Celtics 109, Hawks 102

 

No Brown, but Pritchard stepped up and dropped 36, including 6-of-11 three-point shooting, and Tatum hit a 26-point, 12-rebound double double. The Celtics beat the Hawks, 109-102.

The Celtics head to Charlotte Sunday for a 6:00 pm game against the Hornets (39-34). 

Red Sox 3, Reds 0

 

Opening Day. Crochet Day. RBI singles by Rafaela, Story, and Duran. Chapman gets a save. Red Sox win, 3-0.

Baseball's back. Any questions?

Bruins 4, Sabres 3 (OT)

 

Apparently, this was Boston's night to beat first-place teams. The Celtics took care of business with Oklahoma City, and in Buffalo, the Bruins knocked the Sabres out of first with an OT win.

Pastrnak scored first, hitting in the opening period with assists from Minten and Khusnutdinov. Arvidsson scored in the second, assisted by Pasta and Zadorov. In the third, it was Mittelstadt with the assistance of Aspirot and Zacha. 

But the Sabres also scored three times, and it was in that beautiful OT period that Zacha got the puck past the Sabres' Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, possibly the most Finnish person on the planet, scoring the winning goal a mere 38 seconds past regulation, assisted by Pasta and McAvoy (BU, Class of '16). 

The Bruins (40-24-8) are tied with the Canadiens at 88 points, but Montreal stays ahead in third place with the automatic playoff berth because of the games-played tie-breaker. Boston, though, still qualifies for the Wild Card, up by three points ahead of the Islanders.

The Bruins return home from this one-day road trip to play the Minnesota Wild (40-20-12) Saturday night for a one-game homestand.        

Celtics 119, Thunder 109

 

Giant killers! Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder swagger into the TG Garden tonight with their NBA-leading 57 wins, and the Celtics add a number to their loss column. 

The Thunder came out strong, outscoring the Celtics by 11 points in the first quarter, but Boston adjusted and outscored Oklahoma in each of the next three quarters. Jaylen scored 31 points total and Jayson scored 19, with 12 rebounds to boot. Pritchard had the hot hand on three-point shooting, going four of six and scoring 12 of his 14 points from outside the circle. 

If this was a playoff preview, I like what I'm seeing. These Celtics can play with - and beat - the best. 

The Celtics fly down here to Atlanta to play the Hawks (41-32) on Friday night.    

Maple Leafs 4, Bruins 2

 

Charlie McAvoy (BU, 2016) tried to make it interesting. After Elias Lindholm scored a goal in the first period and then Toronto ran off three unanswered goals in the second period and early in the third,  McAvoy scored a power-play goal assisted by Pastrnak and Zacha. Comeback time, baby! 

But no comeback beyond McAvoy's goal materialized and to add insult to injury, the Leafs scored on an empty net in the last minute of play to make it 4-2, Toronto.

The Bruins (39-24-8) are still in the running for a Wild Card berth at 86 points. Ottawa has been on a hot streak, winning their last four games, and now have 85 points and the second wild-card berth. The Islanders are tied with the Senators in points, but the games-played tie-breaker goes to Ottawa. Detroit, who've lost their last two, trail Ottawa by one point.

The Bruins are off to Buffalo tonight to play the Sabres (44-20-7), who are in first place in the Atlantic with 95 points. It's a one-game road trip, to be followed by a one-game homestand, to be followed by another one-game road trip, to be followed by another one-game homestand to end the month. Then five of the seven games left after that in April are on the road, where the Bruins are 13-21-7. What a way to go!

Assassin's Creed: Shadows

 

Neither the Celtics not the Bruins played last night, BU's hockey season is over, the Iditarod's done, and I refuse to cover preseason baseball. So with this little intermission in the sporting schedule, the Sports Desk turns things over to the Gaming Desk for today's post. Video games are e-sports, right?

Having completed full playthroughs of The Outer Worlds 2 twice last month, we've moved on to Assassin's Creed Shadows. We started the game back on February 13 and have played for some 180 hours now, yet feel like we still have a long, long way to go before completing out first playthrough.

The game is another of  the open-world style Assassin's Creed games like Origins and Odyssey, as well as the less successful Valhalla and Mirage, this one set in 16th-Century feudal Japan. Although the trademark hidden blade is still present, as well as fast-travel viewpoints, it has many differences from its predecessors. 

In all four of the previous games, your character had an eagle or some sort of other bird to scout ahead of you and give you an bird's-eye preview of what was ahead. The bird is gone in Shadows, and if you want a high-level perspective on things, you have to climb up something and see for yourself. Which isn't as easy as the previous games, where you could climb virtually any surface and parkour around. In fact, the easy scalability of any wall, cliff, or building in the earlier games was to unrealistically easy it almost broke immersion, but also gave the games some of their unique feel and character. Parkour is still an important element of Shadows, but you often can't climb straight up flat surfaces without using a grappling hook, which feels a little more realistic but takes some getting used to.

The biggest difference, though, is the task list. There isn't one. In all the previous games, you had lists of tasks, sorted as major and side quests, character quests, etc., and there was usually a graphical chart of the major enemies, usually a cabal of conspirators that you needed to assassinate. In Shadows, everything is tracked by a staggering number of those charts, all displayed on one large objective board. There are displays on the board for the primary group of bad guys, the Shinbakufu, displays for various other side-quests, displays for regions, for allies, and some that seemingly randomly appear for no discernible reason. That foe you just killed? Turns out he's member of some renegade cult, and now there's a new display on the objective board of the other ten members of the cult that you now have to hunt down. Every time I start to think I'm making progress toward beating the game, new groups will pop up on the board, indicating many more hours still ahead.

The game throws a lot of new stuff at you early in the game. Not only is there the objective board, but there are separate skill trees for each weapon, and oh, you have two separate playable characters, both of whom have separate sets of skills trees. Plus you're supposed to establish and build up a home base, and recruit and manage allies and separate scouts. It's a little overwhelming and confusing at first, but it eventually starts to make sense as you go along.     

I like the game. Overall, it prioritizes stealth more than any games since the original Assassins-vs-Templars series, and it's stunningly beautiful to look at. I had thought Ghost of Tsushima (the Ghosts games are the obvious parallels to Shadows) had set the standard for cinematic Japanese beauty, but I admit the Ubisoft, the A.C. studio, topped the Ghosts high standard. My F3 button is getting worn down from all the screenshots I keep taking. 

I appreciate many of the innovations and changes made to the games, and while I miss the eagle and the ability to climb sheer walls, I applaud the effort to do new things. My biggest complaint is that the objective board with all its lists and displays can get overwhelming and confusing - after 180 hours of play, I forget NPCs that I had met some weeks ago. "This must be the town Tagoda Matsuoka told me to visit," my character will say as we ride into some new town, but I have no idea who Tagoda Matsuoka was, why I'm was supposed to visit there, or what it is I'm supposed to be doing. It all eventually works itself out, but I feel like that amnesiac character in the film Memento with no idea of why these guys are attacking me, or am I attacking them?

As I said, I like the game. A lot. I wouldn't have stuck with it for 180 hours, I think the longest any single first playthrough has taken me in any game, if I didn't. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all works itself out.               

Timberwolves 102, Celtics 92

 

The Celtics played a pretty good first quarter and a god-awful fourth quarter, and lost (at home!) to a Minnesota team they could have/should have beaten.

Brown led all teams with 29 points and Tatum got a double double with 16 points and 11 rebounds. But the Celtics were out-rebounded by the T-wolves, 56-53, and Boston's pathetic three-point average (27.3%) resulted in only 9 threes made to Minnesota's 12. The Wolves also managed to block seven Boston shots.

With the loss, the sneaky New York Knicks inch up to within a half game of Boston in the division, and the Detroit Pistons move 4½ games ahead in the conference with 11 games left to the regular season.    

Hopefully, this loss will serve as the kick in the ass the Celtics need to bring their A game to the Garden on Wednesday, when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team with the most wins this season in the NBA, come to town. 'Cause I'm gonna tell you, if the Celtics play like they did last night, the Thunder will walk all over them. 

Bruins 4, Red Wings 2

 

David Pastrnak scored a power-play goal in the second period, assisted by McAvoy (BU, 2016) and Geekie, and then the law firm of Lindholm, Zodorov & Khusnutdinov scored three unanswered goals in the third as the mighty Boston Bruins defeated the Detroit Red Wings.

The win clears things up a little in the playoff standings as we approach the end of the regular season. With the win, Boston picks up two points on Detroit and qualify for a Wild Card berth by a three-point margin ahead of the Islanders, who lost last night to Montreal. The Bruins are tied with third-place Montreal at 86 points, but remain in fourth because of the games-played tiebreaker.      

The Toronto Maple Leafs (29-29-13) will play in the Garden on Tuesday night (7:00 pm). The Canadiens will be hosting the Carolina Hurricanes (44-19-6) that night, and a Boston win coupled with a Montreal loss will put the Bruins into third place, giving them an automatic playoff bid instead of fighting it out in the gutter with Detroit for a Wild Card berth. Go, Carolina!    

Celtics 117, Grizzlies 112

 

Somehow, I knew this was going to be a tough game, and boy was I right. It was a tight game the whole way with a lot of lead changes, but the Celtics persevered and won by five points.

Jaylen Brown led both teams with 30 points. Luka Garza added 22 off the bench, and Payton Pritchard another 19. Derrick White scored 14, Jayson Tatum 13, and Neemias Queta got the evening's double double, scoring 12 points and 11 rebounds. Overall, the Celtics outrebounded the Grizzlies, 57-35, which helped make up the difference for their poor three-point shooting (26.2%) and one dozen turnovers.

The standings remain fairly static. The Celtics (47-23) still have a game-and-a-half lead over the Knicks in the Atlantic. The Pistons have clinched their playoff berth, and Boston trails Detroit by four in the East.

There are a dozen games left to the Celtics' regular season, including a potential playoff preview next week against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who've clinched the Western Conference title and already announced that they won't be visiting the White House, thank you (good for them).  But first, the Celtics have to play the Minnesota Timberwolves (43-28) on Sunday night in the Garden. The game will be nationally televised on NBC.   

Iditarod: Blizzard at White Mountain

I thought I was done posting about this year's Iditarod. Jessie Holmes had repeated as champion, Jesse Terry got Rookie of the Year, and the remaining teams were either at or near White Mountain, the last major checkpoint before the finish line. Since my last post, six more teams crossed the finish line - rookie Sam Martin, Josi (Thyr) Shelley, Bailey Vitello, Gabe Dunham, Rohn Buser, and Chad Stoddard - for a total of 20 finishers. 

However, that's when a ground storm blew up between White Mountain and Safety, the penultimate checkpoint, with winds up to 60+ mph. Adam Lindenmuth was the last musher out of Elim on his way to White Mountain but faced a strong headwind and rested his team for several hours out on the ice before he got moving again, often walking out in front of the team for a major portion of that stretch. The team eventually made it to solid ground before resting some more. Ultimately, the deteriorating conditions forced him to activate the emergency SOS on his GPS tracker to request assistance, automatically scratching him from the race. He eventually made it to White Mountain, accompanied by rescue snowmobiles in front and behind his team. 

Nine more teams, including the two Mackeys, are currently holed up in White Mountain. Seven of the teams are rookies. They all had decided to stay at the checkpoint beyond their mandatory 8-hour rest due to the storm conditions, and race official encouraged them to stay there overnight until the storm blows past. The forecast for today has the winds calming down to 10 to 20 mph.

The official Iditarod race standings haven't been updated since 11 pm (Alaska time) last night, so it's not yet apparent if any teams have left the checkpoint or are still huddled down, riding out the storm, or even if the remaining race has been officially cancelled due to the worsening conditions. 

If the race is still on, it's also unclear in what order the teams will leave White Mountain. First in/first out? If so, separated by how much time? The first of the nine remaining mushers, Kevin Hansen, arrived there some 15 hours ahead of the last, Sam Paperman, and Hansen would understandably not want to forfeit a 15-hour lead. Or will each team leave whenever they feel they're up to the challenge? Or will there be some other method to the unofficial restart?

Bruins 6, Jets 1

 

The mighty Boston Bruins piled it on the Winnipeg Jets last evening, winning by a score of 6-1. Pastrnak, Pavel, Arvidsson, Minten, and Aspirot all scored goals, and for good measure, Lukas Reichel scored a goal in his Bruins' debut and it turned out to be the game-winner.

It was a blowout win with very little drama, other than the excitement of seeing the lamp light up three times in the third period.

The Bruins improve to 38-23-8, fourth in the Atlantic. Boston, Montreal, and Detroit all have 84 points in the Division, but Montreal is in third place because of the games-played tie-breaker. Detroit is in fifth because of the regulation-wins tie-breaker. 

As for the Wild Card race, both Boston and Detroit still qualify for a berth. However, Columbus has moved up to third place in the Metropolitan Division and an automatic playoff berth, so now it's the Islanders trailing Boston and Detroit by one point for a Wild Card berth.

All of which makes Saturday's game against the Red Wings so pivotal. A win could potentially put the Bruins into third place in the Atlantic and qualify them for an automatic playoff spot. Of course, that depends on how the Canadiens fare, and they have two games coming up against the Islanders and the Hurricanes, two teams hungry to secure their playoff hopes. On the other hand, a loss would break Boston's tie with Detroit, knocking the Bruins down to fifth in the Division and possibly out of the Wild Card race with only 13 games remaining to the regular season.

Iditarod Wrap-Up

 

After Tuesday night's win by Jessie Holmes and yesterday's early-morning finishes by Travis Beals, Jeff Deeter, and Paige Drobney, ten more teams have completed the Iditarod. 

Yesterday, Wade Marrs, Matt Hall, Riley Dyche, Lauro Eklund, Peter Kaiser, Michelle Phillips, Hanna Lyrek, Jessie Royer, and Ryan Redington all crossed the finish line. Early this morning, Jesse Terry finished, earning the 2026 Rookie of the Year Award.

All the rest of the field are now on the Nome peninsula. Rookie Adam Lindenmuth is in last place but is heading toward White Mountain (mile 898) from Elim. Nine other teams, including Brenda Mackey and her Uncle Jason, are currently on their 8-hour break at White Mountain. Chad Stoddard has left White Mountain and is heading for Safety (mile 953), and six teams, including Bailey Vitello and Gabe Dunham, have left Safety for their final run to the finish line (mile 975).

A burlap hero is "one who marches - consciously or not - back to the sea in hopes of making no splash, who understands and embraces the imperfection of being, and in that way, stretches the definition of sainthood to fit" (Nate Wooley, 2022). They are the ones who recognize living as a heroic act and include "the occupiers of sunup barstools, the cubicle-planted, the ghosts of Greyhounds, and the reasonably sketchy."

The Iditarod may have winners but there are no losers. Competing a nearly 1,000-mile traverse of Alaskan wilderness in sub-zero weather without mechanical transport, surrounded by nothing but mountains, bears, wolves, moose, and bison, all while caring for an unruly team of sled dogs, is a heroic achievement in its own right regardless of placement (what have you done this week?). Even the earliest scratch completed 153 miles of wilderness adventure and dropped out only for the safety and well being of the dogs. They're all winners and all burlap heroes, every last one of them.