The Celtics are making it awfully hard to write this season off.
Boston overcame a ten-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter to hold off the Raptors in Toronto. It was the team's fifth win in a row, and they are still undefeated since Rajon Rondo and Jared Sullinger went down with season-ending injuries. Kevin Garnett was the offensive hero for most of the evening, leading the team with 27 points, while Leandro Barbosa sparked the team in the crucial fourth quarter.
On the other end of the court, the Raptors missed a bunch of decent looks at mid-range and perimeter jump shots in the fourth quarter. That isn't particularly unusual for Boston opponents over the past few years. In previous seasons, the Celtic D was good enough that you could automatically give it credit for an opponent's bad shooting quarter, even if it wasn't entirely apparent what we were doing to make it difficult on the opposing team. This year's defense hasn't earned that right yet, though we're undoubtedly getting better at that end of the court. If I have an overall concern right now, it's turnovers. Paul Pierce is being asked to perform too many point guard duties. I get that he needs to be a playmaker, but even without Rondo, we have plenty of guards. Let's have them bring the ball up, at least.
Boston's current surge has them tied with Milwaukee for the seventh seed in the East (the Bucks have the tiebreaker, so as it stands, we're technically eighth). We're only two games back of Atlanta for the six, however, and more importantly, we're four games clear of our closest pursuer -- Philadelphia, who, by the way, still doesn't have Andrew Bynum and just lost Thaddeus Young for three weeks with a leg injury.
Rightly or wrongly, barring some sort of collapse during these last two weeks before the trade deadline, it may be this stretch that allows Pierce and Garnett to retire as Celtics. When Rondo went down, most felt that Boston's playoff chances went down with him, and the Cs were expected to shop their extensive veterans to contenders. But now Boston has a reasonable grip on that playoff stop. Dissembling a playoff team is hard enough, from a public relations perspective -- doing it just to cash in an all-time Celtic, and one of the team's most popular players in recent memory, might cause quite an uproar among Boston's vocal fan base.
Boston is back at it Thursday night, as the Lakers come to town in a game that, due to injuries, won't have quite the same luster it has had in recent seasons. LA, of course, is having a nightmare season of its own. Having added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, the Lakers were expected to contend for a championship. Instead, Nash got hurt, Howard and Gasol struggled to co-exist, and they fired their coach just a couple weeks into the season. Their playoff chances hanging by a thread as Nash returned, Howard injured, then re-injured, his shoulder, and has missed the last several games. To top it all off, the team found out Wednesday that Gasol would be out 4 to 6 weeks with a foot injury.
Still, it's LA-Boston, which means it's worth watching. Thursday night, TNT, 8:00 pm Eastern.
Showing posts with label Leandro Barbosa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leandro Barbosa. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Miami 120, Boston 107
[recap] [box score]
Pretty entertaining season-opener. For posterity's sake, let the record show that Miami broke this game open in the third quarter, leading by as many as 18. But LeBron James had to sit the final nine minutes due to muscle cramps, and Boston was able to cut the lead to four before going scoreless over the final 2:09.
Given the unique composition and playing style of these two teams -- no true center played a single second of this game, for either side -- it's pointless to draw any real conclusions about lineups and how Doc Rivers is planning on using all of his newfound depth. At one point in the fourth quarter, Jeff Green and Paul Pierce were in the frontcourt with Rajon Rondo, Jason Terry, and Leandro Barbosa in the backcourt. I don't expect we'll see much of the three-point guard, two-small forward lineup this year.
The defense was awful, too, as bad as it has been in the last five seasons. For now, I'm going to chalk that up to all the fresh faces, and offseason rust. I'd be surprised if defense was a major problem with this team all season. (With that said, I do wish we'd stop giving up so many easy transition buckets to the Heat, something we could do simply by paying a little more attention as we run back on defense.)
I don't want to get too far ahead of things and read too much about the team into one game. But I do think it's appropriate to give some quick thoughts on how particular players looked in this one.
Courtney Lee, replacing the departed Ray Allen and the injured Avery Bradley in the starting lineup, looked very good guarding Dwyane Wade in the early going. He got into foul trouble, though, for the same reason that Bradley often found himself in trouble with the referees last year: Neither has a good feel for when, on a given play, to dial down the physicality. Bradley is young enough to develop that instinct and to earn some more respect from the officials as his career goes on; Lee's already got several years in the league under his belt, so it's a concern worth keeping an eye on. Offensively, Lee was pretty passive, but did find a couple of open jumpers by running the floor.
Rondo put up another gaudy stat line, picking up where he left off last season. His aggressiveness on offense in looking for his own shot was good to see; he rarely took an ill-advised, and we're so much more effective offensively when the defense has to respect his scoring ability. He was a little sloppier with the ball than I'm comfortable with, but at this point, I think that's just something we'll have to live with.
Leandro Barbosa exploded for all 16 of his points in the fourth quarter, looking like the Brazilian Blur of old. Barbosa clearly can still fill it up off the bench, the kind of player we've been lacking the last several years. Barbosa was basically an afterthought this offseason, signed solely for depth. He showed in his first game in green, however, that he's more than that. He's one of several players we supposedly have who will bring much-needed scoring punch to the second unit.
I say "supposedly" because the other two -- Jason Terry and Jeff Green -- were uniformly awful. Terry's shot was off all night, and when he's not hitting, he's not effective. I'm not worried about him. Green, on the other hand, still worries me. The ball just stops when it gets to him. It's not that he's selfish -- at least, I don't think he is. He honestly looks like he just doesn't know what to do with the ball once he gets it. He's too indecisive, which allows the defense to recover. Even his on-court demeanor is disconcerting -- facially, he looks meek and overwhelmed out there. Given that this is the same stuff I was worried about when I saw him during his first half-season after he came over from Oklahoma City for Kendrick Perkins (he missed all of last year), I'm worried. I'm not hitting the panic button yet, but I'm worried.
Not to alarm anyone, but I didn't think that KG looked right. Nothing noticeable like a limp; it simply looked like that he maybe didn't have his legs under him yet. Hopefully, that's all it is. But he was mostly a non-factor on offense, and he let Chris Bosh beat him for a huge bucket down the stretch after the Celtics had cut the lead to four. Boston would do well to remember how effective Garnett was offensively last year against Miami in the Eastern Conference finals. Even when we're playing small-ball, we shouldn't forget the favorable matchups we might have underneath.
Brandon Bass turned in a typical Brandon Bass game. And that's a good thing.
Pierce had a strong first half but faltered a bit in the second. He looked like a different player than the one who limped to the finish line last year. It sounds like he doesn't have any lingering injuries.
Due to the unique circumstances of the game, rookie Jared Sullinger didn't get a lot of action in his regular season NBA debut. I didn't see much to report on, other than I think he found himself in a switch situation matched up against James, and he actually forced James into a jumper. Given that defense is the biggest concern around Sullinger (well, that and his health), I'd consider this a good sign, too.
Two other quick notes. First, Wade said that Rondo's flagrant foul on him in the waning seconds was a "punk move." That's up for the individual to decide; Rondo did get him around the head and neck area from behind. Either way, though, I find it ironic that Wade would speak out, given that he basically did the same thing to Kobe Bryant last year -- in the All-Star game (breaking Kobe's nose in the process). And isn't it some fundamental principle of basketball that if you take the ball to the basket in the waning seconds of a game you already have in hand, against perhaps your chief rival, you're gonna get hit?
Secondly, damn you, Ray Allen, for making it so hard to quit you. After saying all the wrong things in the weeks leading up to the game, he said all the right things in the post-game interview with Craig Sager. I was all set to write him off, and then he has to go and talk about how much he loves his former teammates and how he's a New Englander for life. I know I' being played for a sucker here, that he's just telling me what I want to hear. But I guess I'm not ready to hate Ray yet. (Although if he consistently plays as well against us as he did on Tuesday, that day will come soon. Also, how jarring is this? Say it ain't so, Flo!)
Don't despair. It's one game out of 82, and we have a lot of new pieces to integrate. Plus, at least we're not the Lakers, who marked the debut of Dwight Howard and Steve Nash with a listless loss to the Dirk Nowitzki-less Dallas Mavericks.
Milwaukee's up next, on Friday, and their deep front line should be an interesting contrast to Miami's small lineup. That should afford us our first extended look at Sullinger, as well as give an idea of how Doc plans to use Darko Milicic and Jason Collins. (I don't think Chris Wilcox will be ready.) Heck, we might even see Darko in the starting lineup. Anyway, NBA League Pass is running its annual free preview week to start the season, so check this one out. And if you're in the Washington Metro area, we're at the Wizards on Saturday.
Pretty entertaining season-opener. For posterity's sake, let the record show that Miami broke this game open in the third quarter, leading by as many as 18. But LeBron James had to sit the final nine minutes due to muscle cramps, and Boston was able to cut the lead to four before going scoreless over the final 2:09.
Given the unique composition and playing style of these two teams -- no true center played a single second of this game, for either side -- it's pointless to draw any real conclusions about lineups and how Doc Rivers is planning on using all of his newfound depth. At one point in the fourth quarter, Jeff Green and Paul Pierce were in the frontcourt with Rajon Rondo, Jason Terry, and Leandro Barbosa in the backcourt. I don't expect we'll see much of the three-point guard, two-small forward lineup this year.
The defense was awful, too, as bad as it has been in the last five seasons. For now, I'm going to chalk that up to all the fresh faces, and offseason rust. I'd be surprised if defense was a major problem with this team all season. (With that said, I do wish we'd stop giving up so many easy transition buckets to the Heat, something we could do simply by paying a little more attention as we run back on defense.)
I don't want to get too far ahead of things and read too much about the team into one game. But I do think it's appropriate to give some quick thoughts on how particular players looked in this one.
Courtney Lee, replacing the departed Ray Allen and the injured Avery Bradley in the starting lineup, looked very good guarding Dwyane Wade in the early going. He got into foul trouble, though, for the same reason that Bradley often found himself in trouble with the referees last year: Neither has a good feel for when, on a given play, to dial down the physicality. Bradley is young enough to develop that instinct and to earn some more respect from the officials as his career goes on; Lee's already got several years in the league under his belt, so it's a concern worth keeping an eye on. Offensively, Lee was pretty passive, but did find a couple of open jumpers by running the floor.
Rondo put up another gaudy stat line, picking up where he left off last season. His aggressiveness on offense in looking for his own shot was good to see; he rarely took an ill-advised, and we're so much more effective offensively when the defense has to respect his scoring ability. He was a little sloppier with the ball than I'm comfortable with, but at this point, I think that's just something we'll have to live with.
Leandro Barbosa exploded for all 16 of his points in the fourth quarter, looking like the Brazilian Blur of old. Barbosa clearly can still fill it up off the bench, the kind of player we've been lacking the last several years. Barbosa was basically an afterthought this offseason, signed solely for depth. He showed in his first game in green, however, that he's more than that. He's one of several players we supposedly have who will bring much-needed scoring punch to the second unit.
I say "supposedly" because the other two -- Jason Terry and Jeff Green -- were uniformly awful. Terry's shot was off all night, and when he's not hitting, he's not effective. I'm not worried about him. Green, on the other hand, still worries me. The ball just stops when it gets to him. It's not that he's selfish -- at least, I don't think he is. He honestly looks like he just doesn't know what to do with the ball once he gets it. He's too indecisive, which allows the defense to recover. Even his on-court demeanor is disconcerting -- facially, he looks meek and overwhelmed out there. Given that this is the same stuff I was worried about when I saw him during his first half-season after he came over from Oklahoma City for Kendrick Perkins (he missed all of last year), I'm worried. I'm not hitting the panic button yet, but I'm worried.
Not to alarm anyone, but I didn't think that KG looked right. Nothing noticeable like a limp; it simply looked like that he maybe didn't have his legs under him yet. Hopefully, that's all it is. But he was mostly a non-factor on offense, and he let Chris Bosh beat him for a huge bucket down the stretch after the Celtics had cut the lead to four. Boston would do well to remember how effective Garnett was offensively last year against Miami in the Eastern Conference finals. Even when we're playing small-ball, we shouldn't forget the favorable matchups we might have underneath.
Brandon Bass turned in a typical Brandon Bass game. And that's a good thing.
Pierce had a strong first half but faltered a bit in the second. He looked like a different player than the one who limped to the finish line last year. It sounds like he doesn't have any lingering injuries.
Due to the unique circumstances of the game, rookie Jared Sullinger didn't get a lot of action in his regular season NBA debut. I didn't see much to report on, other than I think he found himself in a switch situation matched up against James, and he actually forced James into a jumper. Given that defense is the biggest concern around Sullinger (well, that and his health), I'd consider this a good sign, too.
Two other quick notes. First, Wade said that Rondo's flagrant foul on him in the waning seconds was a "punk move." That's up for the individual to decide; Rondo did get him around the head and neck area from behind. Either way, though, I find it ironic that Wade would speak out, given that he basically did the same thing to Kobe Bryant last year -- in the All-Star game (breaking Kobe's nose in the process). And isn't it some fundamental principle of basketball that if you take the ball to the basket in the waning seconds of a game you already have in hand, against perhaps your chief rival, you're gonna get hit?
Secondly, damn you, Ray Allen, for making it so hard to quit you. After saying all the wrong things in the weeks leading up to the game, he said all the right things in the post-game interview with Craig Sager. I was all set to write him off, and then he has to go and talk about how much he loves his former teammates and how he's a New Englander for life. I know I' being played for a sucker here, that he's just telling me what I want to hear. But I guess I'm not ready to hate Ray yet. (Although if he consistently plays as well against us as he did on Tuesday, that day will come soon. Also, how jarring is this? Say it ain't so, Flo!)
Don't despair. It's one game out of 82, and we have a lot of new pieces to integrate. Plus, at least we're not the Lakers, who marked the debut of Dwight Howard and Steve Nash with a listless loss to the Dirk Nowitzki-less Dallas Mavericks.
Milwaukee's up next, on Friday, and their deep front line should be an interesting contrast to Miami's small lineup. That should afford us our first extended look at Sullinger, as well as give an idea of how Doc plans to use Darko Milicic and Jason Collins. (I don't think Chris Wilcox will be ready.) Heck, we might even see Darko in the starting lineup. Anyway, NBA League Pass is running its annual free preview week to start the season, so check this one out. And if you're in the Washington Metro area, we're at the Wizards on Saturday.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Next Lamb: The Toronto Raptors
Game 32: Boston (24-7) at Toronto (11-21)
Sunday, January 2
6 p.m. Eastern
NBA League Pass
Last meeting: @Boston 110, Toronto 101 (11/26/2010)
Happy New Year, all. I apologize for not keeping up with the team for the last week; my hard drive crashed and it's been a bit difficult to watch games or blog.
Since the Christmas Day loss to Orlando, the Celtics have played three games, beating Indiana before losing to Detroit and then New Orleans. I was unable to watch any of those games, but it appears the team played pretty poorly in each. Even the win over the Pacers required a big fourth quarter surge. (The bench gave a similar surge in the fourth against the Hornets, going on a 16-0 run to turn a nine-point deficit into a seven-point lead, but the team couldn't hang on.)
The big story coming out of Boston this week is that Kevin Garnett left in the first quarter of the game against the Pistons with what the team is calling a strained right calf. He's expected to miss a couple of weeks, and with Rajon Rondo still nursing his sore ankle (among other assorted injuries), the story heading into Sunday's game with Toronto may be just as much about who isn't playing as who is.
Fortunately for Boston, the Raps have some serious injury issues of their own. Their starting center and best player, Andrea Bargnani, has missed the last three games with a calf injury of his own and won't play on Sunday. Small forward Sonny Weems, who was enjoying something of a breakout year after moving into the starting lineup, hasn't played in six games and remains day-to-day with a back injury. Jose Calderon -- the undisputed starter at point guard now that Jarrett Jack has been traded to New Orelans -- missed Saturday's practice with a foot injury, and his understudy, Jerryd Bayless (acquired from the Hornets in the Jack trade) has an ankle injury that limited him to eight minutes on Friday against the Rockets. Amir Johnson, starting at power forward in place of Reggie Evans, who broke his foot in the last meeting of the Celtics, is also nursing an injury, though he and Calderon probably will play. The point is, though Boston is banged up, there will be no excuses if they lose to a depleted Toronto team that is mediocre, at best, when healthy.
One Raptor who is healthy is DeMar DeRozan, who scored a career-high 37 points against Houston on New Year's Eve. DeRozan is an athletic young shooting guard in his second year out of USC, and does most of his damage going to the basket. He's not a threat from behind the arc, but he loves to put the ball on the floor and spin to the hoop. He's been getting to the line a bunch lately, which has contributed to his improved scoring of late.
Given all the injuries, the most dangerous Raptor, from an offensive standpoint, is probably sixth man Leandro Barbosa. Despite the fact that he plays the same position as DeRozan, he managed 17 points against the Rockets (it appears from the box score that the Raptors went small for much of that game). Controlling those guys should be a priority.
The Raptors are not particularly good defensively or on the glass, and it would be nice to see Boston try to take advantage of their depleted frontcourt by going inside and getting Shaquille O'Neal and Glen Davis involved early. Johnson is foul-prone, and so is Joey Dorsey, the guy starting in Bargnani's place. After those two, the bigs are a couple of rookies: Ed Davis (who has showed flashes in limited minutes this year) and Solomon Alabi, who has played something like ten minutes and three seconds over the course of three appearances this season. Particularly since Rondo's absence has made offense a bit of a chore at times for the Celtics, taking advantage of our size should be a priority.
Sunday, January 2
6 p.m. Eastern
NBA League Pass
Last meeting: @Boston 110, Toronto 101 (11/26/2010)
Happy New Year, all. I apologize for not keeping up with the team for the last week; my hard drive crashed and it's been a bit difficult to watch games or blog.
Since the Christmas Day loss to Orlando, the Celtics have played three games, beating Indiana before losing to Detroit and then New Orleans. I was unable to watch any of those games, but it appears the team played pretty poorly in each. Even the win over the Pacers required a big fourth quarter surge. (The bench gave a similar surge in the fourth against the Hornets, going on a 16-0 run to turn a nine-point deficit into a seven-point lead, but the team couldn't hang on.)
The big story coming out of Boston this week is that Kevin Garnett left in the first quarter of the game against the Pistons with what the team is calling a strained right calf. He's expected to miss a couple of weeks, and with Rajon Rondo still nursing his sore ankle (among other assorted injuries), the story heading into Sunday's game with Toronto may be just as much about who isn't playing as who is.
Fortunately for Boston, the Raps have some serious injury issues of their own. Their starting center and best player, Andrea Bargnani, has missed the last three games with a calf injury of his own and won't play on Sunday. Small forward Sonny Weems, who was enjoying something of a breakout year after moving into the starting lineup, hasn't played in six games and remains day-to-day with a back injury. Jose Calderon -- the undisputed starter at point guard now that Jarrett Jack has been traded to New Orelans -- missed Saturday's practice with a foot injury, and his understudy, Jerryd Bayless (acquired from the Hornets in the Jack trade) has an ankle injury that limited him to eight minutes on Friday against the Rockets. Amir Johnson, starting at power forward in place of Reggie Evans, who broke his foot in the last meeting of the Celtics, is also nursing an injury, though he and Calderon probably will play. The point is, though Boston is banged up, there will be no excuses if they lose to a depleted Toronto team that is mediocre, at best, when healthy.
One Raptor who is healthy is DeMar DeRozan, who scored a career-high 37 points against Houston on New Year's Eve. DeRozan is an athletic young shooting guard in his second year out of USC, and does most of his damage going to the basket. He's not a threat from behind the arc, but he loves to put the ball on the floor and spin to the hoop. He's been getting to the line a bunch lately, which has contributed to his improved scoring of late.
Given all the injuries, the most dangerous Raptor, from an offensive standpoint, is probably sixth man Leandro Barbosa. Despite the fact that he plays the same position as DeRozan, he managed 17 points against the Rockets (it appears from the box score that the Raptors went small for much of that game). Controlling those guys should be a priority.
The Raptors are not particularly good defensively or on the glass, and it would be nice to see Boston try to take advantage of their depleted frontcourt by going inside and getting Shaquille O'Neal and Glen Davis involved early. Johnson is foul-prone, and so is Joey Dorsey, the guy starting in Bargnani's place. After those two, the bigs are a couple of rookies: Ed Davis (who has showed flashes in limited minutes this year) and Solomon Alabi, who has played something like ten minutes and three seconds over the course of three appearances this season. Particularly since Rondo's absence has made offense a bit of a chore at times for the Celtics, taking advantage of our size should be a priority.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Toronto 102, Boston 101
Ugh.
Normally, I wouldn't be too upset losing a game on the kind of freak play the Celtics lost this one on. Up three with 21 seconds left is a pretty good spot to be in, even when the other team has the ball. Toronto's Sonny Weems drove for a quick two, but Boston quickly inbounded the ball to Ray Allen, who is as automatic as it gets from the free throw line. So far, so good.
But Toronto didn't foul right away, and Allen -- a shaky ballhander in the open court -- evaded Leandro Barbosa and headed up court. Barbosa reached around from behind and either flicked the ball away or flicked Allen's arm -- I couldn't tell. No whistle, though, and the ball came loose and bounded to one of the Raptors. Paul Pierce blocked Barbosa at the rim, but the Celtics were in scramble mode, and the ball found its way to Amir Johnson, who was fouled with 2.7 seconds left. Johnson, a career 68.5 percent free throw shooter who is somehow shooting 87.5 percent from the line this season, hit both freebies (he was 9-for-9 from the charity stripe on the day) to put the Raptors up one. Pierce had a great look at the game-winner -- a 15-footer fading to his right that we've seen him hit time after time in his career -- but couldn't get it to go down.
So, yeah, we're not going to lose too many games that way.
But the truth is, Boston didn't deserve to win this game. Playing without Rajon Rondo and Jermaine O'Neal, the Celtics waited until the fourth quarter to turn on its defensive intensity. It looked like that would be enough as they turned a 90-79 deficit into a 97-94 lead, but you can't throw up your hands and curse your bad luck or look to the officials for a foul call when you don't show up to play for most of the game.
The game perhaps underscored the importance of Rondo -- though Nate Robinson had a huge first quarter and led the team with 22 points in Rondo's absence -- but it definitely solidified Boston's need for another big man. Shaquille O'Neal struggled offensively, but it was his defense that really killed us. It's not just that Shaq doesn't block shots anymore and can't move quickly enough to get into proper defensive position when the opposition drives. Guys aren't blowing by Shaq, but he continues to bail them out with fouls. Instead of forcing them to make a very diffcult shot over him on the move, he just hammers them and sends them to the line. He fouled out in 20 minutes today, and was part of a defense that took entirely too many fouls. Toronto, a good offensive team but one that nonetheless doesn't attack the basket all that much, shot 39 free throws -- and I don't remember thinking we got the short end of the stick from the officials very often. (Indeed, Boston shot 38 free throws and I think there were more questionable calls on them than on us.)
Semih Erden, after a promising start to the season, lately seems similarly incapable of staying out the court -- I believe this was the second straight game in which he picked up four fouls in the first half. If Jermaine O'Neal is going to miss a bunch of time with his balky knees, then the Celtics need to look for a solution on the interior or teams are going to continue the parade to the free throw line against us. As I've said previously, I'm not sure what, if any, solutions are out there, but Boston needs to be looking for them.
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