Yeah, the basketball team. They still exist.
Not thrilled about how they nearly gave the Laker game away last night, but still entertaining. Any 112-111 game will be fun, and it was most definitely a classic Paul Pierce game. The Truth was unstoppable. He was constantly at the line, his fall-aways were golden all night, and he absolutely posterized Chris Mihm with a huge slam in the 4th. If not for the Denham Brown jam at the end of UConn/Nova, it'd be the dunk of the weekend. Absolutely sick. Other good news is the emergence of Ryan Gomes as a lock for the eight-man rotation, and Delonte as the #2 scoring threat on the team.
But I like how the Celts are organized right now. (Turns out that Greg Anthony does too, but I thought it first.) Mostly b/c of Gomes' emergence. Al Jefferson needs a fire lit under his ass, and Gomes will provide that once Jefferson is healthy enough to play. With Gomes showing how solid he can be, we now have three young bigs with a future (Perkins, Jefferson, Gomes). And finding young bigs is the hard part... dealing with the lack of depth at the 2 and 3 is easy. Tony Allen and Gerald Green are the backups there, but they aren't showing enough. Green had a nice game when he finally saw action (13 and 9 isn't bad for a 19-yo kid) but he's not ready to contribute. And Allen is becoming a whipping boy for his lack of production, though I imagine that's more a result of how Doc has treated him. (He doesn't deserve that kind of shabby treatment.)
What worries me the most is the backup point situation. That is a red alert right now. Orien Greene looked really overwhelmed last night after Delonte fouled out... the offense was a complete mess. They need Steve Blake... badly. Maybe Greene will eventually grow into the role, but he sure looked like a 2nd-round pick last night.
Though I see a lot of potential on the roster right now, I don't share Anthony's unqualified enthusiasm for the future, simply because Doc is still employed by the team. The recent 5-2 stretch isn't rosy enough for me to forgive that ignorant MFer. If they don't fire him this summer, they will be blowing a huge opportunity... I honestly believe the Celtics would sew up the next two or three division titles just by doing that. Are the Nets and Sixers even capable of improvement? I don't think so; Philly is limited by the Iverson Factor, and the Nets are always a Kidd ankle-turn away from dipping below .500. And their rosters aren't nearly as deep with quality as Boston's, presuming the continued growth of Perk and company.
I really hope Ainge doesn't blow this by staying loyal to Doc. He's been so uniformly right (in retrospect) about almost everything else, you'd hate to see him screw it up by not making the right move now.
Not thrilled about how they nearly gave the Laker game away last night, but still entertaining. Any 112-111 game will be fun, and it was most definitely a classic Paul Pierce game. The Truth was unstoppable. He was constantly at the line, his fall-aways were golden all night, and he absolutely posterized Chris Mihm with a huge slam in the 4th. If not for the Denham Brown jam at the end of UConn/Nova, it'd be the dunk of the weekend. Absolutely sick. Other good news is the emergence of Ryan Gomes as a lock for the eight-man rotation, and Delonte as the #2 scoring threat on the team.
But I like how the Celts are organized right now. (Turns out that Greg Anthony does too, but I thought it first.) Mostly b/c of Gomes' emergence. Al Jefferson needs a fire lit under his ass, and Gomes will provide that once Jefferson is healthy enough to play. With Gomes showing how solid he can be, we now have three young bigs with a future (Perkins, Jefferson, Gomes). And finding young bigs is the hard part... dealing with the lack of depth at the 2 and 3 is easy. Tony Allen and Gerald Green are the backups there, but they aren't showing enough. Green had a nice game when he finally saw action (13 and 9 isn't bad for a 19-yo kid) but he's not ready to contribute. And Allen is becoming a whipping boy for his lack of production, though I imagine that's more a result of how Doc has treated him. (He doesn't deserve that kind of shabby treatment.)
What worries me the most is the backup point situation. That is a red alert right now. Orien Greene looked really overwhelmed last night after Delonte fouled out... the offense was a complete mess. They need Steve Blake... badly. Maybe Greene will eventually grow into the role, but he sure looked like a 2nd-round pick last night.
Though I see a lot of potential on the roster right now, I don't share Anthony's unqualified enthusiasm for the future, simply because Doc is still employed by the team. The recent 5-2 stretch isn't rosy enough for me to forgive that ignorant MFer. If they don't fire him this summer, they will be blowing a huge opportunity... I honestly believe the Celtics would sew up the next two or three division titles just by doing that. Are the Nets and Sixers even capable of improvement? I don't think so; Philly is limited by the Iverson Factor, and the Nets are always a Kidd ankle-turn away from dipping below .500. And their rosters aren't nearly as deep with quality as Boston's, presuming the continued growth of Perk and company.
I really hope Ainge doesn't blow this by staying loyal to Doc. He's been so uniformly right (in retrospect) about almost everything else, you'd hate to see him screw it up by not making the right move now.
posted by Jeff at
11:01 AM
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