Welcome To the Show, Raj

Mike Bibby is a pathetic excuse for a defender. Rondo is capable of doing this until the end of the series. Bibby can’t bother his dribble, he can’t bother his passing, he can’t bother his penetration, he can’t bother his jump shot. It’s all about Rondo’s aggressiveness from here out in this series. It has nothing to do with Atlanta or whatever they do.

They defended him with Childress quite a bit last night too. Rondo is too quick for him. Childress isn’t even an average defender guarding his own position, defending lightening quick point guards? Not much chance. His only hope was that Rajon was bothered by his length (and some PGs have been lately against Josh) but that didn’t happen. Rajon is too quick, he can create enough seperation to get a great look at the hoop against Childress.

Their best defender against Rondo is Joe Johnson but they’re going to be loathe taking him off Pierce/Ray. They can’t afford to do it.

Rajon should be playing like this the rest of the series. I’d be happy with him attacking more. After KG, he has the biggest mismatch on the court.

rondo= as cool as a cucumber. with a team of hot players such as kg,pp, perk powe, and sammy, rondo sits there with ray to balance them off. that was a great article in the globe about ray’s ocd, and rondo has learned how to work hard in ritualistic fashion. atlanta does look like playoff fodder,but i do predict they will get physical and frustrated in this series and maybe see some controversial hits.

It’s also worth noting that Rajon got 6 of his assists in the first quarter—including a stretch where he got one on, I think, 3 consecutive trips. As great as it is when he gets his own shot his first responsibility is to feed PGA when open and he did a great job getting them all involved at the start of the game when they built up that lead.

It’s not difficult to feel confident when playing against Bibby. He can’t play, and he makes Billy Knight look like even more of an idiot everytime Bibby steps on the floor. Chris Paul or Deron Williams could have been a Hawk. Oh well…

From what I’ve read it seems as if Ray Allen has taken Rajon under his wing. Ray has helped him with his shooting. Ray often passes to an open Rajon for a shot. And all the vets say it is Rajon’s job to lead the team, not their’s. And Rajon has taken it all in and has
done in one year what should take several to learn the job. And what is scary is he’s going to get better.

Bibby has certainly seen better days. The big thing is though that Rondo hit open shots. The Hawks did what every team has to do against the Celtics; left Rondo open. If Rondo hits open jump shots and doesn’t turn the ball over, the Celtics are nearly impossible to stop on the offensive end. You can’t double team everyone.

I know Bibby is hardly Chris Paul. But, Rondo wouldn’t be able to so effortlessly abuse Bibby like this if he wasn’t a good player himself.

Funny that there is still a lot of talk from other teams about “forcing Rondo to make open shots.” It seems to me that since the Cavs game earlier in the year, Rondo has been doing exactly that. Frankly, I expect his open shots to go in these days. And I haven’t seen a more acrobatic finisher around the basket in quite some time. Rondo just continues to impress.

Yep, just keep giving Rondo those open shots and open lanes to the basket and watch the Celtics keep winning. It’s like some of these national commentators are still back in October of 2007.

Dick Stockton was horrible, BTW. Aside from a number of factual inaccuracies (like not knowing when Joe Johnson was traded), he calls the game on TV the way you would call it on radio. The telecast was full of useless chatter with no real insight.

… and it’s too bad that Stockton’s commentary did seem so oddly inaccurate at times because I absolutely loved hearing his voice for a game in the Garden. It felt like the 80’s all over again. If only he’d been teamed up with Tommy Hiehnson…

(Looking back, I can’t believe Heihnson was ever allowed to broadcast games nationally for CBS as he was such an unabashed Celtic homer.)

Brick,

Giving Rondo an open shot is definitely a bad option these days. But, it is the least of a set of bad options the Celtics create for opponents. Would you rather leave Allen open? Would you rather expect someone to defend Garnnett one on one all night? Or would you rather have someone defend Pierce with no help all night? If Rondo hits open shots, the Cetlics are pretty much unstopable.