Playing Catch Up

Quite a lot has happened since my last post. Basketball first: We crushed Phoenix. We blew out Denver. And we lost to the Clippers.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

Very frustrating loss, and not just because of the terrible call at the end of the game. It's not the sole reason we lost, but now that I've mentioned it, I might as well bring it up now and get it over with. Score tied at 90 with 34 seconds left, Rajon Rondo goes to the line for two free throws. He hits the first, misses the second, and Glen Davis chases after the rebound with the Clippers' Mardy Collins. I was at the game in the 300 level and this happened in the completely opposite corner of the arena, but Davis came up with the ball as the whistle blew.

Rhymes With Hondo: "Hmm. Didn't look like a foul."

PA announcer: "Timeout, Clippers."

How'd the Clips call timeout when we had the ball??? There was no mention of a foul call, but that had to be it. Unless ... no, that couldn't be it. But Baby still has four fouls. Really? My theory was confirmed when I returned home. This from a buddy who watched the game on TV:"I think the Clips announcers summed it up where it was one of those plays where [Clippers coach Mike] Dunleavy said 'we're calling a TO on the rebound' and the ref just jumped the gun."

As best as I can tell, and I haven't seen a replay, Collins may have reached for the ball before Davis, and the ref gave the timeout too early. There was more than a shotclock left and we still would have had to do some work, but that offensive rebound was huge.

Still, we did a ton of stuff wrong all game long. Here's what Doc had to say, from the Boston Herald via CelticsBlog:

"We were awful. We absolutely did not deserve to win that game. I thought we played slow all night. We pouted all night. We just thought we could show up and win a game, and we didn’t."

And then:

"We didn’t make the extra pass all night. We walked the ball up the floor all night. There were so many things we did poor. The fact that we actually had a chance to win is amazing."

He's right, but he deserves some of the blame.

Two major errors in this game.The first is familar to regular readers. We went to isolating Pierce at the foul line way too early, with maybe five minutes to go in the game. Once we did that, I turned to my friend and said "If we run this play the rest of the way, we're going to lose." And we did, and we did.

A couple factors contributed to this failure. For one, Pierce looked completely disinterested in this game from the getgo. Two, he wasn't hitting his shot, although he showed some signs of both in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. Three, he had twice disclocated the thumb on his shooting hand in the third quarter (X-rays are negative, by the way). Also, unlike Dallas, against whom this play worked so well, the Clippers were doubling Pierce, which they can do off of Rajon Rondo. Pierce doesn't pass so well out of the double team, in part because he has a pretty sloppy handle. It bogged our offense way down, and resulted in at least one turnover and too many other empty possessions. I just don't get why we don't look for Ray Allen more often in those spots.

The second major error Doc made came when the Clippers took a 92-91 lead on the possession immediately following the phantom timeout call. Though there were 19 seconds left, Doc called our final timeout. There are three reasons to call a timeout in a final possession situation like this:
1)Advance the ball to half court
2) Set up a play
3) Get the right personnel on the floor

The first two simply do not apply in this particular case. Nineteen seconds is plenty of time to get the ball upcourt and into a set. And the set we ran is the same set we had been running for the last several possessions. I see no reason to call a timeout to make sure we knew to get the ball to Pierce.

The third reason, personnel, may apply here, as Eddie House subbed in for Rondo after the timeout. It's true that the pick and pop works better with House than it does with Rondo since the defense actually has to worry about Eddie, so I suppose this substitution made sense. But I don't think that this play is so much better than our others that we need to call our last timeout there.

Why does it matter? Because after Pierce missed and Zach Randolph hit the second of two free throws on the other end, we had 5.2 seconds left ... and no timeout to advance the ball. Just another one of the little things that I don't think Doc does very well.

Okay, on to the other stuff.

Gabe Pruitt was cited for DUI in the wee hours after the game. Not really big news, but I suppose it's possible some sort of disciplinary action is forthcoming, either from the league or the team.

The Clippers game was the first for our brand new backuip power forward/center, Mikki Moore, who we signed earlier in the week. I like the signing, although I would have liked Joe Smith more (though Smith has not yet been bought out by Oklahoma City). Moore, who pronounces his first name "Mikey," is by all accounts a good teammate and locker room guy, and he brings size and a strong work rate defensively and on the glass. His weak spot is his offense and for that reason some are worried about his suitability for the role P.J. Brown played last year. But I'm of the opinion that Brown wasn't nearly as valuable as he was made out to be last year. If you want to argue that we need a better offensive player than Moore or Brown this year because we don't have James Posey, well, I'm listening. But I'm not worried that Moore isn't going to give us what we need.

Moore hit a couple of jumpers in his debut, but was generally pretty slow on some defensive rotations, a combination, I'm sure, of him not even practicing with the team before stepping on the court and having played all of six minutes in two weeks. I'm sure he'll shake the rust off.

Also, in case you haven't heard, we're almost certain to sign Stephon Marbury tomorrow. I'll let you go to Google and read whichever report(s) you like most, and I'll have more on this when (if) it happens. This post is long enough already.

Next game is Friday night, at home vs. Indiana. No national TV, though we do get the Pistons at home at 1 p.m. Sunday on ABC.