Boston 109, Golden State 95

[recap] [box score]

Bullets!

• I don't have a good explanation for why Boston's half-court defense was so bad in the first half. One theory bouncing around in my head was that Golden State is full of good, willing shooters, and our defense is predicated on helping and forcing teams to take jumpers they don't want to take. For the Warriors, the concept of a shot that they don't want to take doesn't exist. But there were a fair number of uncontested drives to the basket can't be explained away, unless the Celtics over-adjusted and stayed too close to the shooters.
• I know that our top offensive weapons prefer to play away from the basket, but we need to start punishing teams for playing small. The Warriors, like the Pacers, were undersized, but the only player who seemed interested in feeding Kendrick Perkins in the post was Kevin Garnett. It surely feels weird to pound the ball into Perk with the other options available, but we needed to exploit that mismatch more.
• Paul Pierce still looks hampered by the knee injury he suffered late last week.
• Rajon Rondo took this game over in the third quarter, scoring something like 12 of his 18 points in the period. During one stretch, he drove for a three-point play, then found Pierce for a three-pointer on the next possession. Tommy Heinsohn: "That's Rondo being Rondo!"
• On the Warriors' very next possession, Rondo gambled on a Monta Ellis crossover, and Ellis blew by him for an easy layin. QED.
• By converting the aforementioned three-point play, Rondo broke a streak of ten consecutive missed free throws. The NBA record, in case you're wondering, is 13. The camera caught him yelling an expletive in relief. His confidence at the line has clearly been shaken recently, and I've heard and read some reports that his work with shooting coach Mark Price has him uncomfortable with his shot. If that's true, it hasn't shown in live action: He stroked a very confident looking three-pointer tonight, his first of the year. I've long felt that the problem with Rondo's shot is that he's so unwilling to take it, not that it's bad. Sure, his mechanics are messed up, but the ball goes up to the rim reasonably softly, and he hits enough jumpers that it wouldn't be an issue if a)he took more of them; and b)teams didn't magnify that reluctance to fire by playing off of him.
• As a team, Boston was just 17-of-27 from the charity stripe.
• J.R. Giddens played seven minutes tonight, and not all in garbage time: He got it in the first quarter. One point, one rebound, one assist, and one turnover. His most notable play was biting on a Corey Maggette shot fake at the end of the first half, sending Maggette to the line with a chance to tie the game heading into the break. (Maggette hit one of two, and Garnett's spinning, one-handed 70-footer after grabbing the rebound was waved off because it came after the horn.)
• Giddens was also far too late on a rotation at the end of the third period, as Ellis coasted in for an easy two.
• After Chris Douglas-Roberts' career-high 27 points last night against Indiana, I mentioned to a buddy that I wouldn't at all be surprised if Giddens' career point total never exceeded CDR's single-game best. Giddens' free throw tonight gave him seven points in 15 career games. (To be fair, that's in only about 41 minutes of court time.) Douglas-Roberts, meanwhile, set a new career mark of 31 points tonight in a loss to Milwaukee, adding 10 rebounds for his second straight double-double. I compare these two, of course, because Douglas-Roberts was the player Boston should have taken with the pick it used on Giddens. That was true the day it happened, and it's looking more and more true by the game.
• Because I wasn't blogging over the summer, I didn't get a chance to write about the draft and what I saw at Summer League. Allow me, then, a few words about Golden State rookie Stephen Curry. My concern about Curry coming out of Davidson was that he was simply too small to get his shot off consistently at this level. Those concerns were put to rest in Vegas, as I saw Curry bounce his way free for the same looks he got in college. The surprising problem, however, was that he wasn't knocking them down, hitting right around a third of his attempts. A shooting slump, perhaps, but nothing to worry about. He wasn't much better in the preason, however, and I began to get concerned. Thankfully, though he was a rather pedestrian 4-for-10 against Boston, he seems to be on track, shooting just below 49 percent from the field on the season, an outstanding percentage for a guard. His ballhandling and/or decision-making still needs a lot of work, as evidenced by the six turnovers he committed against the Cs. At least three more of his passes were deflected, too, so that total could have been much worse. He may simply not have adjusted yet to the pro game as it relates to quickness and length of defenders.
• I'll leave you with this Curry story: Friday night, the same buddy mentioned above went to MSG with a bunch of Davidson grads specifically to see the kid. After playing his prized rookie just under 30 minutes a game through the season's first seven games. Woyas coach Don Nelson sat Curry for all but 2:35 of the game against the Knicks. Curry went scoreless and shotless in his brief time on the court. On the bright side, my friend and his crew got to see Curry's first career blocked shot.

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.

Preseason: Celtics 83, Nets 66

I obviously didn't see this one, but one thing strikes me as I look through the boxscore:

Gabe Pruitt had 11 points, 12 rebounds, and seven assists.

It's only preseason. And I'm sure they are skeptics who say that Pruitt's line is proof of the NBA maxim that minutes=stats (Gabe played 44 last night). But I liked what I saw out of Pruitt when he did get in the games in garbage time in his rookie year, and I'm taking this as another sign that he can play in this league.

Pruitt's a 6'4" point guard who can play D and shoot it a little bit. I really like his midrange game, and he hit three of six three-pointers last night.

It's hard to see where Pruitt might fit into the rotation this year. Rajon Rondo will once again log the majority of the minutes at point guard, and Pruitt's behind Eddie House and Sam Cassell on the depth chart, with Tony Allen backing up Ray Allen at the 2. However, TA will likely spend time as Paul Pierce's understudy, since the only other small forward on the roster is explosive rookie Bill Walker. And Cassell was hardly a world-beater after joining the Celtics late in the season. If Cassell really is washed up, Pruitt could prove valuable this year. While he's not really strong, his height means he could play alongside Rondo against some teams. And looking forward, even though he's not a House-caliber sniper, he could be a cheap, serviceable replacement when Eddie's contract is up after the 2009-10 season.

There was some thought that he'd be the one cut before the season.* I'm glad that's not the case.

*I'll have a column about the Celtics waiving Darius Miles in the next day or so.

-Saw this article while reading about the game. Said Doc Rivers of the Nets, who project to be in the bottom quartile of NBA teams this year: "I love what they're doing, I really do."

"What they're doing," by the way, is clearing cap room to make a run at LeBron James when the King becomes a free agent in two years. They're doing it smartly, trading vets like Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson for young guys like Devin Harris and Yi Jianlian, in the hopes that these guys will be ready to blossom if and when they land LeBron.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is because the article mentions that Doc is impressed with Nets rookie shooting guard Chris Douglas-Roberts. CDR was one of two players I wanted with the 30th overall pick in June's draft. (Bill Walker, who Boston bought from Washington after the Wizards drafted him 47th overall, was the other.) Instead we took J.R. Giddens, and Douglas-Roberts went 40th to New Jersey.

Why the front office liked Giddens more than Douglas-Roberts is a mystery to me. Giddens was essentially kicked off the team at Kansas and was suspended for a spell after transferring to New Mexico. I didn't see him at New Mexico, but what I remember of him at Kansas is that he's an athletic, one-dimensional chucker.

Douglas-Roberts, on the other hand, is a smooth wing with a great mid-range game and the ability to create his own shot. He's also 6'7" to Giddens' 6'5". CDR isn't as athletic as Giddens, and so there may have been some concerns about his defense.

Still, when faced with two similar players, why not take the one who is two inches taller and isn't a headcase?