Big Baby Rocks Duncan To Sleep

I loved Walton’s halftime rant. Those guys deserved it.

oh yesss great win is good to have two options like Davis Powe off the bench ;D

Call me crazy, I found them hilarious. Wrong on a bunch of points, but definitely the best NBA announcing team outside of Marv/Doug Collins.

Random thoughts:

1)Stoudamire definitely wasn’t the backup PG for us
2) This matchup will be WAAAAAY different next time with KG back and Parker back for the Spurs (very interested in the Parker v Rondo battle)
3) We need another big man 6’10 or better as much as or more than a backup PG. As good as Baby, and Powe are doing in KG’s absence we have no length, and Scalabrine is an offensive liability. Teams with big frontcourts will be matchup problems for us over the course of a series. Even in the first quarter if not for Pierce’s unconscious shooting we had no offense outside of the perimeter and if our perimeter players come out cold we have no inside presence without KG.

Great game by the entire team though.

One more….I think Cassell will end up a Sun. They too are a contender, and they don’t care about defense at the PG (as evidenced by Nash) plus after getting schooled by Rondo Sam I am might not feel the same about coming to the Celtics. They need a backup PG and are only 12 deep on the roster and have only a few weeks to get to the 13 man minimum. Could be wrong but I have a feeling.

I can’t stand Mark Jackson. I’ve begun avoiding games he’s commentating on. He’s that bad. Just awful. Hurts my head.

Hard to find too much fault in a solid win, but once again I think House was an unsung hero that game. 10 quick pts in off the bench when we were about to get blown off the court. He kept us close enough to be there and have a chance to win. Should have seen more minutes in the second half when Allen was struggling. If Vaughan was going to be matched up against Ray and he wasn’t going to get the ball in the post on him then House could have gotten a few more minutes.

Scal had a solid game rebounding and defensively in the first half. 1-5 not so hot. Justifiably sat in the second half due to BBD playing well. Remember this though. Scal’s 4 boards in 16 minutes is just as impressive as BBD’s 8 boards in 33 minutes. When Scal’s shot is not falling, and BBD’s playing agressively putting boards back, then he should be getting those minutes. Very solid job defensively against Duncan for the most part.

Definitely backs up most of our thoughts about passing on Stoudemire. He is a very poor man’s Eddie House!

I know Van Gundy makes some absurd statements, but half the stuff he says is tongue in cheek, I find him hilarious.

Here’s an example why the stat line isn’t always the only good judge of a players productivity…

Bowen in 31 minutes had 3 pts on 1-4 shooting. Not one other measurable stat. When they switched him onto PP, Paul went from hitting 5 straight, to 6 of the next 13. Definitely still a good shooting day, but PP had to work a lot harder to get those pts once the switch happened. I don’t think that Pop is blaming that loss on Bowen…

BBD got all the kudos from the announcers, but he did what he always does. He has played excellent defense all year. The guy who won the game was Pierce, whith some help from Rondo, House and TA.

I just kept screaming at the TV set in the 3rd quarter until Rivers took Scalabrine out. How many bonehead assinine ridiculous mistakes does one player have to make before they send him to the bench? God, I wish Ainge would just waive the guy and bring back Brandon Wallace.

And let me add that, when one of the clueless announcers called Scalabrine a “fan favorite,” it was a huge insult to Celtics fans everywhere. Scalabrine is comic relief, at best. But it’s black humor, because when he’s on the floor, you just have to laugh to keep from crying.

Big baby came up huuuuge. Scal is just straight up atrocious. Did you see the smile on paul’s face at the end.. How 2002 was that?

a double wow for this game. big baby has his 2 best games in the 2 most important games of the season- today and against detroit. atta way to go bbd. rondo rebounding was absolutely incredible- all 171 lbs. of him. pp was the gemmaster both sides of the ball. thanks tom t. for the defense- these guys were committed. i know there others, but good old ray just keeps on smoothly ticking, oh yes, his accuracy is down, but his effort is great.

BBD has not come in and played excellent defense all year! That is absolute nonsense! The difference between him staying in the game and not, is when he is not putting up that kind of performance. I get it. I understand that this game is what people see in BBD. I wish he played like this every game and in truth we would never see Scal on the floor again. The fact of the matter is that he commits a huge amount of stupid plays on the defensive end of the ball and that’s why he gets yanked. When Scal comes in and doesn’t produce he gets yanked as well and you never see him again. 1 out of 10 games looking like a star does not make BBD a star. I can’t wait until he becomes that player, but as of now to say that is the case is untrue and you know it. We all know he is more valuable on offense as far as points go, so if he was doing it on both ends Scal wouldn’t get time. Thibodeau obviously sees something defensively out of Scal, and missing most nights in BBD at this point.

As far as the fan favorite issue, I understand completely what he is saying. There are a lot of fans, which you can hear in the stands when he makes or misses a shot, that WANT Scal to be successful. When he hits one the crowd goes crazy. When he misses it the crowd is deflated. They don’t boo him, they want him to be someone to rally around. I am one of those fans. He is the type of person/player that fans naturally want to see play well. He is such a good teammate/community guy that people want him to succeed. If you as a fan, no one specificly, find yourself rooting for him to fail then take a close look at your motives. Come on people. He is a great guy that is getting the very most out of his ability. I wish we could all say that.

In the Post Game show with Greg and Donny, they both went on about this being the biggest win of the season for the C’s. My take is that it was the second biggest win of the year. I thought the win on the road @ Detroit was #1. Agree or disagree?….not that it matters in the overall scheme of things. I love every win. And how about that Runnin Rondo!!

how bad would scal have to be to not play? How crazy are those who support him when both Powe and Baby are clearly better? And no we don’t need to get another big guy: we just beat the spurs without KG or Perk…Powe and Baby can do the job and this won’t be something we have to do often, ie, play without KG and Perk.

Any serious fan will ever trust Doc as coach while we continually have the example of him playing Scal despite always having better options.

For those watching on ABC, their announcing crew repeatedly was giving hi praise to Doc and his coaching, along with Tom T.

NICE win! Loved the hustle & defense down the stretch. Great game by all really.

Take your time, KG. I’d prefer him coming back 100% and Doc getting the bench more time now, than nail biting later in the season or in the playoffs…

The defensive game plan was great. Credit Thibodeau, credit Doc – I don’t care who. To trust BBD and Powe to bump with Duncan straight up took courage on the part of the coaching staff because they could have gotten burned bad. How dumb would they look right now if Duncan went off for 30 or 40? We’d all have been screaming at the top of our lungs, “Why aren’t we double teaming. It’s Tim freakin Duncan!” Of course, more kudos go to the players for executing. And because they were so effective straight up, the opportunistic double team that did come every once in while usually paid off with a steal or at least a disrupted play because Duncan was no longer expecting it. Just brilliant to watch.

The worst announcing job especially in the 1st half. They missed a lot of good plays with their Vaudeville act.

Exactly, Brick. Another clueless comment from an out of town announcer who hears noise when a white Celtic comes in and assumes he’s a ‘fan favorite.’ We’re not laughing with him, Breenie, we’re laughing at him.

van gundy and jackson are great. van gundy IS right- we have retired too many numbers. lighten up celtic fans

hey van gundy called scal out for shotting 32 percent 47 games into the season

JVG has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek most of the time..he’s , without a doubt, one of my favorite announcers (for a rookie)…Jeff “Air Intangibles”…patent that before I steal it..
great job by Doc today !

It might be hard to say his contribution is being overlooked when he scored 35 points, but I really have to give Pierce the credit for the victory tonight. It was a huge game and he came up huge.

To be honest, I have been a little disappointed in Pierce since KG went down. I really thought that he would step up and relish the opportunity to show that this was still his team. And although he certainly hasn’t been bad (and he was sick the one game) he has just been playing like a good player on a good team.

Today, however, I really thought he stepped it up a notch. Up against a great team on national TV with Manu and Duncan looking really good at the start I wondered at first if we’d be able to hang around in this one. If Pierce hadn’t started as strong as he did today I think we would have lost this one (and I feel he had been starting slow recently too).

Anyway, he came to play today from the start. It was the put-the-team-on-his-back performance I’ve been waiting for. Great game by Pierce.

mcpu40- How does Eddie jack up way too much?! He was 4-6 from the floor for 10 pts and kept us in the game when we were having scoring issues. If anything he should be shooting more. That of course only happens when he is in the game, because we know he isn’t shy about shooting! 41% from 3 point land and considering 60% of his shots are threes his 42% overall percentage isn’t bad at all. House has been a difference maker for us.

They probably shoot so many threes because we shoot over 38% as a team. Without an inside post player in there right now that isn’t a bad shot.

Agree about Ray. The only thing I have noticed though is Ray seems to take the first open shot he gets this year. Much of that has to be the fact that he rarely sees the ball again after he dishes it off. That three though has been a staple of his career. It is obvious that his ankles aren’t right completely though because he is about a rotation short on many of them. That is all lift.

BBD and Posey each got 33 min, so I am not sure how Scal’s 16 were too much. Powe wasn’t particularly impressive defensively tonight which I think is the reason for his low minutes.

It’s still there in the AP article, towards the end. And, damn, that was a great play by TA, he clearly learned his lesson from the Detroit game. Very nice to see a player correct mistakes in their game and also to have the IQ to know an opposing players tendencies and play accordingly.
Great game from Rondo, his rebounding has really been great over the last few weeks, if not longer. And he did throw in an excellent drive in the 4th.
Having lived in NYC for over 10 years I have a soft spot for JVG gotta say, its all a shtick but I’d rather hear his shtick than some of the sincere off-base boring commentary that seems to be the norm, and, yes, Thibodeau is his boy but nice to see TT get some love on national TV. Also, pair JVG or Jackson with Marv Albert (as Jackson is on YES) and ta-da instantly a much better broadcast, Marv is that good. Breene doesn’t know how to control the call of the game very well.

Beating San Antonio is always a very good sign. Not having KG,
Perk and Parker on the floor changes the dynamic somewhat. Davis’ job on Duncan was very good, especially for a rookie who you wouldn’t think would get many calls. Having the ABC guys
was different. Back in the day we’d all turn on the radio and listen to Johnny.

I also like how Doc switched out Ray Allen for Tony Allen late in the game on defensive possessions. A lot of coaches wouldn’t do that to a superstar, but it was the right move for defensive purposes.

mcpu40, are you watching the same game? Eddie House stopped the Spurs 2nd Qtr run with 10 pts in 4-5 mins.
 
For those calling for a back up point guard I offer Eddie House. Brevin Knight, forget it. Sam Cassell, may help/but greater chance he’ll hurt the magical chemistry this team has. No thanks. Damon Stoudmire, Jacque Vaughan – no thanks. Tyron Lue etc…not better than Eddie House.

Pierce was fun to watch today. When he’s feeling it like that, he seems to be totally calm, almost slower. His FTs were driving us crazy but what a game.

Big Baby of course was great and Duncan was a class act with his comments afterward.

No one else has spoken about Posey and I think he did a great job on Finley and Ginobili when he was on them. Total effort.

Tony Allen, what a bench contributor.

This game felt like a tease. Our guys giving everything they had but the veteran Spurs shooting lights out when they had to. I thought we were going to lose in last2 minutes but this game really showed our depth.

Just a great, tough, gut-check win by the C’s. It was a TEAM victory which is probably the best thing that could be said about this or any victory. Great defensive play by TA on Ginobli near the end. He just played it perfectly. Next time up the court Ginobli again tryed to draw a foul by falling into defenders. This time PP and Posey backed off and he threw himself off balance again. Wonder if this was in the scouting report. Just great execution and he wasn’t “hacked” either time. Great announcing. Liked when they criticized Posey for not inbounding to Ray Allen at the end. That would have been great, but unfortunately Ray was not in the game. By not calling timeouts to put Ray in and just playing on it gave confidence to the guys in there who made all their free throws at the end and it didn’t allow SA to set up anything. When the C’s are asked questions about playing without KG I can’t wait for the first one to say “who’s KG”. Anyway, this was a sweet one.

Jon said:
  I also like how Doc switched out Ray Allen for Tony Allen late in the game on defensive possessions. A lot of coaches wouldn’t do that to a superstar, but it was the right move for defensive purposes.

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That’s the thing that Wally and Ray have in common….in addition to the great shooting strokes. Both are about winning. Didn’t seem to bother Wally’s ego either when Rivers did the late replacement for him, either.

You have to watch more than one game to say the Spurs made a mistake on Stoudamire. He’s played well the previous two games. He’s a solid veteran and provides insurance in case something else happens to Parker or Vaughan.