Three Is A Magic Number

As long as we continue to give extended minutes to Telfair our won/loss record will keep us entrenched with the 2nd worst record.

At this point in the season with the playoffs a distant memory, one could expect a “lack of focus” to set in. Barring unreported illness, that certainly appeared to be the case with Gomes and Perkins last night. Neither player seemed to have his head in the game. It was a relief when Doc sat them on the bench!

As previously reported, an important part of good defense is to establish a defensive position that best accommodates lateral movement. Our worst defenders continue to maintain an upright posture in their defensive stance. Despite great athleticism, Telfair and Green continue to look clueless on defense and despite their athleticism, seem a step or two too late to prevent penetration. The oft mention objective of “staying between your man and the basket” may be part of their mindset but they lack the FUNDAMENTALS to execute.

Green has an additional fault, an inability to select the appropriate time to try to BLOCK a shot. His desire to try to block every attempt leaves him especially prone to fakes. Oden must also learn better discernment. Jefferson and Perkins were once of the same mindset but their discernment has improved.

Speaking of “blocking shots”, if only our players could hear Tommy’s or Red’s advice on shot-blocking. “Wait till the ball is released, go straight up and don’t SLAP DOWN on the player’s hand (a sure foul)”. Slapping the ball while still in the player’s hand usually results in a foul called even when it’s a CLEAN block. The refs usually favor the offensive player and seem to not to expect a great defensive effort. In addition, veteran players seem to shield the ball (from being cleanly blocked) more effectively and the refs anticipate this.

The reality of refs making inappropriate defensive calls has been aptly demeontrated in REPLAYS. Stars seem to always get the benefit of the doubt as though all their shots should find their mark and if they don’t, it must be because a foul was committed.

I wouldn’t count on that #2 Lotto position just yet. Chances are the Bucks will lose the rest of their exhibitions, I mean, games, including the one against the Celtics Friday. We definitely do not want to go down to the final night of the season hoping to lose like last year when a meaningless win cost a spot in the draft. Detroit will likely be resting its rotation players for that game.

Another thing is that the Celtics will hold the tiebreaker over the Bucks if they beat them Friday, which in effect means they only have a two-game advantage. Win tonight and Friday and it will have to be serious tanking the rest of the way.

“No further need to worry about tanking after that.”

Isn’t that the same thing as saying if you murder the three remaining members of your family, there will be no further need to murdering family members after that?

Last night was hilarious.

Sorry, I didn’t do the math on that previous post. My bad.
But my point remains the same: We should never have tanked in the first place.
Here comes the Bad Karma ’97. I can feel it.

One more comment on DEFENSE. A good defender does not necessarily have to be a good shot blocker to be effective but one who instead disrupts an offensive player’s rhythmn. Overplaying a shooter’s hand could be a distraction as well as interfering with a shooter’s vision of the basket. While FACE GUARDING is supposed to be illegal, have you ever heard the call made? All shooters need to have that one clean glimpse of the basket before they release and if their vision is blocked, what happens to their shot?

I wish we’d have tanked enough to have the worst record in the league. I’ll take odds over karma any time.

unless your “odds” are 100% Karma usally wins. Be carefull what you wish for…

“Finally there may be a light at the end of the tunnel”

It’s been a long season at that.

I’d be lying if I said that I’m not excited about this team going into the draft and the prospectus of what may be come next season, with or without Doc.

It’s been frustrating to say the least, my expectations of this team wasa extremely high before the season started. I’m one that said this team would win 44 games and I’m sorry to say they bit the dust.

Call it what you will with the injuries, but my expectations with or without the injuries was much higher. If anything the emergence of players like Jefferson, Green, Rondo and even Tony Allen have me excited about the future.

So the end is near, and hopefully some light at the end to make us go nuts again.

Wwe won the last game of the season last year to slip from the sixth to seventh pick. That karma got us the Telfair trade. I rest my case.

We have had enough bad karma this year with Red & DJ!! Bring on the GOOD KARMA!!!!!

personaly i’d like to see pierce and jeff come back for our last game against miami. spank em hard enough to leave a bruise.

Arctic – OUCH!!!! If Miami doesn’t play anybody does it really leave a lasting mark??

Yes a loss to the Bucks would be a two game swing and would reduce their magic number to one no matter what else happens.

Tonight’s game with Philly will be another travesty, since the Sixers have now shut down Iguodala. I have tickets but I’m not going, and I may not even watch on TV.

I definitely have to look into getting a Raptors TV feed so that I’ll be prepared—if and when Wyc &Co. give Rivers an extension.

Why missed? Are you going to expel me, Jeff? I’m sure I will continue to follow the Celtics and to post here, if permitted.

I promise not to gloat after Raptors’ playoff wins.

Schoolhouse rock? I thought it was De La Soul..

If the Celtics do actually get Oden or Durrant, listening to Brick’s spin on how it really is a bad thing and the Celtics don’t deserve either of them and things are going to get worse because of it will be a small but very pleasurable bonus.

Brick,

Hold out hope … just a little bit …. before next season, they might just turn it around even with Doc… If not, then we can build you can tell us all “I told you so”

Part of me thinks that management will want a fresh start if, and a big if, we do get pick #1 or #2. Then maybe a behind the scenes buy out and Rivers is gone. The other side of me tells me that he’s back due to Danny wanting to give his friend a fair shake after asking him to throw this season down the toilet.

I bet Doc is back to start the season. But, he will have either Oden or Durrant or a Vet to put with Pierce and the pressure will be on to win. If he doesn’t produce, he is gone by Christmas. NBA coaches are disposable. The highest paid one makes less than a mid level excpetion guy. Giving Doc an extension means nothing.

Ainge didn’t ask Rivers to throw the season down the toilet. Rivers did that by himself (for the most part). Almost every team in the league has had significant injuries this year. The Heat were without Shaq, then Wade, the Lakers were without Kobe, etc. etc. The injuries are no excuse. If Rivers had prepared the team better they would have coped with the injuries.

Brick,

The team was without Pierce, Allen, and Jefferson for much of the season. If you honestly think that any coach would win much with a starting lineup of Telfair, Green, Allen Ray, Gomes and Perkins, you need to start taking your meds again. Yeah, other teams had injuries, but even with the injuries those teams still had a better lineup than the Celtics do without their injured players. Moreover, the Lakers and Heat are coached by Riley and Jackson. Who other than maybe Larry Brown coaching in the NBA today can claim to be better than those guys. If you can figure out a way to get Phillip or Pat Riley to come to Boston I am all for it. Until that time stop insulting people’s intelligence by claiming that this season would have been anything but a disaster if only there had been a different coach.

Wow!! Brick are you comparing the C’s to Miami and LA? No where near the same level. Yet. Of course neither you nor I are privy to the private inner workings of management but I bet a subtle message was sent Doc’s way at some point this year to forget about winning games. So yes, I’d say he was asked to throw the rest of the season down the crapper.

The injuries would have hurt but they would have coped with a better coach. NJ has been without Krstic for the entire year and Jefferson for most of the year, yet they made the playoffs. If NJ could win with Mikki Moore, the 50 year old Uncle Cliffie and a bench consisting of a rooke pg (Marcus Williams) Bostjan Nachbar and Eddie House, then Rivers ought to have been able to win without Pierce.

The season was in the toilet— and the team’s record was well below .500— BEFORE Pierce and Allen got hurt.

Also, if the team could win in spite of that many injuries if it just had a better coach, you must think Ainge is one heck of a GM. You can’t say that Ainge is a terrible GM in one breath and then in the next say how Doc has a roster so filled with talent that he should have won despite loosing his best player for most of the season.

The team was either two or three games below .500 and had won five in a row at one point before Pierce got hurt. But again Brick I take your slamming of Doc to be a ringing endorsement of Ainge for putting together such a deep and talented roster. I didn’t know you thought so much of Ainge.

I think that celty86 is right, that Danny wants to give a friend a break, because I just flat out have to believe that Danny can see that his team is very poorly coached. No rotations, no defense, random offense, smallball.

Doc has turned out to be the perfect tanking coach. Good attitude, poor game management. But we need to accomplish more next season.

I look at it this way, with the injuries a better coach maybe wins 30 or so games with this team. Where would that have gotten the team other than a less valuable draft pick? It would have been pointless to fire Doc this season. Ainge is a loyal guy and will give Doc a chance with a better lineup next year, but absent big improvment Doc is gone before Christmas..

Brick, NJ still kept their BEST player healthy all year – Jason Kidd. That is the big difference. The Nets revolve around Kidd just as we revolve around Pierce. They have better complimentary pieces that played enough games to get them in playoff contention (they haven’t clinched a spot yet, have they?.)

Brilliant job of tanking by Rivers last night….even the Atlanta commentators were asking where Rondo was while the game was getting away and of all people, Tyronn Lue was torching our guards.

Keep up the good work….Keep looking at who we’ll choose with the 5th pick….If we’re allowed to pick there.

Iowa, I’ll take Julian Wright or Spencer Hawes and like it!! :) But seriously, we’ll be picking top 3. I just hope it’s not #3!!!

At this point of the season, I really don’t care if they tank…. I just want the season to be done with and move on to an “EXCITING” off season……….. I hope……I hope……..

Otherwise, I don’t know

If we, Atlanta, or Milwaukee get a top 3 pick, Stern will have essentially thrown the integrity and ethics of the NBA in the same crapper these three teams have. I doubt Stern will let this garbage stand. I just hope we don’t lose the pick altogether.

Yeah, Plowboy that is why Stern came down so hard on San Antonio or Houston when they tanked for top picks. Where do you get this stuff? On to real concerns, there continues to be rumors that Oden may stay in school. Some of that I think is wishful thinking on the part of Ohio State fans (See Po, Master and his unshakable belief that Julian Wright was coming back to Kansas next year for another example), but I worry that not all of it. Oden seems like a first class flake. Not a bad guy but a flake. Just the kind of flake who would turn down tens of millions of dollars to play for free in college. Wouldn’t that be something, the Celtics get the number 2 pick but Oden doesn’t come out? UGH!!

San Antonio and Houston were playing in a strong Western Conference…not a conference where half the teams are as bad as them.
While not researching, I’ll venture a pretty safe guess that neither team sat their superstar player for the year after a 53 minute effort…or sat their next 2 best players with mysterious ailments.
Or sat out their best defensive player while the guy he should have been guarding was torching his replacement. It’s so flagrant by three different teams that I believe he has to address it somehow.

“It’s so flagrant by three different teams that I believe he has to address it somehow.”

At most they change the lottery system going forward. No one is ever going to punish a team for using the system. Go back and look at how Houston tanked to get Ralph Sampson? They created the lottery system, they didn’t punish Houston. Further, there is nothing in the rule book that says you have to always play your best players. There simply isn’t any legal basis for punishing a team for tanking. Suppose a team decided to sit its best players and play its bench players to prove a point to the better players, should they be punished? What if a team decides that playing its young players in a lost season is more important than having the best chance to win a particular game? That is tanking just as much as anything else. The idea that Atlanta or the Celtics or anyone else is going to loose their draft pick is nuts, plain and simple.

John, I hope for our sake you’re right….but I would be flabberghasted if any of those 3 teams choose lower than 5th. I think that’s the way the ping-pong balls will fall. Message, IMHO, will be sent somehow.

Iowa, Do you know Brick? He believes in the conspiracy theory according to David Stern also.

I don’t know Brick, but I’ve seen what Stern has done regarding the image of the league….Dress Code, dicipline, the finacially disastrous but politically correct keeping the Hornets in New Orleans, it’s hard to imagine he’ll reward outright cheating….I don’t think he looks at what these three teams have done as “using the system”. It’s cheating the paying fans, and undermining the integrity of the game….And you’re right, John, they’re just “using the system”…I just don’t think Stern thinks this is what the system was used for.

It’s bad enough having Doc, a bad coach, when he trys to coach good and win. It’s horrible to have him outdo himself and try to lose.

What’s worse, John, is to have these young kids exposed to having healthy players sit out. It’ll be real interesting what kind of shape Al comes in after his contract extention when management shows so little respect for the integrity of the game.

Brick Just hates doc for some reason only he knows and rationalize thereafter. NOw N J who is not winning any division had both carter and Kidd (triple double max contracts all stars) and he says we are the same caliber of team. he must be on something that is injurious to your mind and emotions. we were and have een the worse of the eastern conference all year in players abilities and knowledge of the game and you can’t blame that on Doc. I take the players word on doc and they like him and appreciate him as their coach.

If Stern tried to do what Iowa suggests than there would an investigation as everyone would know he fixed the lottery due to blatant manipulation. I don’t think Stern would want to be that obvious if it were to happen.

So which non-playoff teams are worthy of winning the lottery or gaining one of the top two positions? Philly? They’re sitting Iguodala and Korver lately. The Bobcats? They’ve rested Okafor, May and others for long stretches. The Blazers are without Zach Randolph while the youngsters log big minutes.

My advice is don’t worry about conspiracy theories, David Stern, karma, God or Lucky the Leprechaun. No matter which way the Lotto winds blow, he Celtics will be an interesting and competitive team next year, and if not, well there’s always the year after that.