The Celtics tip off a stretch of three games in four days tonight against three of their biggest rivals in the league. Tonight’s game against Orlando is followed by Atlanta tomorrow night and the Lakers on Sunday.
Scott Souza wonders why the league just didn’t go ahead and schedule the Cavaliers in for Saturday while they were at it. Jim Fenton also looks at the challenging stretch of games coming up. Chris Forsberg has the Celtics looking forward to this challenge. Steve Bulpett has the Magic looking for payback for the Christmas Day loss the Celtics handed them. A. Sherrod Blakely has tonight’s game a big one for both teams.
Mark Murphy has Doc Rivers holding himself accountable.
Paul Flannery makes his All Star reserves selections. Gary Washburn wonders if Rajon Rondo might get his first All Star nod when the reserves are named tonight on TNT.
Stan Grossfeld catches up with former Celtic Glenn McDonald, one of the heroes of game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals.
Patriots
Speaking as Vince Wilfork, Karen Guregian says that the nose tackle should absolutely hold out if the franchise tag is put on him. Glen Farley has Wilfork wanting no part of the franchise tag. Mike Reiss offers his analysis of Wilfork’s statements yesterday on WEEI. On Patriots Daily we’re wondering if the Patriots should even re-sign Wilfork.
Jeff Howe says that Bill Belichick can’t go wrong by naming either Matt Patricia or Pepper Johnson as defensive coordinator. Christopher Price looks at the Patriots linebackers.
Albert R. Breer has scouts questioning the NFL ability of Tim Tebow. Ian R. Rapoport has Pete Carroll learning his lesson from his stint in New England, especially when it comes to personnel.
Tom E. Curran says that the Pro Bowl has just gone from bad to worse. Steve Buckley says that this Super Bowl doesn’t need Brett Favre.
The Globe Patriots notebook has Wes Welker’s ACL surgery set for Tuesday at Mass General. Guregian’s notebook has more on the surgery. Rapoport’s Senior Bowl Notebook has the Patriots warning prospects about the potential evils of social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
Misc
Fluto Shinzawa has the Bruins grinding it out at practice in an attempt to shake themselves out of their slump. Joe Haggerty wonders which door leads to success for the Bruins. James Murphy says that the return of Marc Savard will be huge on and off the ice for the Bruins. Steve Conroy has Peter Chiarelli declaring Claude Julien’s job safe.
Mike Fine has Tim Wakefield wanting to be a starter. Brian MacPherson has a good piece on catching prospect Luis Exposito. Tom Caron says that Mike Cameron will be a huge factor in the Red Sox clubhouse. John Tomase has Daniel Bard pleased to be working with Jonathan Papelbon for another year.
Former Harvard football captain Carl Ehrlich writes about his experiences playing football in Spain.
Bill Reynolds misses Pete Sheppard.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
Rest in Peace to JD Salinger inventor of the catchup on marble rye sandwich…Salinger namesake JD Drew plans on disappearing in tribute, shine on you crazy diamond…baseball diamond that is!…Shutter Island, the long awaited prequel to Cast Away is the one must see movie of 2010…According to Jim is still a very funny show…Gas prices…If only that Big Apple computer company could make a Myphone that was bigger and didn’t have so many confusing features, they’d take New York and the rest
of the country by storm just like the cast of Broadway’s Cats…Bottled water doesn’t compare to fetching a pail from the well…Speaking of storms, Football’s Rex Ryan, the pigskin counterpart of wrestling’s Tugboat is taking the league by storm…the Titans have lost a lot of games but not many on so large a stage…2 words for Vince Wilfork if you are franchised, make it a Krispy Kreme, they’re taking the country by storm and will never fail…mmm mmm catsup on marbled rye
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Good stuff, KingLarry! Now if you have a pair of suspenders and can sit in a hunched-over position, you’re all set for a skit on SNL.
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Good article on Glenn McDonald. He is your classic fifteen minutes of fame profile. I still remember the game. It was as good a ballgame as you could imagine. As good as Havlicek and Cowens were Jo Jo White was spectacular that night. I think we forget what a terrific ball player he was and just how clutch he was.
In hindsight the Celtics could have probably used McDonald considering what busts Rowe and Wicks were. In fact the only memory I have of Sidney Wicks is seeing his head snap back and forth from the beating he took from 5’7″ Calvin Murphy.
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KG looks REALLY bad right now. He blew 2 ally oops and let Rashard Lewis end the game by driving right by him (disclaimer: Lewis is a 13 year veteran, no spring chicken). He’s damaged goods and it’s depressing.
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Look on the bright side: only 2 more years to go on that extension he signed when the trade was made.
Seriously, the C’s keep registering these frustrating “L’s” because they have been getting clobbered on the boards all season long. Last night was a classic example. Orlando loses that game by 12-16 points if the C’s can just stay even with them on the glass–the offensive rebounds were the difference.
How can a team with Perk, KG and Rasheed Wallace constantly end up -10 or -15 in the rebounding department on a consistent basis?
Ainge needs to address that weakness at the trading deadline, if he can, and forget about adding more offense (or flipping Ray Allen’s offense in return for some other guy’s offense).
As for KG–they need to bring him along slowly. When this team has its full compliment of players (including Daniels, whose absence has been felt these last several weeks), they’re still as good as anyone (rebounding issues aside). If they only win 52-54 regular season games, that’s fine. It’s still good enough to win the division and get the #3 seed in the East, which gives them home court for the first round anyway–it’s all about being as healthy as possible when April arrives.
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“Speaking as Vince Wilfork, Karen Guregian says that the nose tackle should absolutely hold out if the franchise tag is put on him”
ahhhh…career advice from Karen Guregian!….ya gotta love it….If Pats play hardball and let him sit out that’s 8 million bucks he’ll never recoup. Not to mention the fact there might be a lockout/strike in 2011, by the time that’s over Vince should weigh 500lbs and his career will be over.
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