With seconds left in a tie game, the ball was in Rajon Rondo's hands out of a timeout. Rondo drove to the hoop and was hacked with 1.5 seconds left. At the free throw line with a chance to seal the deal, Rondo (who is shooting 53% from the FT line) missed both freebies. Baron Davis, who committed the foul on Rondo that almost cost his team the game, hit a fade-away as time expired for a 92-90 victory for the Clippers.
Much of the blame for this loss will be focused on Rondo and his inability to hit his clutch free throws, but many other factors went into this loss. The Celtics beat themselves continuously at the end of the game with their last score coming on a Tony Allen lay-up with 2:06 left. As a matter of fact, they scored only 4 points in the final 4:45 as they let the Clippers hang around.
Poor shooting from Kevin Garnett (5-13 FGs) and Rasheed Wallace (4-16 FGs, 0-6 3PTs) hurt the C's too. KG was not able to hit his outside jumper that he normally nails, and Sheed was hucking up bricks. As a team, the Celtics were 1-12 from downtown on the night.
The Celtics clearly miss their captain Paul Pierce, but he will not be back for at least another week. Tony Allen did have 10 points, 10 boards, and 4 steals on the evening, but his inability to hit his jump shot make defenses collapse a little bit which made the game down low a bit tougher.
A quick turnaround as the C's head to Golden State for a 10:30 tip off tonight. Despite a grueling game on Christmas day, a 6 hour flight to LA, and a heartbreaking loss, the season marches on and the C's need to gather themselves against the run and gun Warriors or risk losing back-to-back on the road.
Heartbreaker! DA
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