Two nights after blowing Gilbert Arenas and his overactive mouth out of the Fleet Center, the Celtics showed they could get it done in close games as well.  After 48 minutes of slow, grinding basketball that left the C's tied with the Raps at 78, both teams rained buckets in OT, with Boston outscoring Toronto 20-17 in five minutes to improve to 2-0.

Ray Allen was the Big One of the Big Three, scoring 33 in the game, including the game-winning three-pointer from the corner with 3 seconds left.  Kevin Garnett scored 23 (10 in OT), while T.J. Ford led the Raps with 32 and my God basketball recaps are boring to write.  Seriously.  There's no chance in hell I'm doing this every day until June.  I'm thinking two a week, maybe three if it's slow.  Really slow.  Like Shaq returning from injury slow.

Elsewhere in the Association: Heat fall to 0-3 against Bobcats, who are two games above .500 for the first time ever.  Michael Jordan celebrates with cigar, golf, meaningless wager… Sonics fall to 0-3, Clay Bennett still a useless piece of shit… LeBron (27 points, 5 rebs, 8 assts, 4 blocks) was back to bring LeBron, but the Suns were back to being the Suns, as Steve Nash led Phoenix to a win with 30 points and ten dimes… Something has possessed Kobe: for the second straight game, the Lakers deal one of the West's best teams a loss, this time beating the Jazz 119-109.  As always, I'm pretty broken up by a Utah loss.

Right now the big buzz — replacing the downers of Bill Walsh's death and Mike Vick's dogfighting case — is the potentially positive development of Kevin Garnett's impending trade to the Celtics.

The trade as reported: Garnett to the C's for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff's expiring contract, and future draft picks.  Or, more succinctly: KG for Al Jefferson, chump change, and chumps.  Predictably, fan boners are rock-hard all over the Internet, from the Sports Guy to MJD (whose headline-photo combo is downright frightening).  And I haven't even gone over to CelticsBlog yet.  I'm afraid I met get wet.

Are you ready for Rajon Rondo?  Does this make the C's a contender?  The automatic sacrificial lamb to the Western Conference?  The answer, of course, is that I'm not gonna care until next April anyway, so why bother.  Can you sense my ironic detachment?  Not caring about things is what makes me so cool.

The Phoenix Suns' winning streak is over at 17 games, thanks to a monstrous performance by Kevin Garnett in a 121-112 win. Garnett went for 44 points and 11 rebounds, and Kevin McHale's brilliant installation of a new coach paid obvious dividends as sports editors all over the nation scrambled to work up punny headlines about the Suns "going down". Sun Sets on Phoneix Win Streak, or what have you.

The box score for the Suns looks pretty much the same as most other games, but with smaller numbers from the Garnett-dominated front court. Raja Bell (?) led the Suns with 26, Steve Nash had 20 and 18 assists, and Shawn Marion had 24 and 10 boards. Amare Stoudemire had a quiet 10 points in 39 minutes, and Boris Diaw was similarly ineffective.

I just have two questions: 1. How did the Suns lose to a single person? and 2. How did the T-Wolves score 77 non-KG points? The other people on the court in Minnesota uniforms were Ricky Davis, Marko Jaric, and two cardboard cutouts attached to skateboards. Don't tell me Randy Wittman is the difference. I had never even heard of Randy Wittman until yesterday. Randy Wittman hadn't heard of Randy Wittman was yesterday.

Heh… "Randy." Great adjective. Stupid name.