When we here at Boston Daily think of menacing gestures, we typically think of deploying the middle finger to someone who cuts us off in traffic. But Celtics star Paul Pierce has been dealing with a furor after he flashed a hand signal during Saturday’s game against the Hawks.

Was it a gang signal? An innocent call to arms? Whatever it was, Mayor Tom Menino is down with it.

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You could tell something was going to be different at the Garden about 10 minutes before tip-off. On the videoboard was one of those cheesy montages featuring all the Hawks highlights from the last two games. There’s Josh Childress dunking. There’s Al Horford taunting Paul Pierce. There’s confetti streaming down like Atlanta just won an NBA Championship.

The point of the video, apparently, was to get the crowd riled up, and on that score it worked. A “Let’s Go Celtics” chant emerged from the rafters and filled up the building to the point that the video people simply cut the sound in the arena and just let the crowd take over. If you closed your eyes it could have been the old Garden, circa 1984, back when the fans didn’t need videos and mascots to tell them when to make noise.

The cheesy t-shirt promotion didn’t take either. This crowd didn’t need any of that NBA-approved nonsense. They wanted blood, and they got it, serenading Horford with a vulgar chant when the precocious rookie hit the deck in the fourth quarter, and harassing Mike Bibby and Zaza the Flopper throughout. It was an M-V-P performance from the Garden faithful.

After the jump, three more things from Game 5. (more…)

OK, the first time somebody decided to hand out the same colored t-shirts to fans entering the building before a playoff game was kind of original. Cool, a white out. Oooh, a black out. Scary.

But like everything else with the over-marketed NBA Fan Experience! (exclamation point assumed) it’s gotten a little old.

Nevertheless, tonight before your Boston Celtics take on those high-flyin’ Atlanta Hawks in a pivotal Game 5 (this stuff writes itself), green t-shirts will be handed out to the fans, for a what? A green-out? A four-leaf clover? (more…)

Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Four games in, and suddenly the Atlanta Hawks are shocking the world. You couldn’t find a soul, outside of Atlanta, who gave the Hawks even a slight chance last night, and here they are with the series tied, 2-2.

What was so disconcerting for the Celtics is they delivered not one, but two, knockout punches last night—opening up 16-3, and taking a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter—and they still couldn’t close the deal. The whole turn of events was so stunning, Donny Marshall was left with nothing but spin: “Both teams did what they had to do,” Donny said. “They won their games at home.”

Um, no. When you finish 29 games ahead of your opponent, you are supposed to sweep, or at the very least, split on their court. After the jump, three observations of what has become a very interesting series. (more…)

The first thing you notice about Rajon Rondo is his calmness. He is 22 years old, in his first full season as a starting point guard in the NBA for the league’s best team, and he is the guy identified by the opposition as the one they most want to shoot. He plays alongside three perennial All-Stars, in a position that demands that he take control. He can’t just blend in, like say, Kendrick Perkins. He also has a backup in Sam Cassell who has a highlight DVD full of big shots taken, and made, in his long and storied career.

Rondo has been the best, and most consistent player, on the Celtics in their first-round series against the Hawks, and he will have to be this good, if not better, if they are to keep playing late into June. He knows this. The Celtics know it, and the rest of the league knows it too.

None of this, however, seems to cause him one ounce of consternation. (more…)

So, that was all you had, Mike Bibby? Two days of schoolyard taunts and a back-and-forth with Kendrick Perkins and you get taken apart for the second straight game by Rajon Rondo?

So much for that. The Celtics have a 2-0 lead, they’ve won both games by double-digits, their young point guard is destroying his veteran opponent, and here’s the kicker—they’re not even playing that well yet.

After the jump, five things you need to know from last night at the Garden. (more…)

What do you get for the NBA writer who is bored asking the same questions day after day? A little controversy. So, there was much joy among the media multitudes in Waltham today thanks to Hawks guard Mike Bibby, who made some fairly unflattering comments about Bostonians.

Bibby told the Atlanta Journal Constituition’s Sekou Smith that Celtics fans are “bandwagon jumpers.” Bibby apparently got into it with a handful of locals during Sunday’s game. Or maybe he was just upset that his one-time pupil, Rajon Rondo, had his way with him in Game 1. (Incidentally, Marc Spears has an excellent piece in today’s Globe about the Bibby-Rondo relationship).

And away we go. (more…)

It was loud at the Garden last night. How loud? “I heard it in the locker room before the game,” Doc Rivers said. “I was in the bathroom… combing my hair.” (ba-dum)

It was loud, it was fun (Lucky was on stilts for the pre-game introduction, and he later got Big Papi to hold the ball for a trampoline dunk), and it was a blowout. It was about as perfect a start to their four-game series as the heavily-favored Celtics could have asked for.

After the jump, five thoughts and observations from last night’s Game 1 (more…)

Just got back from Waltham where the Celtics went through a two-hour-plus practice getting ready for Game 1 against the Hawks, Sunday night. Kevin Garnett was absent for the second day in a row with what Doc Rivers called personal reasons. It was reported yesterday that his wife had gone into labor with their first child. Doc wouldn’t go into specifics, but he basically intimated that everything was fine. 

After the long practice session, the press had a chance to talk with Sam Cassell, who has a well-deserved rep as a great talker, something that he gets teased about constantly. Talking to Cassell is a treat for NBA scribes because he genuinely loves talking about the league and the game. After the jump, some of the Sam conversation. (more…)

It’s April, the sun is shining, and for the first time in what seems like eons, real playoff basketball is back in Boston. Before we get into the first round matchup with the Hawks, a little public-service announcement: We’ll be at the Garden for the duration of the playoffs, so check back often for updates.

We were on hand for the regular-season finale last night, and in his pre-game gathering with the press, Doc Rivers mentioned that he and his staff had been preparing to play Atlanta for the last few weeks. He also said he hoped for Game 1 to be on Sunday. He got his wish on both counts, with the opener set for 8:30 p.m.

Atlanta, the only playoff team not not crack the 40-win mark, is obviously a heavy underdog. But the matchup is not without intrigue. (more…)