Mid-Week Helping of Sports Chowdah- Mr. Allen Goes to Washington; Beyond B-Leaf- Toronto Back For More; Any Given Thursday? Browns Stun Steelers

After a brief one-game homestand at the Garden that saw them victorious against Milwaukee earlier this week, Thursday night was a busy one for the Celtics as they traveled to Washington DC's Verizon Center to take on the Wizards. Looking for their ninth straight win and 10th road win in 11 tries, some Celtics were expecting to reach a couple of milestones tonight but Rajon Rondo turned out to be the story of the night. Rondo was 10-20 with 21 points, 3 rebounds and 11 assists, but had the tie-breaking score on a driving dunk with about a minute left in regulation to put the Cs up for good in their 104-102 win. Ray Allen became the 32nd NBA player to score 20,000 points in his career Thursday night and was 5-11 with 18 points while Kevin Garnett was 8-14 with 17 points and Kendrick Perkins was 5-7 with 16 points.

(both images- Ned Dishman/Getty Images)

Paul Pierce was 4-13 (6-10 for free throws) with 12 points to notch his 19,000th NBA career point Thursday night as well. This is Boston' 9th consecutive win and puts them in sole posession of 1st place in the Eastern conference with an 18-4 record- ahead of the Orlando Magic after they lost to Utah. The Celtics next game is at the United Center in Chicago to take on the Bulls Saturday night.

(AP)

After four days off, the Bruins faced the Maple Leafs again at the Garden on Thursday night. Despite getting out to the early 3-0 lead on goals from Mark Stuart, Derek Morris and David Krejci Toronto got on the board with a goal from Mikhail Grabovski early in the 3rd period, followed by a goal from Nikolai Kulemin to make it a 3-2 game. Mark Recchi opened the game back up for Boston with two goals in the final 4 minutes to make it a 5-2 Boston final. Tukka Rask got his second striaght win between the pipes for Boston, stopping 32 of 34 shots faced. Thursday's win puts the Bruins one point ahead of the Sabres in the Northeastern division. For the next game, the Bruins will travel to Long Island to take on the NY Islanders on Saturday.

In other Bruins news, the NHL announced that they were investigating Marc Savard's 7 year contract extension that he and the club reached earlier this week to see if it circumvented the league's collective-bargaining agreement.

Stanley Cup of Chowder is reporting that ex-Bruin Phil Kessel tried talking Marc Savard out of signing the 7 year extension. When asked in an interview with WEEI's Dale & Holley whether or not Savard still kept in contact with his ex-teammate, Savard replied:

"Yeah, I have. We text a lot. He was obviously one of the guys telling me to wait and to not sign."

ELSEWHERE: OK- I thought the Pats losing to the Dolphins on Sunday was pretty bad (which it was). Yet the defending Superbowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers made me forget all about that with their embarrassing 13-6 loss to the Cleveland Browns Thursday night. Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger was sacked eight times as the Steelers lost their fifth straight game. The Browns are now 2-11 (hey now- if you were a Browns fan who was told ahead of time they'd only win 2 games by December, but one of them was against the hated Steelers, I'm sure you could take some comfort in that).

Tom Brady is a father- again! This time supermodel/wife Gisele Bunchden gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Brady announced at a press conference on Wednesday. This is the first child for Bunchden, while Brady is the father of actress Bridgette Moynahan's 2-year old son Jack.