Game Thread: Knicks vs. Celtics- 1/7/13

Good evening! The Celtics are in town tonight for the first time all season. There's good news, too: Rajon Rondo-- the Celtic most likely to exploit the primary weakness of New York's defense-- was suspended for some shit he did in his last game and won't play tonight. Even still, the Celtics are on a two-game win streak mirroring the Knicks' own, and they still employ villains such as Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett (and Jason Terry, another loathsome individual). Boston may be 17-18, but I'm conditioned to fear 'em. Here's a little more from Jeff Clark of Celtics Blog:

The Celtics are showing signs of snapping out of their season long malaise. It is amazing what a difference one key player can make to a team's approach. In the 3 games since Avery Bradley's return the Celtics have posted league-best defensive numbers. Small sample size for sure, but Bradley pressures ball handlers which puts teams into their offensive sets later in the shot clock which has a trickle down effect of making the rest of the defensive rotations work better. Of course it takes full buy-in from the rest of the team as well and only time will tell if they keep it up or revert back to old, bad habits again.

One hopes the Boston offense will struggle even more than they usually do sans Rondo, but that defense has been sharp and definitely has the potential to screw up New York's offense. We shall see.

Same starters, same injury absences for New York, by the way. Marcus Camby at power forward, Rasheed Wallace out. (Raymond Felton's got a couple weeks left. Iman Shumpert: SOON.)

Here's your thread to comment along with the game. Celtics Blog is here. Please don't post large photos, .gifs, or links to illegal streams in the thread. Get 'em, Knicks!

Update: One more thing.

Seems obvious, but Woody confirms that #Knicks will adjust P&R 'D' w/Rondo out. Will fight over screens on Terry, would've let Rondo shoot.