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.
