Pre-Patriot's Day Sports Chowdah- C's Pull One Out in Knick of Time; Sox Get 1st Back-to-Back Wins; B's 0-for-Postseason So Far

NBA: After a fairly lackluster couple of games in the final couple of games in the NBA regular season, the C's closed out the regular season on Wednedsday night with a 112-102 win at home against the NY Knicks.

The first round of the playoffs got underway on Sunday and would see Boston at home, hosting none other than....the NY Knicks. The C's would head into halftime down by a margin of 51-39, but would come storming back in the second half. Ray Allen would have 24 points on the night, but none more pivotal than the 3-pointer he nailed with 12 seconds left in regulation to put the Celtics up for good. But why tell you when the above video does a much better job of showing you? The Knicks had the ball back with about 11 seconds remaining before Carmello Athony's shot hit the rim as time expired, giving Boston the 85-87 win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. Game 2 is set to take place at the Garden on Tuesday night at 7PM ET and will be televised on TNT.

NHL Ouch! After a much more spirited finish to the regular season than the Celtics (in my opinion, at least) the Bruins have come out and pretty much laid an egg against #6 Montreal so far. The series began on Thursday with Montreal shutting out the Bruins 2-0 and continued on Saturday night where the Habs bested a Chara-less habs by a 3-1 final in Saturday night, with Montreal getting their first two goals before the first 2 and a half minutes had elapsed.

Carey Price has allowed one goal (from Patrice Bergeron) in 66 shots faced in the series so far. If the B's hope to turn this series around, they'll have to do it on the road in Montreal starting on Monday night (7PM ET).
MLB: I kinda like this 'winning' thing [and not Charlie Sheen 'winning' either- NANESB!] although I feel I shouldn't have to wait until tax day for the Red sox to get their 3rd win.

After dropping two in a row to the Tampa Bay Rays (nature intervened to prevent a 3 game sweep, aparently), the Sox homestand continued Friday night when the sox played host to the Blue Jays for a 4-game series. On Friday, the Jays cruised to a come-from behind win despite having what was initially an Adam Lind homer overturned by replay. Toronto would go on to win by a 7-6 final on Firday night. On Saturday, Beckett's role once again seemed to be to stop the bleeding in any way possible, a task he handled masterfully in 7 innings of work, allowing one run on three hits while walking two and striking out nine during the 4-1 win.

Sunday afternoon marked the first time in the 2011 the Red Sox would win back-to-back games, with Jon Lester going 6 whole innings and allowing an earned run on 6 hits, 3 walks and five strikeouts. Lester was pulled in the top of the 7th with two on and nobody away before Daniel Bard came on and was able to get a double-play ball followed by a strike out to end the Blue Jays threat. Jacoby Ellsbury belted a 3 run homer and Jarrod Saltalamacchia had a 3 RBI day in Boston's 8-1 win. The final game of the homestand will get underway at 11:00AM Eastern Time with Daisuke Matsuzaka starting against Ricky Romero [I'm not even gonna post the respective ERA's- it's a tad depressing right now- NANESB!]. From there, the Sox will head out West to take on the Oakland A's beginning Tuesday night.

OTHER SOX NEWS: Just in time for tax day, the Red Sox and 1B Adrian Gonzalez have agreed to terms on a 7-year, $154 million contract extension. Most of the terms for the deal were established during a 2-day negotiatiting window back in December, but weren't finalized until talks between the Sox and Gonzalez's agent resumed a few weeks ago.