Interesting comments from TV coverage last night

[jmc@ptc.com (Jonathan McIntyre)]

Some of the interesting things learned during interviews with Kenny Anderson
and Rick Pitino, and from Gorman & Heinsohn's commentary last night: 

Kenny Anderson was a big fan of Tiny Archibald growing up.  Now he's wearing 
the same number for the same team, and looks about the same size, and does 
a lot of the same things.  He's made himself into one of his idols!  How 
many of us can say that. 

Kenny Anderson's mom was thrilled with the trade, since he'll be close to 
home.  Also, just after the final horn sounded ending the game, and the 
players started getting up from the bench and going to the locker room, 
the camera shot was a close up of Kenny, and he turned to the camera and 
said something that looked like "Hi, Ma", and blew a kiss.  I hope that 
means he'll feel at home here. 

Anderson said that in Portland, since their style of offense was slower and 
more structured, he had to try to fit his game into "the system".  He said 
that before the Seattle game, Pitino told Anderson "don't worry about trying 
to fit into any system, just take the ball and do your thing".  Kenny 
added "I'm free!" with a big smile on his face.  He said his game is to be 
creative, and he's allowed to do that here and encouraged to.  He added 
"nothing against Portland, they're just a different kind of team" (with 
different needs). 

Pitino said the trade was a "no-brainer", and that it was the easiest 
personnel decision he made all year.  He still thinks both teams won in the 
trade by getting what they needed.  He said he called his buddy PJ Carlissimo 
before the trade, asking about Anderson's intangibles, and PJ said he was an 
absolute joy to coach, worked hard in practice, did everything that was asked 
of him, etc., etc.   Right after that call, Pitino made the deal. 

Anderson said repeatedly in interviews that he just wants to "do whatever 
the coach asks me to do." 

Popeye Jones sounded genuinely hopeful that he could re-sign with the 
Celtics and play for Pitino.  He said he was a big fan of Pitino as a 
coach when he was in college (except probably when playing against him). 
Heinsohn said during the game that Jones was one of the best rebounding 
power forwards in the league (the stats I saw at www.nba.com seem to back 
this up), and we all know the Celtics desperately need rebounding help.  It 
might be a good thing if Popeye could play minutes at PF with Antoine at SF.
But then again, I wouldn't feel bad if Popeye were simply renounced to make 
room for a big free agent signing which would solve the rebounding problem 
in a different way. 

In Heinsohn's opinion "Walker never had an easier 25 points all season", and 
he thinks if Walker hustles up court after turnovers, he'll get an extra 2 
or 3 dunks/layups a game from having Anderson there. 

Someone on this list just said Mercer's been playing great lately.  Yes, 
I've noticed it too!  He may turn out to be more valuable than Walker.  
He had two impressive offensive rebounds last night, coming out of nowhere 
to grab the ball and dunk it all in one motion.