Re: Bulls Get Revenge: Chicago 97-Boston 87

[jmc@ptc.com (Jonathan McIntyre)]

Bill Cooper said:
> enough, of those) and the Celts  would have shot under 30%.  Walker,
> in particular, seems to have forgotten that their are other players on
> his side.

That's true, and troubling.

I know he can pass when he wants to.  At the end of last season he 
was going for triple-doubles, and was easily able to create great 
shooting opporunities for his teammates by displaying some very 
impressive passing skills. 

Last night there was one point where the Celtics had a 3 on 2 break with 
Walker dribbling the ball up the middle and 2 Celts filling the lanes 
nicely, but a step behind Walker.  Instead of hesitating a moment to let 
his teammates catch up and force the defenders to spread out, he forged 
ahead full speed, the defenders surrounded him, making it 1 on 2, and he 
forced up a wild shot under their pressure. 

A possibile explanation could be that he was playing Chicago, the team 
that he grew up watching, and he knew that his friends, relatives and critics 
from back home in the Chicago area were watching, so he tried to "impress". 
Unfortunately, he sees scoring as the way to impress, not passing.  If 
Pitino can change his mindset so that he values assists as much as points 
for 82 games a year instead of 2 games a year, Walker will become an All-Star. 

> Coaching:  After a nice stint during their winning streak, where the
> Celts seemed to be showing some real improvement on offense, they
> seemed to have slipped back into their early season bad habits.  They

The Celtics' nice offense came against the worst teams in the league.  
The recent bad habits came against the best teams.  This says to me 
that when some decent defense is applied, the Celtics surrender easily.  
They only have confidence in their team offense when playing the bad teams. 
Against the good teams, once they have some setbacks trying for team offense, 
they slip into that one-on-one-stand-around-then-hoist-up-a-bad-shot offense.

Jon Mc