I generally don't like to post about rumored moves, because I can't keep up with the news and you're better off getting your information somewhere else. This year, especially, has been difficult to follow, with the whole offseason and preseason condensed into like three weeks. I think the below information is accurate, but I'm seeing all sorts of conflicting reports and can't be sure.
Let me start with the moves we didn't make:
We didn't trade for Chris Paul. I laid out how I felt about trading Rajon Rondo for Paul in this post, but it really turned out to be a moot point: If what the Lakers and Clippers were willing to give up wasn't enough to satisfy David Stern, then no package the Celtics put together would have. Rondo reportedly has been upbeat at camp thus far, so it appears we've avoided the whole mess and kept everyone reasonably happy.
We didn't trade for David West. Before he signed with the Pacers, we were rumored to be sending Jermaine O'Neal and an unnamed player to the Hornets in a sign-and-trade for West. It ultimately fell through, and I know a few people are a little bummed out that it did. I'm glad we couldn't get it to work, though. I've always liked West, but he's 31 and had ACL surgery in April, and his preferred mid-range game doesn't make him a good fit alongside Kevin Garnett. That meant that at best, we would have been getting a sixth-starter type who poses some lineup challenges for Doc. At worst, we'd have been getting a veteran who needed more than eight months to recover from a knee injury and was more or less useless in perhaps our last push for a championship. Not the kind of guy you want to throw $20 million at, especially at the expense of the only decent center on our roster, as unreliable as his health may be.
We didn't sign Delonte West. This is the one that bugs me a little bit. A wrist injury derailed his return to Boston last season, but the guy is a proven combo guard who can help at both ends of the floor. I don't exactly know what went down, but I'm guessing Delonte wanted more money or more years than we were willing to give him. I'll be interested to see, when he does sign (the Lakers are a possibility, by the way), how much it's for, because I think we're going to regret not ponying up for him.
Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jermaine O'Neal were under contract and are back, as is Avery Bradley. We also signed our two draft picks, JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore. Here's how we've filled out the rest of the roster:
We traded Glen Davis to Orlando for Brandon Bass. I like this move. Baby is a likable guy and a serviceable player, but his love affair with his inconsistent jumper was infuriating. In Bass, the Celtics get a similar player (Bass loves the mid-range game, too), but one who shoots a bit better and can score at the rim -- where Baby would get his shot blocked inside because he lacked the athleticism to get off the ground and explode through defenders, Bass should be able to finish those plays. Bass is also a more consistent offensive rebounder than Davis, and better on the defensive glass, as well. If I have one reservation about this trade, it's that Bass was highly-coveted by the Magic, who signed him to a four-year, $18 million contract in 2009, then almost immediately soured on him. He averaged just 13 minutes per game in his first year in Orlando, averaging twice that last year when the Magic shook up their team with various trades. Magic coach Stan Van Gundy is a defense-oriented guy, and so it's hard for me to imagine that he'd sign off on this swap if unless he thought he was getting an upgrade on that end of the floor. The defensive metrics seem to point to Bass being a downgrade from Davis, whose major contribution on defense was taking charges in help defense situations. So I guess we'll see how Bass holds up on D, though a good scheme can do a lot to hide deficiencies in that area.
We signed Jeff Green to a one-year deal. Jeff Clark over at Celtics Blog has some good insight as to what this specific contract means for Boston's financial future (though I don't know where he gets the $9 million figure -- I haven't seen it confirmed anywhere), but here's what it means to me: Danny blew up the core of the 2008 title team, the team with the best record in the East at the time, for a guy who is going to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. I know I shouldn't live in the past and that you shouldn't throw good money after bad, but it just doesn't make sense to me. What could Danny have seen during Green's three-month tenure with Boston last season that made him second-guess his opinion? Don't get me wrong; I'm not a huge fan of Green's. But it's unreasonable to expect a guy to come to Doc River's Celtics in the middle of the season and expect him to integrate in right away. It hasn't happened at all in the past four seasons. Either you believe in the guy or you don't. To me, this contract is just another sign of how bad the Perk trade was, even if the contract is actually fine for the Celtics.
We signed Chris Wilcox, Marquis Daniels, Sasha Pavlovic, Keyon Dooling, and Greg Stiemsma. Along with Bass and Green, this is the crew that's going to make up the second unit. Wilcox is a journeyman center who is capable of decent numbers when he's healthy, but his 57 games with Detroit last year were the most he's played in a season since 2007-08. In his prime, he was putting up like a 13/7, but it's unlikely he's capable of that now. Daniels was finding his rhythm as a Celtic last year before a spine injury in early February ended his season and led to a trade to Sacramento. Especially with Delonte gone, it'll be good to have him back to spell Ray Allen. Pavlovic signed at the trade deadline last year to fill one of the roster spots left open by Daniels' move to the Kings. He played 17 games for the Celtics last year, and through the first 16, he made exactly four shots. In the 17th, the regular season finale against the Knicks, with all of Boston's starters resting, he came off the bench to make seven of ten shots (including four of five threes). I wouldn't expect him to play a lot of minutes, but he's the best shooter on the bench. Dooling is another journeyman, a point guard who excels on the defensive end but shoots too much, given how bad he is at it. His career three-point percentage is decent (35 percent), but his overall shooting percentage has been below 40 in each of the last two seasons. He's also the one new guy I know I'm going to have trouble rooting for, and that's especially true since we apparently chose him over Delonte. Stiemsma is a big body who was the D League defensive player of the year last season. I saw him on the USA team that won a bronze medal at the Pan-Am Games in October, and he did little to stand out.
Showing posts with label Chris Paul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Paul. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Why the Trade Rumors Don't Worry Me
As I'm sure you've heard, the NBA is back, baby, with the season set to open on Christmas Day. And no sooner than we digested that news along with our Thanksgiving leftovers did we receive the first real indication of basketball season: The annual Rajon Rondo trade rumor mill.
This year's iteration is Rondo for New Orleans' Chris Paul, a free agent next summer who is looking to join his own super-team to compete with the Unholy Trinity in Miami. And although those talks seem more or less dead as of this writing (Paul reportedly won't agree to sign an extension with the Celtics), enough has been made of it over the past 24 hours that it's worth a discussion.
Given my overall opinion of the guy, what I'm about to say borders on heresy, but here goes: Rondo for Paul is a no-brainer, slam dunk for the Cs. This isn't a novel statement -- you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees. As much as I love Rondo and think Paul is kind of a punk, there's no question that CP3 opens up more possibilities for a franchise, both this year and moving forward, than #9 does.
Danny Ainge knows this. That's why he proposed the deal. And whoever the hell is running things for the Hornets (the franchise is owned by the NBA) knows it, too. That's why he declined it.
I heard these trade rumors last night and thought little of them, but awoke this morning to a couple of semi-hysterical emails and texts messages. I started searching the deep recesses of my brain to try to retrieve who the past Rondo trade rumors had swirled around. Finding nothing there, I turned to the Internet, and quickly came across this article by Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. It's not Deveney's main thesis, but the below quote from that article illustrates the point I want to make rather nicely:
I don't necessarily agree with Deveny's main argument, that Ainge throws Rondo's name out in trade rumors as a motivational tactic. (It's certainly a possibility, but I think it's more likely that Ainge simply thinks that it's possible that one day, an opposing NBA GM will make a dumb decision and overpay for Rondo. It certainly wouldn't be the first time an NBA GM made such a decision.) But Deveney is right when he says that the vast majority of rumored trades involving Rondo would have been seen as major coups for the Celtics.
(I would have to agree with that assessment, with the possible exception of a proposal that Ainge is rumored to have proposed after the playoffs last year, a proposal that just became public knowledge yesterday: Rondo and Jeff Green to Oklahoma City for Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Perkins. I wonder how that conversation went: "Hi Sam, it's Danny. Remember when we had the best team in the East and then traded you our center and defensive anchor for your overrated combo forward? Yeah, I can't believe Shaq and Jermaine got injured, either! Anyway, Sam, we screwed up, and we'd like our center back. Can we swap again? No? What if we gave you Rondo, too, and you gave us that athletic kid who can't shoot, either -- Westbrook, I think his name is. No? But Sam ... Wait, hello? Sam????" In seriousness, I probably reacted as poorly as I did to hearing that proposal because it would have been a sneaky admission by Ainge that he messed up by dealing Perkins for Green in the first place, instead of an outright one, and because it would make me sad to have the band back together, sans Rondo, knowing that we easily could have kept all five together and not thrown away a chance at last season's title. I'm also not that high on Westbrook, though a lot of people are and would rather have him than Rondo.)
The point is that at least while our team is built to win now, any Rondo trade is very likely to overwhelmingly benefit us. It'd be something to be nostalgic over -- I'd probably even shed a few tears -- but our favorite franchise would almost certainly be in better shape because of it.
That caveat -- at least while our team is built to win now -- is important, though. Because, as fun as these last four seasons have been, we have to remember what we've gotten ourselves into. When we traded the 5th pick in the 2007 draft to Seattle for Ray Allen and Al Jefferson and a couple of future firsts to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett, we did so with an eye to a three-, maybe four-year championship window. Rondo's excellence and the surprising relative longevity of Paul Pierce and Allen have extended that window somewhat, but we're in year five now. It's going to end soon, my brothers and sisters in green, and when it does, it's going to end ugly.
Not necessarily ugly on the court or for the health of the franchise, in a basketball sense. When their run as alpha dogs is over, the veterans could bring in draft picks or promising players from franchises looking for something extra to put them over the top. Or Boston could use their cap room to sign a free agent stud. Rondo could be turned into a couple of pieces around which a playoff -- if not a championship -- squad could be built. The Celtics could be postseason mainstays again.
But emotionally, it's probably going to get ugly. The contract extension that Pierce signed in the summer of 2010 makes it likely that the Captain and the Truth retires a lifelong Celtic, and that's one drama-bomb I'll be happy to avoid. But Ray and KG are up after this year, and in all likelihood, they'll want to stay. And Pierce will want them to stay, and so will Rondo, and so will Doc Rivers, and so will I. So will you, and so will all the other Celtics fans in the world. And at some point -- maybe not this offseason, but sometime soon, and possibly even before this offseason -- Ainge is going to have to step in and be the bad guy, tell everyone it's over, and remind everyone of the Window and that it was fun while it lasted.
And then there's Rondo.
Rondo is the most unique player in the league today, if not in history. His peculiar blend of talent, athleticism, and disposition make him a once-in-a-lifetime performer on the basketball court. No player has brought me greater joy than he; it is likely that none ever will.
But Rondo is not, in all probability, a franchise point guard. He has more value to us than any NBA team, but the factors that make that true -- his chemistry with the Big Three and his ability and willingness to manage the three of them on the court -- dissipate when those guys are gone. I'm not interested in debating the degree to which he makes his teammates better and vice versa, but it's virtually uncontroverted that his effectiveness will be reduced when he suits up alongside lesser players and the opponent can focus their energies on stopping him. It is very likely that one winter night in the near future, Rondo will pull a jersey over that tiny head and onto those broad shoulders, and it won't say "Celtics" on the front. It will say "Hornets" or "Pacers" or, God forbid -- no, I don't want to even mention the unpleasant possibilities.
And to me, that's really what this play for CP3 is all about: the future. To sell Paul on signing long-term with Boston, Ainge has to sell him on the possibility of winning right away, going for a ring alongside Pierce, Garnett, and Allen. But from the very day that Ainge brought this team together, he's had at least one eye on the future. He structured the Big Three's contracts so that they would expire in staggered fashion; year-by-year, not all at once. The goal was to contend for championships during the Window, then slowly trade older pieces for younger ones, building the foundation so that the next title team can start from a much more solid base than this one did. Paul would be the bridge from the Big Three era to whatever era is next in Boston.
I say all this not to temper excitement for the season that is unexpectedly just a few weeks away, nor to cause you to monitor the upcoming campaign pensively, waiting for the hammer to drop. Rather, I say it to encourage you to appreciate what is immediately in front of us. As recently as last week, I was convinced that the labor dispute would claim the entire 2011-2012 season. I was faced not only with the loss of a prime season of my favorite player, but the likely closing of the Window and the end of the Big Three era.
And so, while the lockout made me as angry as it made any of you, it also made me appreciate the past and the newly-saved future that much more. On Christmas Day, when we rip the bow off the NBA season, I'll watch with a renewed sense of appreciation. I hope that when I flip on the TV at my grandmother's house, I'll see a familiar face playing point guard for the Celtics, zipping around the court, shooting passing lanes and dazzling the crowd with often spectacular assists.
But if he isn't, I'll know why. And I'll be okay with it.
I think.
This year's iteration is Rondo for New Orleans' Chris Paul, a free agent next summer who is looking to join his own super-team to compete with the Unholy Trinity in Miami. And although those talks seem more or less dead as of this writing (Paul reportedly won't agree to sign an extension with the Celtics), enough has been made of it over the past 24 hours that it's worth a discussion.
Given my overall opinion of the guy, what I'm about to say borders on heresy, but here goes: Rondo for Paul is a no-brainer, slam dunk for the Cs. This isn't a novel statement -- you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees. As much as I love Rondo and think Paul is kind of a punk, there's no question that CP3 opens up more possibilities for a franchise, both this year and moving forward, than #9 does.
Danny Ainge knows this. That's why he proposed the deal. And whoever the hell is running things for the Hornets (the franchise is owned by the NBA) knows it, too. That's why he declined it.
I heard these trade rumors last night and thought little of them, but awoke this morning to a couple of semi-hysterical emails and texts messages. I started searching the deep recesses of my brain to try to retrieve who the past Rondo trade rumors had swirled around. Finding nothing there, I turned to the Internet, and quickly came across this article by Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. It's not Deveney's main thesis, but the below quote from that article illustrates the point I want to make rather nicely:
After having spent the Celtics’ ’08 title march in the background, you might say Rondo’s star was born in those playoffs. And yet, a month later, Rondo was one of the most prominent names on the trading block. He was going to Detroit with Ray Allen in a package for the Pistons’ three best players—Tayshaun Prince, Richard Hamilton and Rodney Stuckey. Or he was going to Memphis with Brian Scalabrine for Rudy Gay, Mike Conley and the No. 2 pick in the draft. No, he was off to Phoenix with Allen for Amare Stoudemire, Leandro Barbosa and the No. 14 pick.
None of that came to pass. In fact, none of it even came close to happening. Each scenario, at the time, was considered ridiculously in favor of the Celtics (though that Pistons deal would have been a good one for Detroit) and served as little more than grist for the rumor mill.
I don't necessarily agree with Deveny's main argument, that Ainge throws Rondo's name out in trade rumors as a motivational tactic. (It's certainly a possibility, but I think it's more likely that Ainge simply thinks that it's possible that one day, an opposing NBA GM will make a dumb decision and overpay for Rondo. It certainly wouldn't be the first time an NBA GM made such a decision.) But Deveney is right when he says that the vast majority of rumored trades involving Rondo would have been seen as major coups for the Celtics.
(I would have to agree with that assessment, with the possible exception of a proposal that Ainge is rumored to have proposed after the playoffs last year, a proposal that just became public knowledge yesterday: Rondo and Jeff Green to Oklahoma City for Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Perkins. I wonder how that conversation went: "Hi Sam, it's Danny. Remember when we had the best team in the East and then traded you our center and defensive anchor for your overrated combo forward? Yeah, I can't believe Shaq and Jermaine got injured, either! Anyway, Sam, we screwed up, and we'd like our center back. Can we swap again? No? What if we gave you Rondo, too, and you gave us that athletic kid who can't shoot, either -- Westbrook, I think his name is. No? But Sam ... Wait, hello? Sam????" In seriousness, I probably reacted as poorly as I did to hearing that proposal because it would have been a sneaky admission by Ainge that he messed up by dealing Perkins for Green in the first place, instead of an outright one, and because it would make me sad to have the band back together, sans Rondo, knowing that we easily could have kept all five together and not thrown away a chance at last season's title. I'm also not that high on Westbrook, though a lot of people are and would rather have him than Rondo.)
The point is that at least while our team is built to win now, any Rondo trade is very likely to overwhelmingly benefit us. It'd be something to be nostalgic over -- I'd probably even shed a few tears -- but our favorite franchise would almost certainly be in better shape because of it.
That caveat -- at least while our team is built to win now -- is important, though. Because, as fun as these last four seasons have been, we have to remember what we've gotten ourselves into. When we traded the 5th pick in the 2007 draft to Seattle for Ray Allen and Al Jefferson and a couple of future firsts to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett, we did so with an eye to a three-, maybe four-year championship window. Rondo's excellence and the surprising relative longevity of Paul Pierce and Allen have extended that window somewhat, but we're in year five now. It's going to end soon, my brothers and sisters in green, and when it does, it's going to end ugly.
Not necessarily ugly on the court or for the health of the franchise, in a basketball sense. When their run as alpha dogs is over, the veterans could bring in draft picks or promising players from franchises looking for something extra to put them over the top. Or Boston could use their cap room to sign a free agent stud. Rondo could be turned into a couple of pieces around which a playoff -- if not a championship -- squad could be built. The Celtics could be postseason mainstays again.
But emotionally, it's probably going to get ugly. The contract extension that Pierce signed in the summer of 2010 makes it likely that the Captain and the Truth retires a lifelong Celtic, and that's one drama-bomb I'll be happy to avoid. But Ray and KG are up after this year, and in all likelihood, they'll want to stay. And Pierce will want them to stay, and so will Rondo, and so will Doc Rivers, and so will I. So will you, and so will all the other Celtics fans in the world. And at some point -- maybe not this offseason, but sometime soon, and possibly even before this offseason -- Ainge is going to have to step in and be the bad guy, tell everyone it's over, and remind everyone of the Window and that it was fun while it lasted.
And then there's Rondo.
Rondo is the most unique player in the league today, if not in history. His peculiar blend of talent, athleticism, and disposition make him a once-in-a-lifetime performer on the basketball court. No player has brought me greater joy than he; it is likely that none ever will.
But Rondo is not, in all probability, a franchise point guard. He has more value to us than any NBA team, but the factors that make that true -- his chemistry with the Big Three and his ability and willingness to manage the three of them on the court -- dissipate when those guys are gone. I'm not interested in debating the degree to which he makes his teammates better and vice versa, but it's virtually uncontroverted that his effectiveness will be reduced when he suits up alongside lesser players and the opponent can focus their energies on stopping him. It is very likely that one winter night in the near future, Rondo will pull a jersey over that tiny head and onto those broad shoulders, and it won't say "Celtics" on the front. It will say "Hornets" or "Pacers" or, God forbid -- no, I don't want to even mention the unpleasant possibilities.
And to me, that's really what this play for CP3 is all about: the future. To sell Paul on signing long-term with Boston, Ainge has to sell him on the possibility of winning right away, going for a ring alongside Pierce, Garnett, and Allen. But from the very day that Ainge brought this team together, he's had at least one eye on the future. He structured the Big Three's contracts so that they would expire in staggered fashion; year-by-year, not all at once. The goal was to contend for championships during the Window, then slowly trade older pieces for younger ones, building the foundation so that the next title team can start from a much more solid base than this one did. Paul would be the bridge from the Big Three era to whatever era is next in Boston.
I say all this not to temper excitement for the season that is unexpectedly just a few weeks away, nor to cause you to monitor the upcoming campaign pensively, waiting for the hammer to drop. Rather, I say it to encourage you to appreciate what is immediately in front of us. As recently as last week, I was convinced that the labor dispute would claim the entire 2011-2012 season. I was faced not only with the loss of a prime season of my favorite player, but the likely closing of the Window and the end of the Big Three era.
And so, while the lockout made me as angry as it made any of you, it also made me appreciate the past and the newly-saved future that much more. On Christmas Day, when we rip the bow off the NBA season, I'll watch with a renewed sense of appreciation. I hope that when I flip on the TV at my grandmother's house, I'll see a familiar face playing point guard for the Celtics, zipping around the court, shooting passing lanes and dazzling the crowd with often spectacular assists.
But if he isn't, I'll know why. And I'll be okay with it.
I think.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Boston 97, New Orleans 87
Our first subpar performance of the season.
[recap] [box score]
The Celtics may have fallen victims to their own early-season success a little bit in this one. Despite not shooting particularly well, they looked to have the game completely in control, holding a nine-point lead late in the third. Whether they let up at that point or simply couldn't find the killer instinct they had in putting the Bobcats and Bulls away I can't say, but letting a Chris Paul-led team hang around without paying for it. The Celtics' price for their lethargy was a much more difficult final period than it needed to be.
This one wasn't over until just over two minutes remained in the fourth. Boston went to a 3/4 pick-and-roll for three consecutive possessions. On the first two, Paul Pierce posted up Peja Stojakovic on the left wing, took an entry pass from Kevin Garnett, and then dribbled right over a screen from Garnett, forcing a switch. The ball then went to KG in the post, and the havoc this mismatch wreaked on the Hornets' defense resulted in in an easy bucket for Rondo cutting to the hoop and a wide-open three for Pierce after New Orleans triple-teamed KG. The last time we ran this action, Pierce took a high screen from KG and dribbled right. Garnett rolled to the foul line, took a pass from Pierce, drew Emeka Okafor out ever so slightly, and dumped it down to Kendrick Perkins for an easy two.
Bullets:
[recap] [box score]
The Celtics may have fallen victims to their own early-season success a little bit in this one. Despite not shooting particularly well, they looked to have the game completely in control, holding a nine-point lead late in the third. Whether they let up at that point or simply couldn't find the killer instinct they had in putting the Bobcats and Bulls away I can't say, but letting a Chris Paul-led team hang around without paying for it. The Celtics' price for their lethargy was a much more difficult final period than it needed to be.
This one wasn't over until just over two minutes remained in the fourth. Boston went to a 3/4 pick-and-roll for three consecutive possessions. On the first two, Paul Pierce posted up Peja Stojakovic on the left wing, took an entry pass from Kevin Garnett, and then dribbled right over a screen from Garnett, forcing a switch. The ball then went to KG in the post, and the havoc this mismatch wreaked on the Hornets' defense resulted in in an easy bucket for Rondo cutting to the hoop and a wide-open three for Pierce after New Orleans triple-teamed KG. The last time we ran this action, Pierce took a high screen from KG and dribbled right. Garnett rolled to the foul line, took a pass from Pierce, drew Emeka Okafor out ever so slightly, and dumped it down to Kendrick Perkins for an easy two.
Bullets:
- The bench had a nice sequence starting at the end of the third quarter, after New Orleans had come back from down 12 to tie it. Rasheed Wallace hit a three with the shot clock expiring to end the period, then hit a little turnaround in the lane to again push the lead to three with a minute and a half gone in the fourth. Stojakovic tied it with a three, but Marquis Daniels drew a foul on the next possession. He hit the first free throw and missed the second, but he then combined with Wallace to tap out the offense rebound, and Wallace hit a three on the possession. Eddie House then sandwiched nice assists to Shelden Williams and Daniels around a Stojakovic triple, which gave the starters the cushion they needed.
- Rajon Rondo didn't have a bad game, but he made several mistakes in the fourth quarter: A bad pass, a dribbling violation, a gamble on Paul that used up Boston's foul to give, and an over-aggressive attempt to keep the ball out of Paul's hands that ended up putting CP3 on the line. He was hardly the only guy not at his best Sunday night, but he came down to earth a bit after his remarkable start to the season.
- Stojakovic nearly buried us with his outside shooting (26 points on 9-of-15, including 6-of-10 from deep). Pierce was on him a big chunk of the time and Stojakovic just ran him off of screens. Boston never really helped; it was as though they were totally unprepared for New Orleans to run plays for Peja. That may be forgivable, given how balky his back has been, but it sure was frustrating to see the guy who is fourth all-time in three-pointers made have so much daylight over and over in the second half. Boston didn't really make him work on the defensive end until the final few minutes, either, despite the fact that his cover, Pierce, had a very strong first half offensively.
A win's a win, though, and the Celtics move to 4-0. Next game is Tuesday night, at Philly.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Boston 94, New Orleans 82
A good win over a strong team on a night we didn't play our best.
[recap] [box score]
The highlight reel found in the game recap has a couple of spectacular plays toward the end; 1) a steal by Glen Davis, followed by the 289-pound second-year player taking it 70 feet before dishing to Tony Allen (who provided a great finish while getting fouled -- pretty much the only thing he did right all night); and 2) a sweet give-and-go alley-good between Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Otherwise, this one was kind of ugly. Boston out-toughed New Orleans, although some of that is because the Hornets were without their starting center, Tyson Chandler, who hurt his neck in practice.
I though Davis and Leon Powe played very well, despite their modest stat lines. Eddie House provided the outside shooting we needed to put the game away. And it was good to see Paul Pierce, who had 13 of his 28 in the decisive third quarter, step up and play the kind of offensive game we know he's capable of but hadn't seen from him in a while.
Although Chris Paul had 20 points and 14 rebounds, that's really a deceptive stat line; the Celtics did a nice job of containing him all night. Holding a guy like Paul to five made field goals is an indication of why we are so good defensively; we stop the other team's star player from getting to the basket. A few times, it broke down a bit, as we left guys open under the basket in an attempt to keep Paul away from the tin, and he found them for easy layups. But our defense certainly frustrated Paul, whose overlooked dirty streak -- remember, he was suspended a game in college for punching Julius Hodge in the groin, something everyone seems to forget about -- came through late when he set a fairly vicious illegal screen on Kendrick Perkins (Perk did a nice job not reacting to it).
Fourteen in a row now, and Cleveland is still hot on our heels. Next game is Monday night vs. Utah (7:30 p.m. Eastern; no national TV). The Jazz have another great young point guard in Deron Wililams, but our job against him will be a little different. He doesn't drive to score as much as Paul does, so we'll need to jump the screen-and-roll a bit more to keep him from shooting if Rondo goes behind the screens, rather than sagging back and daring him to shoot outside, the way we do with Paul.
[recap] [box score]
The highlight reel found in the game recap has a couple of spectacular plays toward the end; 1) a steal by Glen Davis, followed by the 289-pound second-year player taking it 70 feet before dishing to Tony Allen (who provided a great finish while getting fouled -- pretty much the only thing he did right all night); and 2) a sweet give-and-go alley-good between Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Otherwise, this one was kind of ugly. Boston out-toughed New Orleans, although some of that is because the Hornets were without their starting center, Tyson Chandler, who hurt his neck in practice.
I though Davis and Leon Powe played very well, despite their modest stat lines. Eddie House provided the outside shooting we needed to put the game away. And it was good to see Paul Pierce, who had 13 of his 28 in the decisive third quarter, step up and play the kind of offensive game we know he's capable of but hadn't seen from him in a while.
Although Chris Paul had 20 points and 14 rebounds, that's really a deceptive stat line; the Celtics did a nice job of containing him all night. Holding a guy like Paul to five made field goals is an indication of why we are so good defensively; we stop the other team's star player from getting to the basket. A few times, it broke down a bit, as we left guys open under the basket in an attempt to keep Paul away from the tin, and he found them for easy layups. But our defense certainly frustrated Paul, whose overlooked dirty streak -- remember, he was suspended a game in college for punching Julius Hodge in the groin, something everyone seems to forget about -- came through late when he set a fairly vicious illegal screen on Kendrick Perkins (Perk did a nice job not reacting to it).
Fourteen in a row now, and Cleveland is still hot on our heels. Next game is Monday night vs. Utah (7:30 p.m. Eastern; no national TV). The Jazz have another great young point guard in Deron Wililams, but our job against him will be a little different. He doesn't drive to score as much as Paul does, so we'll need to jump the screen-and-roll a bit more to keep him from shooting if Rondo goes behind the screens, rather than sagging back and daring him to shoot outside, the way we do with Paul.
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