Daily Babble: An Emotional, Rambling, Semi-Coherent Response to a Draining Celts Loss

great synopsis. saw the first 2 and could only make it to somewhere in the 2nd quarter last night. they were asleep at the start of the game. maybe it was spears column- but it looks like they can’t think when the game is speed driven. the rebounding the whole trip has been bad. this is the celtics’ bad stretch. it had to come sooner or later. they need to regather their forces for the playoff run. thank god, they don’t have to play in the western playoffs. in a 7 game series, they would beat denver and the warriors. the suns— i don’t know. it’s cleveland and detroit that worry me.

What this game showed is that the Celtics are not winning an NBA championship as presently constituted.

All the effort talk is great. The bad luck shooting and mental approach is fine. The fact staring us in the face is that we are getting killed in the paint and on the boards. We we adress this, we can fix the rest with tinkering IMO. 8)

I will refrain from the knee jerk reaction on their title aspirations except to say that from experience one game in february does not indicate how the level of play will be in April and May. Now, two things. After some more than solid games how come Leon is back on the shelf again just because KG is back? Doc cannot find enough minutes during the game for Leon? Or am I rushing to judgment? Secondly, Steve’s comments to the overall general malaise of basketball sense last night by the C’s might, I say, might, illuminate as to why Sam Cassell could really help this team come springtime. I love Rondo as much as anyone but in a seven game series could we use Sam’s decision making skills and execution just a little? I think that is the biggest skill that Sam would bring to the table.

-I think Allen’s shooting stuck out more b/c he was shooting more 3’s and since the C’s needed the points to mount a comeback it was more disappointing with each clang.
-Rondo’s vs. House’s /- is just a reflection of who they were playing against. Rondo was in there against Nash in the first quarter when the C’s got blown out, then House came in and played when Nash was on the bench.
-It makes no sense why House logged more minutes than Rondo, if anything I think Rondo should be getting more minutes than his average. He’s getting 31/game, I wouldn’t mind seeing him closer to 38/game. Either way, 23 minutes is inexplicable.
-Thank you for being one of the only people around who doesn’t look at Tony Allen with green colored glasses. His turnovers are brutal. He doesn’t seem to know his limitations, like minimizing his dribbling.

The fact of the matter is the Celtics have played a cupcake schedule to this point. They were supremely motivated the first half of the season when other teams were figuring things out still, so to speak. They should be applauded for their terrific first half, but count me among those who believe even an Eastern Conference title will not happen for the C’s.

The reasons …

1-Perkins is just not good enough to be any more than a 10-minute a game back-up (at best). Of course, options are not much better than him, but I would not be adverse to putting Baby or Powe in the starting lineup.

2-We are seeing just how limited Eddie House is, especially when he has to play point guard. There’s no mystery about why he has passed from team to team to team throughout his NBA career.

3-Ray Allen will have the once in a while great shooting night or hit a big shot, but I’m wondering if he hasn’t lost something. Besides that, his decision-making (not solely last night) has been subpar when asked to create. If Tony Allen were a more consistent player, I’d plug him into the starting lineup and bring Ray off the bench. As a matter of fact, I’d do that anyway. Ray Allen, at this stage, just seems more suited to a Jason Terry type role.

All that said, it has been and probably will continue to be an exciting season. And here’s the big if. If this team is not going to win a title, wouldn’t they have been better off not making the KG trade? I would have like to have seen what a lineup of Jefferson, Allen, Pierce, Rondo and Gomes might have been able to accomplish.

I think they were shooting as many threes early in the season. They were just making more. The team is built more for the outside shot without a true low post presence. The rebounding is the real killer and there is nothing that can be added from outside the organization now to fix that. Just play Leon and Baby more and sit Perkins down. Jon Barry was saying last night that the C’s were talking to his brother Brent along with the Spurs and someone else. Just saying.

pierce didn’t show up but credit stoudemire and shaq for discouraging pierce from driving. ay allen has sucked all year. he never runs hard on the break, he is a lousy ball handler and he is shooting career lows-plus he is a marginal defender and best and not a particularly good rebounder. I don’t know what his deal is but we need the guy who went for 28 in the al star game not the guy who goes 2-12,3 -13, ec. he has had way too many games like that this year and it’s about time someone got on him. as for rondo not playing in the 4th I thinkit had to do with his D; he wasn’t staying in front of nash. the one thing that stuck with me from this game is that we don’t know how to run a fast break. we must have blown 6 of those. I blame that on doc. if I were Doc ) or Danny) I’d call up tomy H and make him a special assistant just for teaching the fast break. ow many charges did we commit tonight? it was ridiculous. Posey also looked lost.we let our emotions control us and we were way too anxious all night.

The thing this game showed me that was encorigning is that our defense is very capable of slowing the suns to the pace we want to play at.

We couldn’t have asked for a better game defensivly.

On the bad side, it also showed me that Doc still has no idea how to rotate properly. BBD on amare for extended periods? unacceptable. Rondo, who was throwing off their rythem on offense by making nash play more defense then he likes to not seeing the floor in the 4th? unacceptable.

I think that Doc was just so frustrated that he was trying to try different things and none of it worked. They ALL sucked, including him. The only positive was that they rotated more agressively and slowed the game down. Other than that, nothing!

KG- I blame him primarily for this loss for 2 reasons. First he let Amare get in his head and he was more worried about fighting with him than playing ball. Second, when you are that off you can’t heave up as many long jumpers as he did. His shooting % doesn’t look as bad as it was because of a few inside. That is where he should have stayed. He let his emotions get the best of him.

PP- His shot selection was terrible! It’s no wonder he was 2-13.

Ray – His shot selection wasn’t bad, he just couldn’t hit. You have nights like that.

Rondo – Not terrible, not that good. It is hard to get assists when your teammates shoot like they did. Got blocked on drives too much.

Perk – I don’t see where all the fuss is this game. He was 3-3 and had 6 boards and 3 blocks. Should have played more.

TA – This game is the reason I hate TA’s game. He reverted back to his old self last night. Even the announcers were ripping his decisions. Turned the ball over more than they gave him credit for. He just lowers his head and goes to the basket without knowing where his teammates are or where the defender is. I thought the last couple weeks he was making strides. He just is NOT a smart player. He is as good right now as he will ever be. Some nights okay, some nights he shouldn’t be in the league.

BBD – Absolute rookie play out of him all night. Stupid mistakes. Horrible Defense. I was wishing for Scal!

Powe – Not sure why he wasn’t in there earlier. Wasn’t great while he was out there, but by then the tone was set.

Doc – Obviously his halftime speech helped their defensive intensity. Too bad he couldn’t get a rotation that worked. This is where we needed some better offensive plays. Something to get them back in a flow. Poor job Doc.

All in all, we are now 12-9 since Detroit. I think in about 10 games we won’t be too worried about this stretch. This is where champions buckle down and go out and get a couple wins and their confidence comes back. It’s a good thing we won so many at the first. It looks like we are coasting in the rest of the way.

we dont emphazise rebounding and we dont get the ball inside enough.
Yeah dont take it out on Perk , he was 3 for 3. take it out on the plan not to get a guy who is 3 for 3 moe shots. we shoot to many outside shots in which the players are so far out that a rebound isnt even a pipe dream on some plays. we need a pf mentality presence to balance the guard presence that Doc emphasizes and is infatuated with yr after yr.

No one is complaining about this game if Pierce and Allen shoot 40-45%. There was absolutely no difference to this team’s game last night then there was in the beginning of the season except for that fact. The Cs have been jacking up 3s all year. The defense was GREAT – they held Phoenix almost 30 POINTS BELOW their average in that building. Garnett took the same shots he always takes. And BBD played instead of Powe because he’s about 50 lbs heavier and we were playing Shaq. I’ve got no problems there.

My beef is with the way that we’ve taken the ball out of Rondo’s hands with KG back in the lineup. He’s back to walking it up and passing the wing, who then makes the entry pass to Garnett. Then Rondo goes and stands on the weakside until someone throws him the ball when nothing else is working, only to have him try and make something happen in the last 5 seconds on the clock. When KG was out the offense was in Rondo’s control. The big men got the ball only after considerable ball movement and in great position to score inside. If they would run the same offense with KG in there, imagine what he could do with the ball if he got it where Powe has been getting it the last 9 games.

This is also why Doc went with House. Because they were committed to this offensive set, and because they got behind, they needed Eddie’s shot on that weakside. And for the record, they only went “small” when Shaw was out of the game. KG never guarded him. But, the main mistake by Doc was taking the ball out of Rondo’s hands and trying to make KG the sole playmaker for the first half of the game. It resulted in PP and Allen also not getting the ball in the same kind of flow that Rondo has been getting them the ball as of late. In big games, they must learn to still trust Rondo to run this team.

But, the main mistake by Doc was taking the ball out of Rondo’s hands and trying to make KG the sole playmaker for the first half of the game.

This is going to be a difficult issue to deal with.

KG doesn’t spend a lot time in the post. Because of that his virtue as an offensive player are his guard relevant skills (passing, pulling big men outside of the paint, jump shooting ..etc). This allows him to run a large portion of the offense.

You can fit KG and a point guard together. He operated very well with Stephon Marbury, Terrell Brandon and Sam Cassell over the years. That’s not the problem. The problem is how do you fit Ray Allen and Paul Pierce after that?

They’re already struggling to get Ray enough quality touches (not the 25 foot, defender in his face needs to create his own shot type of touches).

Then Pierce. We have to get Pierce the ball. We’re over-reliant on his ability to get into the paint and score or get to the FT line (because of the lack of post scoring). So where does he fit in when you have Rondo and KG controlling the ball? He’s not a cutter who runs for years. His best skill is creating his own shot and creating havoc on his penetration.

Since Pierce and Ray are so important the variable has become Rondo’s involvement in the offense. Balancing out those three after KG is going to be very difficult.

…………

The Rondo-KG issue is the exact same as Detroit last season with Webber and Billups. Billups’ numbers (his pre-post Webber numbers show this, I don’t know them off hand) dropped significantly and he struggled all season to find his niche which resulted in a very poor playoff display when times got tough.

It’s going to be very hard to figure out and it’s a serious issue

Who, very interesting point. Could it be that while this team has done very well trying to mix and blend the key guys different playing styles together, that in the end there will have to be revisions to the roster to get the right mix to take them to the ultimate level.

If Rivers really wants to blow any chance to win a playoff round he can keep playing Pierce and Ray Allen 40 minutes a night. These are older players who got no rest over all star weekend in the middle of a tough road trip. They were simply horrible. Pierce looked even slower than Shaq.

Right now, if the Celtics’ second unit played a 7 game series against the first unit, the second unit would win, probably in 5 games.

I can’t believe you just wrote a long article about the Cs struggles and didn’t mention James Posey once. He did manage to grab three whole rebounds last night, after not gathering a single carom at Golden State. Since the all star break, Posey has only 9 rebounds in 80 minutes. Maybe he’s still a little hung over from the all star break or something, but a PF is not supposed to grab a rebound every 9 minutes. For comparison sake, Scal, one of the worst rebounding bigs in the league, gets one rebound every 7 minutes or so. Posey also seems to pick up fouls every game by boxing out lazily with his arms, instead of using body position. A guy his size must really focus on proper boxing out technique, and since the break, he hasn’t done so.

After only losing the board battle by four in Denver, the Cs have been outrebounded 99 to 69 the past two games. Leon Powe has been getting a rebound every three minutes since he’s been getting steady minutes. After grabbing 11 boards and scoring 13 points in Denver, Powe was played only 14 minutes in Golden State and 5 minutes last night. Doc made the mistake of trying to match up to his opposition the past two games, instead of just playing his game and making the competition match up to his team.

I’m sure that’s what Rivers has been secretly hoping to do all year. Let’s see, how can I make sure to not win a playoff game…

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah…

That was definitely value added commentary…

I don’t think we are going to make it past the 2nd round of the playoffs. The Cavs or the Magic may be too much to handle in the 2nd round.

 :P

I love all the negativity here on Celticsblog!

We should waive Ray immediately. If he can’t score 26 ppg sharing the ball when he’s on a team with two other superstars and a young PG he’s useless. I mean is it LEGAL to play professional basketball when your 32 he might as well be 90! Let’s waive him slide TA into his spot and sign Flip Murray. That at least guarantees us winning the East! (Uh oh that means only another year of KG and 18 months of Pierce, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it)

Next we’ll fire Doc and hire..um I dunno Brian Hill and have him coach the team.

This summer after our inevitable NBA title, we’ll sign Mike Miller for Brian Scalabror 3 more ine, some tic tacs and a JJ Redick instructional video and we should win 2 titles easily!

It was a bad shooting night…stuff happens.

I don’t think we’re giving the Suns enough credit for playing well. Yeah the C’s played poorly (on offense) everyone had a cold shooting night, but the defense was there and I like our chances with that defense, the offense won’t be bad everynight.

We need rebounding. When you give a team like Phoenix THAT many O rebounds you will get burned
Doc should’ve played Rondo more down the stretch, and Eddie House didn’t play poorly but him handling the ball and (trying) to create negates what he does best: play pesky defense and run around on offense and jack up shots (which he often makes). Which brings us back to this:

We need another (Tall) Big Man who can rebound and defend (scoring is icing) and we need a true backup PG who can distribute. If we get that it will add versatility to our lineup, and it will allow everyone to focus on their strengths, lessen the minutes of our stars until the playoffs, and allow people on our team to stop plugging holes and using skills they don’t excel at (Ray/House/TA as dribbling distributors, Powe/Baby playing at the 5 longer than spot action, and Posey at the 4 and the small ball lineup in general except when the matchups favor us).

BTW that was all one post. ;D

I think Phoenix will win it all this year. Ainge new the gamble. In my opinion RA is not fitting in as well as KG and Pierce. Perk, well that’s all with him. He will be what he is now for the rest of his career. We need a center, end of story! But oh my god watching the west is going to be fun. Amare and Shaq woooh that’s all folks. We have a competitive team though!

Tony Allen is this team’s second best player right now, after Garnett. Neither Pierce nor R. Allen is playing particularly well. If Rivers had any stones, TA would be starting and RA would be coming off the bench for instant offense.

This team must play up tempo to win against teams with a good and big front line—a list of teams that now includes Cleveland, with Ilgauskas, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith and Anderson Varejao. Garnett is not a low post player. He’s a jump shooter. Perkins can dunk, and that’s it. They are more effective offensively with Powe or BBD alongside Garnett,not Perkins. That’s another move Rivers should make.

Because of the lack of any real low post offense when Garnett and Perkins are in together, they live and die with the long jump shot. Last night they died, and you can smell the stench of that rotting carcass all the way to Boston.

Now you’ve completely lost it Brick…

Not even TA’s own mother thinks TA is the second best player on the team. Did you not watch that game last night?! You get that TA just as much as you get the ’’decent’’ TA. He is a great athlete which allows him to score sometimes impressively, and also allows him to be a solid defender. He is an absolute Basketball IQ IDIOT!

Ray on the other hand is a perennial all-star, averaging 19 pts, 4 boards, 3 assists and a steal on a team with 2 players who get stuff run for them 3x as much as he does. He on the other hand is also a great athlete and a very bright basketball player.

Perk is averaging more pts per game than TA is. Come on Brick! Sometimes you just throw stuff out there that even you can’t believe!

mcpu40- I think what you smell is the crap that is being posted up here from some people who think they know more about basketball than their posts indicate sometimes.

The Celts have looked impotent the last three games. We need more Powe. We need more grown man. We need more of Rondo running past everyone, with Powe running right behind him for the follow up. I cannot stand watching the C’s jack up threes, followed by the long rebound, fast break and easy basket by the opposing team. Take it to the basket, and then do it again, and again. If it doesnt go in, let BB and Powe keep crashing for the rebounds. Eventually the other team will wear down, and that’s when Garnett can do his damage.

You might be right about the funk, but no way to possibly think that TA is a better player than Ray. Ray may be jacking up three’s, but I did see 4-5 shots he took going to the basket as well last night. We want Ray jacking up threes. House too for that matter. I blame the ‘’not having anyone under to rebound’’ on the rebounders, not the three jackers!

KG is fine. If he knocked down 3-4 of those outside jumpers we’d be saying he was back. It is his dead legs that caused him to be short with the shots. That is being out for a couple weeks. Not his tummy!

I think the way you use House effectively is bring him in and let him start shooting. If he is hot then leave him in. If not, bring in TA. If TA plays within the offense, then leave him in. If he drops his head and charges the defender and turns it over then bring him back to the bench. Those two are either on or they hurt you. That’s how you determine their playing time.

Once again, your comment of saying ray is inconsistent right now is defendable and I agree actually. His comment of saying TA is a better player is just being ridiculous! When you start out with that, the other valid points don’t mean much…

This funk was expected at the start of the season. It’s now become a reality. As has been said above the important thing is how the team responds. We need practice time and should have some after this trip. We also need to beat the teams in our division. If we get to the finals we need to play just one team. All factors such as travel, etc even out and adjustments can be made. Last nite Shaq and Stoudemire kept us from getting into the paint. Both are shot blockers. You can use that against them. In a long series you can practice how to do that. We lost last nite because shots didn’t go down and we were indecisive and made wrong decisions when going inside. I also think this is a tired team and needs to get it’s second wind. There is life after this road trip.

Right now, TA is playing better thqan RA. And better than Pierce too. That’s just the reality. No one is arguing careers or two months ago. I’m talking about right now. Pierce and Allen look like they’ve hit the wall, while Tonyjust gets better with every game. He needs more minutes, especially minutes alongside Rondo.

Rivers has to start making decisions based on production, not reputation.

no doubt; they’re in a funk and this road trip is killing them. they need home cooking and frankly, new blood. pp and ray have played a lot of minutes, and kg is recuperating. phoenix the mavs the lakers are rejuvenated. cleveland too. danny we need sam or brent and magliore might be a warmer body than pollard. these are not miracle men but they can spell relief. and that’s what we need.

Yeah Brick, TA was just amazing in that Phoenix game. I can’t believe we didn’t run right out after that game and sign him to a 10 mil per year contract.

He was absolutely horrible!!! The announcers kept commenting that he kept making stupid mistakes. Doc yanked him from the floor because he kept turning the ball over, charging, fumbling easy breakaways. What game are you watching?! TA is a backup. Nothing more. If GM’s out there thought you were right they would be beating down the door with trade offers for him. Nothing!

You don’t even believe that Brick. You just try to throw out absolute nonsense to stir things up. Why am I wasting my time with your ludicrous comments… I’m out.

By the way… I wish people on here would follow your own advice to Doc. We should all start valuing your posts based on content, not reputation…

Where have you gone Big Al Jefferson,
A nation turns its longing eyes on you?

no, in that one game he played better. what was wrong with paul and rays games in Denver and Gstate?

Paul wasn’t efficient in den, but other than that;

PPden:6-7.8570024066724
PPGS: 12-13.9231024055523

RAdev:.4214-11 .364115213520
RAgs: .7504-41.0001002123632

Celticsblog: were One game alters reality happens.

grrr font compressions. regardless, there 2 games before this one, where they both had “bad games” supposedly dont support the “tony allen has been playing better than paul and ray” comments one bit.

Tony also had an even worse game than pierce in phx, 6 TO, way to go TA.

opps, and my bad forgetting the d wor dis a swear on these boards, wish i could edit these threads heh.