Believe In Boston AKA Boston Sports Report Part Nine

I haven't done one of these in a while but with all of the things jumping off this extended weekend (today's a Boston holiday) I figured this would be the perfect time. Last night, the Boston Celtics began their drive for the 2007-08 NBA Championship at the TD Banknorth Garden in front of a sold out crowd that included several sports personalities and celebrities. The Celtics didn't disappoint as they completely thrashed the hapless Atlanta Hawks 104-81.

The Celtics were lead by Ray Allen (18 pts), Kevin Garnett (16 pts, 10 reb, 4 ast & 2 blks), Paul Pierce (16 pts) and the all around dominance of Rajon Rondo (15 pts, 6 reb, 9 ast & 2 stl). The constant defensive pressure and relentless push, teamwork and passing ability of the Celtics completely wore out the Hawks even though the C's aggressive defense landed them in early foul trouble.

Leon Powe (10 pts), Sam Cassell (10 pts) and James Posey (8 pts) all came up big off the bench and played stellar defense, ultimately holding the Hawks to 38% shooting from the floor while the Celtics hit 9 of 16 three point attempts in the contest. Josh Smith was neutralized and Al Horford's game was overshadowed by the tandem of KG and Leon Powe as the Celtics faithful got to see Gino with just less than 3 minutes to go in the contest. Next C's game is Wednesday the 23rd @ The Jungle.

This afternoon, the defending World Champion Boston Red Sox (I love writing that!) won their 5th straight game and the 9th of their last 10 overall in an 8-3 trashing of the Texas Rangers. They swept the Rangers in a four game series to improve to 14-7 on the young baseball season (2nd best record in MLB).

The Red Sox are powered by Manny Ramirez's .338 average and AL leading 6 HR's and 20 RBI's. J.D. Drew, Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek have got out to hot starts and David Ortiz has broken out of his slump and become a red hot RBI machine ever since the Yankees dug up his jersey.

Daisuke Matsuzaka is 4-0 with a 3.14 ERA with 28 K's in 28.2 IP so far this season. New additions Sean Casey and Jed Lowrie have filled in admirably since Mike Lowell landed on the IL and helped the Red Sox to come from behind wins in 9 of their 14 victories. They start a new three game series against the Los Angeles-Anaheim Angels next.

Tonight at 7pm, many of us (including myself...someone who hasn't cared about hockey since the early 90's) will be watching Game 7 as the 8th seeded Boston Bruins try to knock off the top seeded Montreal Canadiens and possibly shock the world (and not just that one dude from Sum 41). Hopefully, they'll pull it off tonight and Boston can continue it's winning ways. I'll catch you all tomorrow.


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