C’s suffering flu bug, (lack of) all-star blues

With the Celtics cruising through 2009 it seems that the only thing that can stop them is themselves?.or a good old fashioned case of the flu.It is times like these Celtics fans should be thankful of the fact that their team is built upon three stars, and not just one. With Kevin Garnett calling in a couple of well-deserved sick days it has been the Paul Pierce show once again in Boston.Paul Pierce knows that when KG isn’t in the line-up everything changes for the Celtics.”I was just picking up a share of the load without Kevin,” he said. “That was my mind-set going into the game, to just be a lot more aggressive.”I tried to attack the rim. A lot of times when Kevin is out there we’re going to play through him. But when he’s not out there, a lot of our offense goes through me and Ray.”More importantly, however the captain knows that the Celtics hallmark with or without Garnett has to be defense.”I’m going to definitely try to be a little more aggressive, try to get to the line, try to get us some paint scoring, but the key for us isn’t going to be my scoring, it’s going to be how well we defend,” Pierce said.Although coach Doc Rivers would clearly like Garnett back in the line-up he is not going to rush him.”He’s feeling better, but he’s not feeling great and we really want to try to keep him away from the rest of the guys. I’d rather have him, but obviously any rest for him as long as we’re winning games is good.”With Kevin Garnett temporarily on the shelf and Brian Scalabrine out with a concussion the upcoming All-Star break could not come at a better time. Last week the NBA named Garnett and Pierce to the Eastern Conference All-Star team. For a team hoping to get four All-Stars, only getting two was a bit of a disappointment.Although snubbed, Ray Allen seemed to take the news in stride saying, “based on what we have done as a team, we were excited about Rondo’s season ? we thought we had a great shot, but there’s not much we can do about it.”I always thought the truest form of making the team was the coaches’ vote; you can’t go wrong with that,” said Allen, whose three-pointer with 0.5 seconds left won last night’s game.”And there were other guys who deserved it.”One of those other guys was the Orlando Magic’s Jameer Nelson. Nelson, who dislocated his shoulder last Monday night, will likely be forced to sit out the All-Star game leaving open the possibility of Rondo, or Ray Allen eventually finding their way onto the roster.