Celt’s fall to Spurs; sign Wallace
by Jeff Clark on Jul 9, 2007 7:51 PM EDT
in Boston Celtics Articles
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PrintStill, the Celtics had far more trouble with the defending champ’s squad than they did when they easily dispatched the seemingly stacked Trailblazer club that included Greg Oden on Friday night. Although it was close throughout, the Spurs took control in the final period, winning by a score of 61-53.
A lot of that had to do with Butler, who was listed at a very, very kind 260 pounds. Not to say that his listed weight was in any way fraudulent, but he ought to introduce the Celtics’ Glen Davis to whoever was working the scales that day. Butler played the role of the summer league Shaq, scoring inside and taking up loads of space wherever he went. He finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds.
When asked if he enjoyed the game, Celtics’ Coach Armond Hill responded, "Fun game? No, not when you have 28 turnovers, it’s no fun" he said. "I thought that the ball didn’t move at all, that the guys were playing selfish. They didn’t throw the extra pass, they weren’t looking for each other. They thought that they could come out on the floor and everything would flow like it did the other night. You’ve got to work at that. It’s simple."
Monday’s matinee game of the NBA Vegas Summer League started slowly, as is customary in summer league action, with 7 fouls and just one free throw on the scoreboard in the first 3 minutes. A lackluster game continued with 18 combined personal fouls and 18 turnovers and the Celtics leading at the end of the first quarter 11-10. It was much of the same in the second quarter and the C’s needed a 6-2 run in the closing minutes to get the score up to 26-20 at the half.
The action finally picked up a bit, at least by summer league standards, as each team scored 16 points in the third and some subtle flow evolved. In the fourth, though, the mostly nameless Spurs blazed ahead, outscoring Boston by 14, with Butler putting in 6 points and 5 boards.
The difference in the 4th, according to Hill, was that the Celtics’ bad habits from the rest of the game caught up with them and the Spurs finally capitalized.
"I thought we were sharing the ball as a second thought, and that’s why all the turnovers were happening. They weren’t moving the ball, they weren’t executing," Hill Said. "The bigs, when they caught the ball, the ball stopped. They were trying to post up. If they didn’t get it they pouted. And you can’t score if you keep turning the ball over."
For the Celtics, Davis led the way with 12 points, 9 rebounds and a couple blocks. Gerald Green finished with 10 points and Rajon Rondo had 10 points, though he also had 7 fouls and 7 turnovers. Summer revelation Brandon Wallace, and undrafted free agent who signed with the Celtics immediately following the game, had 4 points and 5 rebounds, including an athletic put-back in the second quarter.
Approximately 30 minutes after the game, Assistant Executive Director of Basketball Operations Leo Papile took Wallace and his agent, Eric Fleisher into the basement of the Cox Pavillion at UNLV where the summer league is played and signed Wallace to his first professional contract. Terms were not released.
Wallace was understandably overwhelmed.
"I guess it still hasn’t hit me yet, just from being undrafted and then from being at this point a few days later, it’s an unbelievable chain of events…I can’t describe to you right now how I feel."
Wallace, a 6’9 forward out of South Carolina, had worked out in Boston before the June draft, and while that was when the Celtics first expressed their interest to him, Wallace was hoping his workout could make him a candidate for the draft.
"After the workout, they made it known that they’d like me to come in and play summer league. I felt like I held my own in that workout, so I was happy about the workout. I didn’t even pay attention to the summer league part," he said.
Still, it seems that, at least for right now, that’s not bothering Wallace.
"But the feeling I’m feeling right now…it’s crazy."
Editor's Note: Bulpett is reporting that it is a two year deal for Wallace.
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This is what having Ray Allen gives us, consistency.
The kids will play great one night and blow out the Trail Balzers. The next night, they will believe their own hype from the good win and try to do everything themselves, being soundly beaten in the meantime by the Spurs.
Ray Allen gives us some insurance. With Paul, Al and Ray, we have scorers who will score at least 80% of the time.
They won’t be the 50 / 50 proposition a lot of the young guys currently represent.
Great signing Danny.
Now please, go get Brevin Knight.
Also very happy with a 6’ 9" “power” three, who apparently plays great D. Haven’t seen one second of his play, but if he provides what is advertised, another hole has just been plugged.
Cheers
Aussie
If the kid wants to play D and rebound at the 3, he will be quite useful.
And IF he can play defense at the NBA level, maybe his play will become
contagious. I saw the Cs vs Portland, it looks like Davis and Pruitt can play a little as well.
by Greg37 on Jul 9, 2007 8:30 PM EDT reply actions
sorry I missed the first game because we sure looked crappy today. no one impressed me on our team although I liked Big Baby’s hustle and passing. rondo had some moments but down the stretch he and the rest of the team failed to execute and get anything going. gerald green seemed invisible for much of the game. He should be dominating at this point and he looked like a rookie. I don’t know about him. as one of the announcers pointed out we have a glut of guys around 6 8 or so. do we really need gerald and powe and gomes and now wallace. I could easily see gerald being traded
I do realize that summer league has a lot of aspects of playground basketball. I do think though that guys like Green, Rondo, even a Powe need to show high level consistent professional NBA play game in and game out throughout the league.
Going from a great game by Powe to a mere 7 won’t help Powe make that jump to a top 8 regular. He needs to hit a higher plateau. For Green a Rondo to have 6 and 7 fouls respectively is unacceptable too, even in summer ball, even when you get 10 fouls. The old adage, you play like you practice often times come true. That shows a laziness to me to have these no name Spurs down. There needs to be more from a guy like Ray too, especially if you plan on his contributing in the regular season.
Summer league is summer league; nevertheless the group we had should have put a spanking on the Spurs. Everyone is entitled to a bad game, but this is it. Celts summer boys need to put in a consistent effort and with Rondo,Green, Powe, Ray and Davis- no reason why we shouldn’t be taken care of business regardless of playground summer ball or not.
by docextension on Jul 9, 2007 9:59 PM EDT reply actions
“I thought that the ball didn’t move at all, that the guys were playing selfish. They didn’t throw the extra pass, they weren’t looking for each other. They thought that they could come out on the floor and everything would flow like it did the other night. You’ve got to work at that. It’s simple.â€
Haven’t we heard this before?
by JB_Celticsstuff on Jul 9, 2007 10:05 PM EDT reply actions
I’ll post this stat here in case anyone missed it.
http://draftexpress.com/stats.php?q=eff&year=06/07&per=pergame&qual=prospects&sort2=DESC&pos=PF&stage=all&sort=21
Pretty impressive…
by Hondo to Rondo on Jul 9, 2007 11:35 PM EDT reply actions
Jason Williams is a FA after next season..
by havlicekstoletheball on Jul 10, 2007 3:19 AM EDT reply actions
Rondo had a terrible game, no doubt, but we know basically what he can do. Playing along side AJ, PP, and RA will make a pg look alot better. But——his jumper—-wow! 3 VERY smooth attempts, nice form(seems to have ditched the side release thing he had goin), and on 2 of the three, nothin’ but net! Gotta love that!
Part of last night’s problem on offense was congestion in the paint. Davis, Powe and AllRed etc. seemed to “live” there without any rotation schedule. That fact reverts back to our lack of an offense game plan. Our bigs inside were always double and triple teamed so it’s no wonder that they floundered. Congestion inside also meant that our outside guys had no room to penetrate inside. Result?
Because our inside congestion prevented outside guys from penetrating inside, S.A. OVERPLAYED guys on the outside and as a result were able to get more than a few steals. The lack of “team spacing” completely paralyzed our offense. Lack of coaching recognition from the bench (and lack of coaching help BEHIND the bench…Doc and Danny) keep us mired in hell.
Brandon Wallace didn’t have an especially productive game and I’m undecided whether his underperformance was due to his recognition of inside congestion (therefore he remained on the perimeter) or whether he’s still suffering the lingering effects of the stomach ailment that recently kept him off the practice court. Brandon is most effective as an inside/outside type of player.
by moskqq on Jul 10, 2007 6:01 AM EDT reply actions
As long as I’m “pontificating”, I also don’t like the way we played the WEAVE. The weave is most effective when alternating players break from the outside and pass thru the paint (hoping to lose their man and get an inside feed). Our perimeter players kept the weave completely on the outside (because there was no room to flow through the inside?) and that also allowed perimeter defenders to overplay the the weave outside and disrupt its’ flow.
Watson was a much better player at PG (S.A.) than Rondo was for us. His dominance of Rondo completely frustrated Rondo and resulted in Rondo high TOs and foul count.
by moskqq on Jul 10, 2007 6:10 AM EDT reply actions
Watson did outplay Rondo. That was the bad news in a completely awful exhibition. Gerald Green should be working off low post screens but I agree with other posters…I love his potential, I know that he is young…but c’mon Gerald..it’s basketball not brain surgery. How much interning do you need? Start getting it done.
You don’t play your best every time but we should have beaten San Antonio Junior College. It was all on our guards…Rondo, Ray, Pruitt. They were terrible. Hard to believe that Alan Ray makes it esp with Wallace signed. Wallace does look more intriguing than the Brandon Hunter, Justin Reed, Orien Greene types that have come out of Summer League.
Problem is under Rivers, Gerald is probably getting very little interning. Getting yelled at a lot, maybe. The redundant “We need to get better defensively” coming from Rivers doesn’t make the team better defensively. The redundant “We’re a young team” coming from Rivers will continue when Gerald is 26. Sadly, both Doc and Gerald will be at the same point in their careers then that they are now. Doc will be our lottery coach for life, and Gerald will be making the same bonehead plays. Watch Doc’s timeout routine. His George Jefferson lap around half-court, the getting the clipboard from and assistant, and the conversations with the assistants take about 35 of the 45 seconds of a timeout. About the only thing he has time to do is to tell Gerald to play better before he sends him back out. The reality is the only real strategic instruction these players hear is during summer league.
Rondo had the rare occasion to play someone as quick as he is. Rondo would adjust quickly and dominate the next time they play.
If Davis can get his shot off in the NBA, He’s going to be a solid rotation player.
The only thing I wanted to see from Rondo, was a better jumper. We know he can run an offense. But our utter lack of a quality backup pg worries me. That’s when i’ll miss delonte, right now there’s no one to spell rondo that i trust
by Cullain on Jul 10, 2007 10:50 AM EDT reply actions
Rondo pulled the same thing this game that he did the other night. Solid defense and couldn’t beat his man off the dribble to get in the paint. Although with 7 fouls he would habe been riding the pine in a real game. 2 assists in 60 minutes of play is a joke. 38% from the floor. Maybe it was Doc’s fault!
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