I had planned on doing a full game recap, handing out awards, pointing out areas where we could have improved, the whole nine yards. But as you can imagine, I’m in no such mood to do anything of the sort. The whole team got a nice little message today. This is what playoff basketball is about. If you don’t step up for the whole game, you will get your can handed to you. Period.
I still think that this is a good experience, but it may have more benefit for Danny Ainge than it does for the players. Danny can use this opportunity to evaluate his personnel in a playoff series. He has to be seeing that some guys did not step up their games, or even regressed. Our center tandem of Blount and Mihm, who both happen to be playing for paychecks this off season, aren’t really impressive thus far. McCarty was predictably exposed. Even Pierce was handled nicely by Artest.
Sure, we can credit the Pacers with being a fantastic team. But they aren’t that much better than the Celtics. This team laid down and let them take it from them.
It’s a young team and this was a big test that they failed miserably. I'm sure Danny was taking notes. Next exam is coming up.