COAST TO COAST

Just in from Boston: glub, glub, glub

In the (only) good news lately for the Celtics, they probably can’t fall much further.

Last week’s loss in Orlando left them tied for No. 2, with one prize left to contest: home-court advantage should they play the Magic.

Bad as that is, they’d give anything if that were all, but it isn’t.

They may have to shut down Kevin Garnett again after his knee flared up after four games back.

“Our guys don’t care,” insisted Coach Doc Rivers. “They want to get healthy, and when we get healthy, we’re willing to lace them up against anybody.”

The problem is having to lace them up against everybody, and go on the road to do it.

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Hasheem the dream and the comers

After three years watching the game whiz by around him, guess which 7-3, 265-pound former project is catching up?

Raw as he still is, Connecticut’s Hasheem Thabeet was top 10 before the tournament. Now we’re talking No. 2-3-4.

Other movers:

Blake Griffin: Did you see him hit his head on the backboard -- going up -- and still tomahawk it? Built like Mailman, hops like MJ.

Stephen Curry: Can absolutely play the point in the NBA. Throws the ball up the court as much as anyone since (gulp) Jason Kidd. Think: faster, better-shooting D.J. Augustin. Personally, I’d take him over Ricky Rubio.

Stanley Robinson: UConn comer, major athlete, could come from off radar to teens.

Tyreke Evans: Shooting matters less if no one can stay in front of you.

Chase Budinger: Great tourney after awful Pac-10 tourney could raise him 10 to 20 spots.

Ty Lawson: When did you get dynamic?

Cole Aldrich: Some like him more than Jordan Hill.

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Blogging and tweeting at the half

Imagine your old-school coach, asked by the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Jerry Zgoda if he had a policy about players “tweeting” -- posting to Twitter -- at halftime of a game as Milwaukee’s Charlie Villanueva did.

Said New Orleans’ Byron Scott: “A what?

“No, I don’t have a policy on that. I don’t know what the hell tweeting is.”

Informed that Tyson Chandler has a Twitter account, Scott replied: “I know he has a blog. Is that the same thing?”

Minnesota’s Kevin McHale: “I heard someone say Charlie Villanueva was tweeting and I thought it meant he went [to the bathroom] . . . I guess that wasn’t it.”

Utah’s Jerry Sloan said he once would have stepped on Villanueva’s hand-held device and ground it into the floor but has mellowed.

“I’m too old to do that,” Sloan said. “I’m afraid I’ll slip off it and hurt myself.”

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Goodbye to the NBA’s Columbus

Washington’s Gilbert Arenas, the Columbus of the brave new wired world, just retired his stream-of-daffiness blog -- which ran on the NBA website -- perhaps because he has already upset the whole league and didn’t feel the need to go around twice.

Retrospectives now abound, like this one:

“No more stories about Arenas’ Halo exploits, criticizing other NBA players, marriage proposals, family history, not wanting to vote (then saying it was a joke, hilars!) . . . or being saved from crashing his car into a lake by Young Jeezy (if only the rapper were around to help poor Willy Loman).”

I don’t know what it all means, but it sounds funny. The link is https://www.nbcwashington.com/sports/basketball/Death-of-a-Blogger.htm l.

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-- Mark Heisler