In honor of the (former) Washington Bullets winning the draft lottery (more below), let's do some bullets:
- Big game tonight offensively from Dwight Howard, but to echo a point ESPN's Mark Jackson kept making, Orlando can't beat Boston if Howard on the block is its first option. Boston is (rightly) willing to let Howard shoot jump hooks. Anytime he wants one, he can have it, as far as I'm concerned. For one, his buckets are worth two, not three. And for two, he's not polished enough offensively to be a consistent option, and he's too bad at the free throw line for Orlando to get comfortable going to him in the clutch.
- A lot will be made of Vince Carter's two misses from the stripe with around half a minute to go, but just as bad, in my opinion, was the shot he took a few minutes before that. He had hit a very nice J on the previous possession to put his team up one, and they got a stop on the other end. A bucket would have been huge. But Carter drove left and came up well short on a drifting, fading 13-footer with two hands in his face. Boston got a nails-tough turnaround from KG on the other end to take the lead for good.
- Huge mistake from J.J. Redick to dribble upcourt after rebounding Garnett's miss with under ten seconds to go rather than call an immediate timeout, obviously. He wasted several seconds and when Orlando finally did call timeout, they had to inbound from a disadvantageous position. The combination of those factors, plus some good D from the Celtics on the inbound pass, forced the ball into Jameer Nelson in the backcourt, which meant nothing but a desperation heave to tie. Stan Van Gundy said they went over the proper play in the huddle before Boston's possession, and ESPN talking head Tim Legler said the instinct to call timeout there is or should be wired into every NBA player's DNA. I wonder, though: Redick's been a bit player his entire career, until this year. He has little, if any, experience in these situations. Might the moment have gotten to him?
- Redick's turned into a nice player, by the way. Shoots exceptionally well and does everything else well enough. He still under-penetrates a bit; he's not willing to go to the basket and he doesn't go deep enough to draw the D before kicking it out, but that should come. I've never really liked Redick, but I give him a lot of credit for working hard to improve.
- Speaking of Orlando's final possession (see two bullets ago), as the teams were setting up, Jackson commented that were he the Celtics, he wouldn't bother guarding anybody inside the three-point line (the idea being that only a three will tie the game, so you don't mind a two). But he missed a key reason why you guard everyone, and it played out afterwards right in front of him. You guard Howard inside the arc because if you don't, he becomes a safety valve for the other team to inbound to and then cut off of.
- Right after Howard's flagrant foul on Pierce in the second quarter, I tweeted that you could book Paul for 40 points (he had 15 or so at the time). He came up a dozen short after only six points in the second half. Put the cuffs on me. We still won.
- We won in large part due to Rajon Rondo's big offensive night, including a huge jumper late to put us up three. I thought we went to Rondo a little too much early in the fourth -- leaning heavily on one guy isn't the kind of basketball I like to see us playing -- but that kid is a bona fide star. Not future star -- star, right now, and for the foreseeable future.
- This series might be too physical and too intense for the officials. It's a very difficult series to officiate, a lot of contact on and away from the ball. They missed a bunch, and I'm not just talking about stuff they let go. Kendrick Perkins' disqualifying foul, a moving screen with nearly eight minutes remaining, jumps immediately to mind (I can't figure out what Perk did that Howard and Lewis weren't doing nearly every time they set a screen), but it's not just that. Pierce's fifth foul really should have been KG's fourth, which became significant when Pierce fouled out sending Carter to the line for his two big misses. And just before that, a late foul on Redick should have been given to Nelson. They also called a bad offensive foul on Redick when he crashed into Glen Davis on the way to the basket -- Baby was still getting set when Redick went up -- though that's probably karmic retribution for all the bogus charges Redick drew at Duke. I'm not blaming them; the players are just making the game that difficult to officiate.
Game 3 isn't until Saturday (8:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN) so Orlando has a lot of time to regroup. We obviously have them right where we want them, but I'm not ready to declare us Eastern Conference champs. Orlando came back from the dead to beat us last year. Still, I go to bed a very happy and confident Celtics fan tonight. I didn't believe all the "we'll turn it on for the playoffs" bullshit during the regular season when we were struggling, but I believe it now.
Muy Beno: As mentioned above, the Wizards won the draft lottery tonight and with it, the right to draft John Wall. A few points:
- Most importantly, Washington's luck is also my luck. I'm in a somewhat complex fantasy-league-slash-GM-simulation and our rookie draft lottery is keyed to the NBA lottery, and I had Washington and New Orleans. 2010-2011 is the year of the Revs!
- I don't care what anyone says; this draft isn't that good, certainly not better than last year's. You'll see me write more about this during the days leading up to the draft this summer, but look at the mocks and tell me where the impact guys are. Wall is good, but he's not Derrick Rose or Tyreke Evans. The big guys are projects. Evan Turner is a helluva player, but you have to be a truly special talent to excel at the wing right away in the L, and I'm not sure Turner is that special talent.
- Finally, congratulations to the Sixers for jumping ahead into the second slot, but did they really think they'd get Wall by sending J'rue Holliday as their lottery representative? You can't send your current point guard of the future off to get the point guard of the future! With Holliday and the new Russian owner of the Nets as her competition once it was down to the final three, there was no doubt that Irene Pollin, wife of the late, great Wizards owner and NBA fixture Abe, would snag the top pick.
1 comment:
Both Redick charges should have been blocks, if you ask me, but I was thinking the same thing: payback for all of the calls that went Redick's way at Duke. Also agree on Redick's improvement -- I've never really liked him either, but he can shoot the lights out and he made some nice feeds.
Also agree on the inconsistency of the calls, although it hadn't occurred to me to conclude that the game was beyond the officials' abilities. I think that neither of the officiating crews in this series found a rhythm that matched up with the action. It's a difficult thing to establish -- no mater how much you talk about it in the locker room before the game, once the ball is tipped, it's three guys trying to calibrate their judgment to each other.
BTW, until Redick's misstep in the final seconds, I never knew that part of the rule. But once he started dribbling, I think he got distracted by the bench telling him to call time out, because he still could have taken it into the front court and then called timeout.
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