Doc doesn't believe it right. This team soft? He used it as a tool. It was the ultimate tool for motivation. The team listened to Doc's call out.

"I don't know any man that likes to be called soft, maybe some women," barked Kevin Garnett. "But where I'm from, most men don't like that."

I think the Celtics came to play Friday for a few reasons. They wanted to win for Rondo, and they wanted to put Doc's claim to bed. Doc has used this one before. And the Celtics came to play on the defensive end. The side of the ball that shows toughness. I already spoke about the defense in the Morning Joe post. So  I won't jump so much into the numbers. But I think it's safe to say that the Celtics defense in the long term should be okay.

"Nobody wants to be called soft," Lee said. "Me, individually, I took that personally because I felt that I'm far from being soft. And I think our team took it personal, too, so we came out and had a good practice the other day. Doc was still going on his rant, so we had to respond and we did that in practice by going hard, beating each other up. Then we came out here and had a good start. We threw that first punch.

For those who may have missed the game. I'm sorry you missed Lee's performance. His scoring was decent, and he missed some bunnies. But his defense, and hustle impacted the game as much as Green's 19 point performance. Lee great job, and continue the hard noised defense. The Celtics got rest of Pierce, and KG who both played limited minutes. And Pierce didn't even play in the 4th quarter if I'm not mistaken. The test will be tonight in a second night of a back-to-back on the road.