Paul Pierce Will Have His Hands Full with Gerald Wallace

Guy absolutely tore up the Raptors recently, but he ALWAYS does that. It’s wild watching him and Stephen Jackson on the wings these days.

First of all I want to say that this is my first comment right here. I´m a Celtics fan from Spain and my favourite player is our captain, Paul Pierce. I Think Pierce is a much more talented player with a better outside shooting ability and he dribbles like anyone in the league. Wallace is a warrior and it´s possible Pierce will have some problems protecting the rebounds.

I just don’t think people around the league have watched him enough over the last couple of years to see just how good he is. When I hear comments about how he’s just a slasher and wild and erratic player, I just don’t think people have been paying attention to what he brings.

He is, without a doubt, the best rebounding SF and the best defensive SF in the league. If he played in a big market or got national television exposure, he would be getting Defensive Player of the Year and All-Defensive first team love.

First, let me introduce myself. I’m a transplant from the Boston area (Salem and Marblehead to be specific) now living in Winston-Salem, NC. For 20 years of my life if you cut me I bled Celtic green. This continued for quite a while when I moved to NC and I used to joke when the Charlotte Hornets started up that I couldn’t escape. I told folks I’d moved to NC because my wife had an affair with Larry Bird and I just couldn’t compete with a guy who was 6’9" and could put it in from anywhere! (insert laugh)

Anyway, the Hornets left town and we now have our new franchise. Over the past 6 years I’ve become a huge fan of that team and the Celtic slid to #2. (What can I say, I always root for the underdog) I’m still a die-hard Sox fan and hope to visit Fenway and the beloved Kenmore Square area once more before I die.

Regardless, my wife is taking me to the game tonight in Charlotte as a birthday gift. If you spot an ugly old cuss in a Celtics game shirt and a Bobcats cap, that will be me. Talk about conflicting emotions!

I want to wish you luck and also give you a heads up regarding tonight’s game. While it’s true that Gerald Wallace has been tearing up the league of late (yesterday he was named Eastern Conf Player of the Week in fact) he isn’t our biggest threat.

In the games since the trade that brought Stephen Jackson to Charlotte teams have been doubling up on Jacks. This has left Wallace free to cut the lanes and the result has been beastly for our opponents. We’re tough to cover as a result because if you maintain heavy coverage on Wallace it’s going to leave Jacks free on the wing where he can pop off a mid-range jumper or dish to Boris Diaw or Nazr Mohammed – a name I imagine you are all familiar with. Boris has been under the radar of late because his stats have been ugly. He’s been playing with back spasms, but he’s now had 3 days rest and some rehab therapy and may be in top form. He’s dangerous and if healthy he might be a threat from an unexpected part of the court. Watch out for him.

The best thing Coach Rivers can do tonight if start out by leaving Jackson alone. If Jacks starts out hot, then Coach should adjust his D accordingly. But Jacks has a habit of getting frustrated if he misses early shots and will start pumping poor percentage shots at the net to try to correct. If Jacks goes 1 for 3 or worse in the first quarter, leave him alone and clog the paint. It will tear the Cats offense to shreds.

Finally, beware the Cats on D. They’ve been holding opponents under 85 point per game with frightening regularity. Any team with Larry Brown at the helm is going to be defense minded and Charlotte is no exception. The team has a gift for making high octane offensive players look like sloppy rookies.

I’m very excited about this game and will be pulling for the Cats, but either way a mighty fine team is going to win tonight. Good luck and I hope I was able to give some of my old home-town fans a little something else to look for as they watch the game tonight.
One thing’s for sure – I doubt very much if Boston’s Best will mop up the floor with the Felines tonight the way they did on the first night of the season!

Ray on Wade was painful to watch, and always seemed to trigger a heat run. I don’t know WTF Doc was thinking whenever he switched Pierce onto Jones, who basically could do nothing but shoot 3s.

The Bobcats are building their team around Wallace and Jackson – largely because we’ve painted ourselves in a corner cap-wise and traded our 1st round pick for next season. That means no free agent money and a critical need to develop our existing rookies. We can continue to build in the trade market, but that will involve unloading a large and long-term contract such as Chandler’s. We have Chandler for 3 more years and the current season ($11.75 million) is the cheapest. Felton is in his last year and is definitely being considered as trade bait and the Cats have shopped him and Chandler as a package in an attempt to get another big for the 4 or 5 – Ilgauskas is the latest name being batted around. He’s on the last year of his contract and it’s just about the same size as Chandler’s for this season so something like that will open up almost $12 million for next season’s free agent market.

As much of an asset that Pierce still is, we couldn’t put together anything near what your front office would consider decent in order to get him.

Also, if Michael Jordan and Bob Johnson ever even HINTED that they were shopping Wallace the entire city of Charlotte would riot.