Welcome to the Garden ...
Welcome to TD Garden, where the Boston Celtics (27-10) will take on the Chicago Bulls (16-20) at 8 p.m. (TNT).
This certainly isn't the game our favorite media mogul from Atlanta signed up for before the season. No KG. No Rasheed Wallace. And the Bulls stink. Nevertheless Craig Sager is already here, so I think they're going to play it.
The Celtics are currently on the parquet doing individual warm-ups before the team prepares for the Bulls at 5:15 p.m. On one end of the court, Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens are playing one-on-one. Both players are settling for jumpers -- Walker took it hard to the rim once, reminiscent of his dunk in last night's game in New Jersey, but missed the shot. Giddens is a better outside shooter, so he's getting the best of this matchup.
On the other end of the court, Eddie House just finished putting up some jumpers. His shot was dead on, a far cry from his 1-for-9 performance last night. House was just joined by Paul Pierce, who challenged him to a shooting contest.
"You want to shoot against one of the best shooters of all-time?" Pierce said.
"One of the best scorers of all time," House said, correcting Pierce. "You're going into the Hall of Fame as one of the best scorers of all-time."
They kicked out the media at that point, so I didn't get to see the shooting contest. But my money's on Pierce.
Going to do my best to stay awake for this one. Back with more updates from the Garden when the locker rooms open.
- Gary Washburn, NBA writer
- Baxter Holmes, Celtics beat writer
- Gary Dzen, Boston.com senior sports producer