Preseason Game #4: Boston 91, New Jersey 88

[recap] [box score]

(I haven't had a chance to check all the Celtics blogs for reactions to the game, but we play Toronto tonight and in the interest of keeping up to date, I'm posting my thoughts, anyway. Celtics Life has some highlights.

Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen all sat this one out, and Boston still pulled out a victory. Credit some of that to the fact that the Nets' Devin Harris and Yi Jianlian missed the second half with injuries, after grabbing a 60-47 halftime lead. But give a lot of credit, also, to the Celtics, in particular Rajon Rondo and Rasheed Wallace.

Rondo fell one rebound shy of a triple double, notching 18 points and 13 assists in the process. Personally, I'm not overly interested in his preseason performance -- as I'm generally not interested in any established player before the games start to count, unless, like KG, they are coming back from injury -- but at the very least, this will keep Celtics bloggers from writing posts wondering where Rondo's aggressiveness has gone.

With the Big Three on the pine, Wallace got a start and showed just how valuable he's going to be this year, either as the leader of the second team or as another weapon playing alongside much of the first unit. Twenty points and nine boards for 'sheed, including a very healthy three-of-seven from deep. Marquis Daniels, as a slasher, is going to love playing with Wallace and Eddie House (14 points, two-of-four from three-point range on Tuesday).


Wallace did leave the game in the second half with an ankle injury that doesn't appear to be serious. And Daniels sat out after halftime after a relatively ineffective first half. Reports are that he was battling some sort of bug.


The only other notable thing in the box score is J.R. Giddens' line of seven points and 13 rebounds. While this is undoubtedly Giddens' greatest moment as a Celtic, there's reason to temper one's excitement. For starters, he played 33 minutes last night. In the NBA, minutes tends to equal production, and that's particularly true for a guy whose job is on the line and who should therefore be busting his ass out there grabbing rebounds. Second, I still think Bill Walker is the better player and would be the one given the chance to crack the rotation had he not torn cartilage in his knee earlier in cap. We probably won't ever know, but I believe that Walker was going to be given the chance to take minutes from Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine as the tenth guy in the rotation, whereas I don't think the team is seriously considering Giddens for that role. While I think last night means that Giddens isn't in danger of losing his roster spot to Michael Sweetney, I'm not at all sure he fits into the club's long-term plans. I can't find it now, but a few weeks ago, there was a post on CelticsBlog that suggested that the team might not even pick up Giddens' option for next year, making him a free agent after the season -- and more important, an expiring contract to use in a trade.


What's ironic, actually, is that the guy who should be the answer to the question "Who is our second wing guy off the bench?" was wearing the home whites Tuesday night. Chris Douglas-Roberts is in the middle of a terrific preseason and is locked in a very tight battle with Courtney Lee for New Jersey's starting two guard spot (though with Jarvis Hayes being the only obstacle at the three, it's conceivable that Nets coach Lawrence Frank could go small and start them both alongside Devin Harris in a three-guard offense). CDR seems to have the slight edge over Lee and did nothing to change that last night with 19 points on six-for-eight shooting, though Lee also started and led the team in scoring with an efficient 21 points.


Boston could have Douglas-Roberts in the 2008 Draft, but instead chose Giddens with the last pick of the first round. The pick made little sense at the time: they play the same position, but CDR is two inches taller; Giddens was a McDonald's high school All-American, but CDR was first-team All-America in college; Giddens was essentially kicked off the team at Kansas and suspended at New Mexico, while CDR -- despite the fact that he played for John Calipari at Memphis -- does not, to my knowledge, have any character issues. We were lucky that Douglas-Roberts fell so far that we could have taken him 30th (he was eventually selected 40th by the Nets) and yet we decided to give guaranteed money to a guy who was smaller, less proven, and something of a knucklehead.


That's not entirely fair, of course, as they are different players (Giddens reportedly has more of a jumper and is a better defender) and a lot of people were wrong about Douglas-Roberts (who isn't the smoothest player around). But I, for one, have always regretted that we didn't take CDR, and I think this is the year that everyone else will, too.