Adam Jones: Celtics Do Good Job, Give Good Effort In Win Over Heat
BOSTON (CBS) - "Good job! Good effort!" . . . now good luck getting a top lottery pick.
The Boston Celtics clinched the season series against Miami Wednesday night with a 101-96 home win over the LeBron-less Heat.
Rondo messed around and almost got himself a triple double - he finished the game with 9 points, 15 assists and 10 rebounds.
Beating the Heat just didn't have the same fervor without Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, but for a 23-46 Celtics team, getting a win over the back-to-back world champions was certainly a moral victory . . . but moral victories at this stage of the game won't help you land a top college star in the NBA draft.
Adam Jones was on the air postgame to explain why it was a bad win for the hometown team.
"After you get out of being entertained tonight, you wake up and realize the Celtics are now sixth in the lottery. To me it's sort of a double kick below the belt. You didn't get to see LeBron James play, the Celtics win and all of a sudden you're back to sixth in the lottery," said Jones.
Even with LeBron sitting out, Rich Keefe still felt like the Heat would come in to the TD Garden and hand the Celtics their sixth straight loss. But it didn't happen that way.
Rondo hit two huge baskets late to lift the C's to a win, and Avery Bradley was on fire from behind the arc.
"Dwyane Wade played, Chris Bosh played, Ray Allen played, but the Celtics just shot great from three, including Avery Bradley. He was terrific. Rondo almost had a triple-double and they had some pretty good performances there. They snapped a losing streak, but now as we're running down to the end of the season the Celtics find themselves in sixth place in the lottery," said Keefe.
"And that's the biggest part of it. If you're sixth in the lottery you could be picking freaking ninth!" said an annoyed Adam Jones.
"If you're picking ninth, at that point you're really talking about trying to get a steal. In this draft there's five, six maybe seven players. After that there could be some All Stars, but you're gonna need someone that's really a surprise.
"If you're in that top three or top five, Danny Ainge has a much better chance of getting somebody. Or again, if you're gonna trade the pick it has much more value than say the ninth pick, which is a real possibility right now," concluded Keefe.
Listen below for the full discussion:
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