I'd like to say this is a winnable game—in one sense it is, because any team can beat any other team on any given day—but let's be real here: Boston usually struggles on the tail end of back-to-backs, especially on the road—the last such occurrence was last week's debacle against the Lakers after a narrow loss to Denver, and we have a similar situation developing here: narrow loss to Portland, with a tough opponent the next night.
Plus, Utah is one of the best home teams in the league, and their bigs make ours look like a junior-high collection.
So we'll probably get outrebounded by at least 10 and lose by 15. Optimistic, I know, but I find that lowering my expectations softens the inevitable blow (it worked for the Lakers game, anyway
).