More Notes From Game 1

gees, was Brandon Wallace really that exciting? I guess I dont know what to look for. What stood out for me was da grown man shutting down Oden.

Chief is right. On the small sample size we saw last night Big Baby is a player. Powe is tough and a hard worker, but the skill set is not the same. Having two tough guys on the same team certainly isn’t a bad thing.

Can one actually see these games on the Internet? If so, I would appreciate it if someone could print the link below. Thanks. Other than that, get rid of Veal.

Powe neutralized alldridge with 19 and 9, alldridge
came out ahead of course . big baby outproduced
greg oden without hitting a shot 3pts 6 rbd 3asst
to odens 6pts 2 reb this made it an easy win cool!

Brandon Wallace? How did he impress? By having a nose for the ball and finding ways to be around the action. His hops and athleticism, to say nothing of his super defensive anticipation, were also noteworthy. He is 6’9" and you can’t teach height!

For some bloggers who only seem impressed with offensive production, it must be difficult to understand how a player like “Baby” could be impressive. He seemed to clog passing lanes and was active on help defense. He moved Oden around like a chess piece. His shot will eventual start falling and he is still trying to adjust to the speed of better competition. He evidenced a high BBIQ which will help him transition more quickly.

Don’t know why Rondo’s performance wasn’t recognized just because he wanted to pass-first. We’ll have to wait to see if he continues over-passing before deciding that “he can’t shoot”.

I thought Davis looked fine. He’s still a rookie, and it’s unfair to compare him to Powe, who has NBA experience.

I’d much rather have Davis handling the ball out at the top of the key than Perkins, I’ll tell you that. Davis is also an honest 6-8. He just looks shorter because of his girth. He lacks Powe’s incredibly long arms, but he’ll compensate with that big butt.

Let’s give some props to Danny – three rookies who have NBA promise. Davis did his job, Pruitt hit some nice shots and Wallace was “Who is THIS guy!” exciting. Gerald Green did stay with M.Webster and put up his own shots. Webster’s points were with GG on bench. Man, we need a banger, a mucker whatever you want to call Leon Powe. Rondo conveyed what we need in floor general (minus the shot).

What we should be wondering is why in 29 minutes on the floor Rondo can only get 1 assist and one bucket. With his quickness you can’t tell me that he can’t get into a position in a summer league game to give someone an easy assist. I do think that he will be a solid PG for us for a few years, but he sure has a lot of things to work on with his game.

Powe was brilliant. Many of us have said for a long time that he is a solid backup off the bench and that we really don’t need to worry about the backup 4 spot. The man plays hard and is fundamentally sound. He can also score the ball against the second line of other teams. I for one wasn’t surprised and predicted Oden would struggle against our bigs.

We need a defensive 3 (possibly Wallace, although it is just one game people), another solid backup center to Perk, and a veteran PG (Brevin Knight). With those needs met we are in the upper end of the east as it sits.

Hold Theo for 2 reasons. Money for Big AL, and if healthy he is the center to go along with Perk.

Great, just what we need another wing. So Pierce and Allen start. Assuming Tony’s going to be healthy enough to give us something he’s in the mix off the bench, G Green’s going to need significant floor time to develop, and now we’re all loving Wallace. Add in Gomes who’s more like a Power 3 than a true 4 and that’s 6 guys playing wing spots. You got your other 3 starters and we’re already talking about a 9 man rotation without a backup big, or a backup 1. So assuming we’ll have backups at those positions it looks like we’re rotate 11 guys. No good team runs that many guys, espeicially a team with Doc as it’s head coach. I’m not a Doc hater, but the criticism he takes on his rotation are legit, and this is too many guys.

Again we’re talking about all the nice role players Danny picks up late. These guys are great at the middle of end of the bench for a contender, but they seem to take up the majority of our roster. That being said, I really do like Big Baby’s rebounding and D, but I like him as the first big off the bench. The real problem is at the wings, we have to make some kind of move there.

I loved the way Powe played last night. It reminded me of the old winning Celtics. In the east I can see him as our backup power forward taking on the larger power forwards in a way that Gomes can not. Gomes is a 3 on arapidly improving Celtics team.

Gomes is a PF in our high post system – making the entry pass, giving Al room to work, and hitting the 14-16 foot J. He’s smart enough and fundamentally sound enough to hold his own on the other end against bigger 4s. At the 3 he’s a liability because he’s just not quick enough to defend the 3, nor is his 20-25 foot jumper reliable enough to play the 3.

Migit – I agree, but reserves tend to be used in a few differnt roles, and on occasion he’s at the 3 in a bigger lineup. Needless to say, I think we all know the wing positions are over crowded even if you don’t include Gomes. I like what I saw from Wallace as well, I think he has more of an NBA type game than Ray does, so maybe he takes his spot, but at the end of the day I don’t think either of them get any run outside of trash time for a good NBA team. Wallace at least might develop into more, but how many projects can we have?

Oden showing himself to be a project (think even at #1 danny would have flipped the pick?) Powe was a force but Id be happier if he dint get blocked as much as he did. One draft night I had my doubts re Davis but Im won over by his passing and midrange game.

Some thoughts after watching the game again:

1. LeMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden are going to be scary good together…in 3 years.

2. The Cs have decided that Allen Ray just can’t play point. He was never on the floor without Rondo or Pruitt. And when Pruitt was out there he ran point. I just don’t know what we’re going to do with a 6’0’’ shooting guard who’s name is not Allen Iverson.

3. I would sign Wallace after watching just one play: he blocked an 18-foot fadeaway jumper from 3-4 feet away. What a defensive freak. He’s cheap insurance on TA’s injury.

4. Big Baby sure can pass the ball. Reminded me of Antoine on a few of them. Guys weren’t ready for some of them.

5. Powe is not 6-8. Not even close. If he were just 3 inches taller, he’d start.

wallace was impressive- even played d. of course powe was super fine, but he’s a pro, pruitt did not look good on d- definitely their point blew by him. rondo is no delonte at the end of the game at the free throw line. no $ in the bank. what impressed me the most was watching clifford ray coaching, supporting and being a major presence.

Without even considering the shooting, Allan Ray looked pretty bad. Not impressed with Pruitt either.

Powe looked great – Oden looked very very lost.
Davis looks good, not spectacular, but very skilled and solid enough to think he will develop into something interesting.
Wallace was a WOW! Keeper.
Gerald looks very improved and looks likes he’s starting to assert himself a little bit.
Rondo needs to look for some occasional offense to keep defenders honest, other than that he looked great.

It was hard not to watch the young players and see very very bright things for Boston. Wallace looks to be a steal that will make everyone forget who Jeff Green might have been.

Can people please PLEASE stop bashing high draft picks based on summer league games.. it is one of my biggest pet hates. Not sure how people can be that obtuse to think a horrible performance there is part of the bigger picture. Why dont some of you look up Lebrons first summer league game and see what he did there before commenting on Oden. I can understand the envy because alot of us were sold that he would be ours but to think he will be a failure is a joke !

GinBaker – Interesting how you already have Doc’s rotation figured out after one summer league game! Did he give you a call and tell you what he had in mind for the upcoming year? You sound quite depressed over his rotation already, so you must know something the rest of us don’t.

havlicekstoletheball – Dead on with that thought. This rollercoaster ride is unbelievable! How about we make an assessment after the preseason is over rather than after one game. We give players way to much credit and way too much abuse after one little showing. A 2nd or 3rd year player you can understand a little by trying to see if he has improved on things since last year. I sure hope Rondo’s next few games look better than where he is headed so far!

I didn’t see anyone label anyone a bust or annoit them either, just make comments on how they felt they played that game.

and oh yeah, Aldrigde did look very very good.

What Powe is about defined in one play. Gets denied on 2 successive plays .. most guys would be scared as hell to even think about a third.Gets the loose ball and goes RIGHT BACK in their face like nothing happened.
Thats what we need more of. It put a huge smile on my face.

I think we need to team up Sofoklis from Greece and Glen Davis on the Celtics.We could call them “The Double whopper”

It’s an unfair “rap” on Rondo for having just one assist. It’s the type of comment that indicates too much “stat” watching and not enough game analysis. Why?

Rondo delivered the ball NUMEROUS times to players wide open but they couldn’t convert their shots. Should that be a knock on Rondo? Recall that assists are only recorded on MADE baskets.

Give Rondo credit for having delivered the ball and recognize why he only had one assist. He had the type of game that stats fail to reward. By the way, he did shut down their heralded PG (who feasted on Pruit’s inexperience).

moskqq – I am a Rondo fan and as I said above feel he will be a good player for us, but that was not a good game for him. I watched it just a bit ago completely and he did very little in that game. He could not beat his man off the dribble more than a couple times, he couldn’t make a free throw, he passed up open shots, and his "delivering the ball numerous times to players was more of an away from the basket pass to a guy once he got stuck at the top wings and not able to penetrate. This caused some long jumpers which convert at a much lower percentage. His job is to work into the basket and set up guys to have easier shots. It is a completely different thing to get to the middle and kick out to a wide open man for a long jumper. That was not what was happening 99% of the time tonight. He couldn’t turn the corner for some reason tonight. His one bright spot was that he did seem to slow down their PG as well, but it isn’t like he is a star PG in this league. What would he have done tonight against Tony Parker or Darren Williams last night? He would have been blown out and we would have been screaming about needing a new PG. Ususally I agree with you moskqq, but he played a poor offensive game and a decent defensive one. That is it at best. He will have a few games coming up though that will set our minds at ease…

Wonder what effect if any would our coach a once very good point guard have on Rondo..

I’d watch Jeff Green play a few games before deciding Brandon Wallace is going to be a better pro. And speaking of watching the rookies, Yi Jianlian looked much better than either Oden or Durant even though his team was beaten by the Grizzlies. I like the Chinese point guard drafted by the Lakers quite a bit, too. Give me a mulligan on the trade, and I’d pick Yi.

On Rondo—he was in total control of the game. On having too many wings—If a player like Brandon Wallace seems like one with a good upside you need to sign him regardless of the roster. Adjustments can be made later. On the rotation—I think Doc needs to arbitrarily set up a rotation at training camp and play it thru pre-season and onward. The players not in the rotation are going to practice and sit and if they do get a chance to play and become a Gomes, we shouldn’t criticize anyone for not playing them sooner. We can’t have it both ways, a fixed rotation and taking the chance that one of the backups may prove to be better than someone in the rotation. If someone in the fixed rotation isn’t working after 20 or 30 games then make changes. I would like to see a 10 man rotation with PP’s and Ray Allen’s minutes arbitrarily set at 35 – 38 minutes or possibly less.

one exception truegreen, scali cant be a lock for the fixed rotation