For a team with the best record in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics sure needed a win Sunday night. They had lost three of four, which qualifies as a minor slump, but more importantly, they hadn’t played very good basketball since the middle of December.
They got their win against the Raptors, 93-79, in a game that featured several trademarks: strong defense, unselfish passing and strong shooting. Not coincidentally, Rajon Rondo was also back in the lineup after missing seven games with a severely sprained ankle. (Click here for a recap).
While the Celtics have been scuffling, the Miami Heat have been surging. The Celtics entered play Sunday in a virtual tie with Miami for the best record in the East, and while it’s way too early to pay close attention to the conference standings, the Heat’s resurgence -- going 17-1 after a 9-8 start -- is evidence enough that if the Celtics want to get homecourt advantage, they’re going to have to work for it.
That is the balancing act that Doc Rivers is going to have to handle with his team throughout the winter months. He has already cut way back on practices and made sure not to rush players back, but even with all the injuries to key players he is still determined to try to win games and fight for playoff positioning.
“Right now we are a game-to-game team and that’s all we can be with all the injuries we have,” Rivers said Friday before the Celtics played the Hornets in the last game of 2010. “But we have to be a game-to-game team that’s trying to win games.”
That’s the essential difference between this season and last. The Celtics didn’t intentionally give up on the second half of last season, it was forced upon them only after injuries decimated the lineup. It then became a strategic decision later to back off.
The Celtics want to win games and get better as a team. They had been winning, but not getting better. Then they stopped winning and continued to get worse. The time had come to fix what was wrong, and that’s why Sunday’s win was not just important but necessary.
Here are three key takeaways:
THE IMPACT OF RONDO’S RETURN
This wasn’t a vintage Rajon Rondo performance. It wasn’t even a very good Rondo performance, but it was absolutely perfect for a Celtics team that had gone away from what has made it so good offensively -- in a word: passing.
The Celtics have the best Assist Rate in the league (that is the number of possessions that end in assists). They also have the second-highest percentage of shots that come from assists (about 64 percent). Those numbers mean that the Celtics are not only a good passing team, they also rely on ball movement to score their points, as opposed to a team that lives on isolations and one-on-one scoring. 
Without Rondo, the percentage of Celtics field goals that ended in assists was more like 50 percent, and not surprisingly, their offensive production was not very good and their games felt stagnant. 
The Celtics made 38 shots against Toronto and had assists on 30 of them. That wasn’t all Rondo, of course. He had just eight assists (and five turnovers) in 34 minutes, but Rondo got the Celtics into their sets quicker, eliminated the need for Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to handle the ball and created an environment where everyone wanted to make the extra pass because there was a decent chance they would get it back again.
That’s what Rondo does for the Celtics.
The only question is whether he came back too soon. Rivers didn’t expect him to be back Sunday (or Monday for that matter), but 45 minutes before tip-off Rondo was back in the starting lineup. He got knocked around by Toronto and had his ankle inadvertently stepped on by Linas Kleiza, which didn’t look good at all when it happened.
This, essentially, is the balancing act, much like it will be when Kevin Garnett gets ready to come back from his strained calf muscle. It’s a matter of weighing gains in the here-and-now with the possibilities for the future, and it’s not as cut and dry as most people think. 
LOOK AT WHAT RONDO DID FOR PAUL PIERCE AND RAY ALLEN
After the Hornets loss, Paul Pierce took it upon himself to accept blame for the defeat, saying that he didn’t come ready to play. That was a nice, professional gesture by the team’s captain and elder statesman, even though it really wasn’t necessary.
Real leadership is shown on the court and as the Celtics struggled through a sluggish first half against the Raptors, Pierce scored 20 of their 43 points. That’s leadership.
Pierce went on to score 30 points on 10-for-15 shooting to go with seven rebounds, four assists and a vicious, emasculating slam over Raptor big men Amir Johnson and Joey Dorsey. (He also sprained his ankle on a later dunk, and while Doc Rivers told reporters that he thought it was fine, we will just have to wait and see how he feels Monday).
While Pierce played more of a distributor role in the second half, Ray Allen assumed the scoring duties with 17 of his 23 in the final two quarters. Allen and Pierce basically buried Toronto down the stretch, which is what they’re capable of doing when they’re not moonlighting as point guards.
CENTER DEPTH THE WAY THEY ENVISIONED
Shaquille O’Neal picked up his fourth foul less than two minutes into the third quarter -- just like he’s done seemingly every game since Christmas. The difference Sunday was that after Shaq got his fourth, Rivers left him in the game. The coach could afford that luxury because he knew that he had Jermaine O’Neal waiting on the bench and Semih Erden if necessary.
Erden hasn’t played since Jermaine O’Neal returned. He had the flu, but the team said he’s healthy. He also had a wrap around his right hand, but he said that was just a precaution. For now, Erden is a 7-foot insurance policy just like he was supposed to be when the season started. But now he’s an insurance policy with experience.
Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal split the minutes evenly at the center spot and combined for 13 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks. It wasn’t their best game, but it was pretty solid production for the team’s fifth option on offense.
Provided the O’Neals can stay healthy, things figure to get even better in the pivot. Shaq remains a hulking physical presence that smaller teams like the Raptors simply can’t come close to matching, while Jermaine has shown the ability to control the paint.
His offense will take some time, but he has flashed an intriguing ability to score by rolling off high pick and rolls for dunks and 15-foot jump shots.
It took 32 games and more than two months, but the O’Neal brothers are finally emerging as a solid tag-team in the post.