Trouble in Gotham

Bad night for the Celtics from the jump. A few early technicals seemed to fire up the Knicks and put Paul Pierce on the bench with early foul trouble. That left Walker to be the main option going against a tough interior defender in Rose. As a result, we saw a little of evil-Toine come out as he bricked shot after shot (going 5-20) and eventually moved to the perimeter. If Doc is worth his salt, he'll discuss this issue with Walker and encourage him to look for the pass a bit more. After the Knicks built an early lead on Jamal Crawford's hot hand (4 treys in the first quarter), they never really let us back in.

I wandered over to the Knickerblogger.net site and found a quick article on the Celtics and the "statistical anomaly known as Antoine Walker."

The shimmying forward defies being put into any simple category. While 'Toine is comfortable hoisting three pointer after three pointer, his free throw accuracy is inexplicably free falling towards Shaqsville. The tweener forward is a respectable rebounder (2.3 OREB/40min), but a permeable defender. He's skillful enough handling the ball that you can run your offense through him (as Atlanta did when they played New York this year), although he's as likely to have an assist (3.6 AST/40min) as he is a turnover (3.4 TO/40min). His most similars by age according to www.basketball-reference.com show Walker's diverse and polarized game: Drexler to Glenn Robinson to Bird to Chuck Person to Nick Anderson to Scottie Pippen.

He goes on to state that "it's possible that they'll get swept in the first round by a young & hungry team like the Bulls or the Cavs. On the other hand, I wouldn't be shocked if they knocked off the Pistons & crept into the Eastern Conference Finals." True.