Rocket Fuel

Well, that was interesting. What appeared to be another ho-hum stroll down victory lane for the Celtics turned into a momentous battle against Houston tonight, and again the good guys managed to win. This hopefully was one of the more foretelling evenings of the season, as we got to see KG play at his most fabled. Tonight he put in one of those performances on which his myth has been made.

The whole thing, unsurprisingly, revolved around Yao. Perk was in foul trouble the whole game, which allowed for the dusting off of Pollard just when we though he was calcified for sure. Scot played admirably tonight, thankfully, because Perk continued his recent morass with another clunky showing. With eight minutes left both had fouled out. The Rockets had climbed out of a large hole and were now up by one. Glenn, still being Glenn deep down, had sat Garnett with the C's up by seven and refused to put him back in till six minutes later when the score was tied. The momentum had changed dramatically; Garnett's absence seemed palpable.

And yet when KG did finally reenter the game, and went against Yao down the stretch, we saw why there is so much excitement about this season. Forced to play center against this mountain of a man the last six minutes of the game, Garnett willed his way to victory. It was David defeating Goliath, like Russell had done to Wilt so many moons ago. Tonight KG showed how effectively he can play defense like a center, and the optimism this released in us rose up all the way to the rafters. KG's performance against an All Star center when it counted most was gritty and artful - and most importantly, it lets us dream of events that could happen when the weather has turned warm, well into June...