Ray Feelin' It

Our national nightmare is over at long last, mabey people can come back inside the building now.

All joking aside, great game against a hungry team that wanted it badly. Still think the rythem is wayyy less smooth with rondo out, mostly because our other PG’s arent really PG guys.

Who do i have to kill for doc to play gabe pruitt for a decent amount to see if hes a back up PG or not? I know last nights game was close, and mabey not a great place to throw a rookie into the 1 spot for extended minutes, but it would be nice to know if we have a potintal back up PG on this roster already….

If Ray Allen has his shooting touch come playoff time, it will be a huge boost for the Cs. It would seem that Doc could keep Pruitt active instead of Powe and see if he can play at this level. At least vs teams with above average point guards who might get Rondo in foul trouble.

the viewer can also tell when ray is on by his body laguage. house did not do a bad job last night and was looking for others all night.

The Celtics effort was great last night. I think they have tried so hard especially on defense they will get tired and look off their game at times during the season. Playing terrific defense is the way to win these days because of all the great shooters in the game. With a possible 60 plus games left I think we should still cut back on the 3 stars minutes and equal for example the San Antonio 3 stars minutes. Also play Pruitt every game and see if he is ready to help out and if he is that will make things easier then looking for help. Short term we are fine long term I hope we are since we are a possible championship team this year.

Nice. Glad Ray had a breakout game. He was overdue for that.

During this team-wide slump I’ve noticed how tentative almost everyone is to shoot the ball. The team is over passing in alot of sets. You see Doc screaming about it every quarter. “SHOOT IT! SHOOOOOOT!” and then they pass.

The unselfish play is great and the ball movement has been very good most nights, but when anyone of them has an open shot, they have to take it. Especially late in the clock.

One thing I liked about Pruitt last night is that he didn’t hesitate to take his shots. Of course he was 1-6, but the kid needs the shake of the rust.

A win has a habit of HIDING continuing flaws in the Celtic’s game. Posey, of late, seems to be out of position for rebounding (except on opposing foul shot misses) and seems to have forgotten to “block-out” before establishing a rebound position (especially against taller players).

I noticed that they had KG exiting the paint and then flashing through the middle around a pick created by a teammate. When KG gets the ball late (already out of the paint) he either can create for himself (depending upon defensive pressure) or look for a back-door play or a teammate cutting to the basket. I would suggest that this oft repeated 90% scenario instead alternate between KG flowing through the paint, followed by Pierce, followed by yet another Celtic. The value of KG, then Pierce following behind through the paint is that most of the defensive attention flows with them (leaving the paint momentarily vulnerable).

It was obvious why the Celtics succeeded last night and didn’t against Wahington. They had excellent defensive pressure down the stretch and offensive plays were working because the shots were falling. While the mechanics involved in creating an offensive system are an important component of offensive success, players still need to make OPEN shot opportunities. Ray Allen and KG did that tonight.

An offensive system needs to have “wrinkles” because opponents scout the Celtics and soon learn their plays. The Patriots used “wrinkles” on a couple of touchdown plays when they used an oft repeated formation (known to their opposition) as a disguised new play. The Celtics need to develop new options for some of their standard plays to keep the opposition defensively “honest”.

Moskqq and Master Po, Red Auerbach had 6 plays. Everyone knew them and couldn’t stop them. The world knew when Larry was going to pass into McHale. There could be an announcement over the loudspeaker, but no one could stop it. It’s not the wrinkles, it’s the execution. I think Doc wants to play a style with few plays, but great execution. This team hasn’t been together long enough to do that. Right now the team is in the middle of seeing what they can do individually to help the team while trying to execute the system as a team at the same time. That’s the process. What is great is that everyone is trying to do what is best for the team. When they get it all together the execution will come consistently. It would be great if they could take a week off and practice, but it just don’t work that way.

Forgot to say “you know”.

Jeff, I agree with your comments on earlier post – Pruitt was good enough to warrant more minutes and Big Baby just makes things happen.
 
The team really isn’t about Ray’s game today, Paul’s tomorrow. You can’t be on every night and that is the value of this Big 3. The team is about how the other role players step up becuase they are about upside.

Pruitt missed but wasn’t afraid to shoot and Doc didn’t yank him after a miss – a frequent anti-Doc compalint on this blog. His hands were very active on D and he didn’t turn it over. Not ready for the All Star game but hopefully we’ll see him more.

Eddie House should come off the bench. I love the guy. He is a shooter by trade, not a defender, but he’s working his ass off on D. I still feel we have the PG spot adequately covered based on what I saw of Pruitt however there is no question that Rondo is the starter for a reason.

Portland is flat out scary. With Oden AND Rudy Fernandez next year, man, we better get ours this year. Now I see why Danny wanted Travis Outlaw, but what a miss on Ratliff/Telfair for Raef/Brandon Roy.

Just to add to all the points above, I remember Doc and even some people here talking about the need to get the ball over half-court quicker, in order to give the offense time to set up. Watching last night, you could see a real focus, especially with Eddie House, on getting the ball over half-court with atleast 19 seconds left. I thought it made a big difference in this game, as much as I think the opposite hurt us against Washington.

The only thing that concerned me was that by the end of the first half, KP had more shots attempts than RAllen.

How can Pierce go 5 for 11 at the line? That’s really absurd.

he had a bad night at the line, it happens.

One thing touched on in the SI story is the effort this team is making on D. It’s incredible. It’s great.

But it also takes it’s toll. I think PP’s & Ray’s shooting struggles is a result of the work they’re doing on D.

You wonder why teams like the Spurs and Pistons go into long shooting droughts? It’s because of the work & energy expended on defense. The trade off is, while they might not be able to score, they’re almost always within striking distance because they can get stops.

The Celts are just figuring this out…

Excellent point Lucky. I’d much rather have it this way though than score 105 per night and lose.

The thing with the “big 3 just don’t seem to all dominate at once” aspect is this: Ray still has to hit his shots at his normal clip. He did that tonight.

Of the GPA trio, he’s the most one dimensional. Not saying he’s just purely a shooter, he does other things pretty well, but offense is his bread and butter. When Pierce is struggling with his shot, he’s doing other things. His slashes are still causing defensive shifts and he’s distributing. He’s still crashing the boards. And this season, he’s playing lock down defense (4th in th league in defensive win shares).

When Ray was struggling, he was struggling hard. It wasn’t just missed shots, he was getting caught in traps, making sloppy turnovers (probably because he was overcompensating), and his contributions in other areas weren’t great. Plus he was still Doc’s “second unit leader” guy.

Dude was nails last night, though, and I hope we see more of it.

donati303 said:
  Just to add to all the points above, I remember Doc and even some people here talking about the need to get the ball over half-court quicker, in order to give the offense time to set up. Watching last night, you could see a real focus, especially with Eddie House, on getting the ball over half-court with atleast 19 seconds left. I thought it made a big difference in this game, as much as I think the opposite hurt us against Washington.

Excellent comment. This is the key to the C’s running their offense the way it should be run. We need to be able to do this against good trapping teams and I’m sure it’s worked on in practice. Once you break these traps a few times because of getting easy baskets, the traps stop. It doesn’t matter who the pg is it can be done with the pass.

I think there is a direct correlation between Ray’s big night and the fact that he made at least 5-6 layups. When he just patrols the three point line, he limits his effectiveness. When he get to the hoop, which he can still do, he keeps the defense on their toes and gives himself more open looks because the defense lays back a step to protect against the drive.The nice thing abut Ray going to the hoop is his soft touch. It doesn’t matter what angle he comes from, he just kisses it off the glass!! Rhondo sometimes fires them out of cannons from short range and puts funky spins on the ball. He has missed a lot of gimmes this year. I think Doc needs to get Ray going to the hoops more like he was last night.