one for Red. I think they were drained but we also have too many young guys that don't truly know the importance and impact of Red. Pierce seemed to be the only one that really knows the deal. I also think Doc needs to get a clue and pick some kind of rotation. If Ainge was smart, he would already be conducting phone interviews for Doc's replacement who will take over in about 5 weeks. Picking names out of a hat is not how you pick your starting lineup in the NBA. The preseason seemed to be a complete waste of time, since Doc used none of these learnings to his advantage.

I'll be at the game this Friday vs. the Detroit Pistons. Let's hope they come out with a fire under their asses and guns blazing. Just make sure Telfair goes through security to make sure that last sentence is just a figure of speech.