Misc. Stats and Trends

[opi@unesco.org]

Here are some interesting Celts stats, partially gleaned from the Boston
Herald:

-In three of the last five games, Vitaly Potapenko has 46 points on
21-for-29 shooting from the floor. In the other two, he has two points
on 1-for-4 shooting.

-Battie had 27 boards and 8 blocks over the weekend. In the previous
five games he had just 18 boards.

-After tying Larry Bird's Celtics record with nine steals Friday, Paul
Pierce had none the next night.

-Adrian Griffin played a season-low 21 minutes Saturday (5 fouls). Since
winning the rookie of the month, he's averaging 4 points 3 rebounds 3.5
assists 2 steals 0 turnovers.

-Antoine Walker is 0-for-9 on treys in the last two games. Among Celts
who have made at least one, he is shooting a team-low 30 percent from
that range.

-In the past 7 games (2-5), Antoine has jacked up many more shots (19.3
attempts per game) and missed a lot more (.333FG%). He's contributed 5.6
rebounds, 2.1 assists over that span. This is as bad as he's ever
played. Certainly it is the least productive stretch of his career.

-By contrast, Philly (playing without Ratliff or Iverson) looks a lot
like the Celts club at the start of November. No player took more than
11 field goal attempts in the win over the Celts last Saturday, and
remarkably they are 5-2 without "The Answer".

-The Celts have lost five straight road games. Unless they break this
trend, they will miss the playoffs. They are on pace to win 8 games on
the road for the entire season. Last year they won 9 road games out of
25.

-The Nuggets won in New York last night without Ron Mercer (don't know
why he DNP'd). Mercer is averaging 23ppg over the past four games, with
the points well balanced throughout the course of games (double figures
in 8 of his last 10 halves). He's having a better season than Antoine
IMO, although his assists (1.8 in 39.1 minutes), turnovers (2.8), steals
(1.0), blocks (0.36) and rebounds (4.0) are about where you'd expect
them to be.

-I believe Jim O'Brien is easily undefeated as a coach, with nothing but
blowout wins on top of it (he ran the Fila camp). He certainly sounds
like another potential pro or college coaching prospect after this
season, which I find interesting because while Pitino credits many
mentors in his career, I can't think of many understudies that he has so
far successfullly mentored, with the exception of Florida's Billy
Donovan.

IMO, awesome posts this weekend. It's a lot of fun to read the list this
year. Our loss to the Philly Creamcheesers was a big disappointment for
me (We knew they badly needed a road win, plus Philly is IMO again one
of the three most satisfying opponents to beat after Pat Riley's Miami
and Shaq's Lakers, but slightly ahead of Indiana and New Yawk). At least
Battie's performance will get Pitino's mind off of trading our nucleus
for Ratliff and Hughes (if this ever actually entered his mind at all).

Toine needs to keep on practicing his shooting before McDyess and
company arrive in town. I think young Pierce is correct in saying that a
focus on good defense often leads to good overall games. Before this
season, I completed believed Toine would be as dependable on the
defensive boards over his career as our other hybrid big/small forward
Larry Bird. It seemed like money in the bank before Toine suddenly
evolved into such a swish&sway, freaking girlie-man.

Take away a consistent energy around the boards and Toine really is
precisely as DJessen describes: an impressive dribbler for his size with
average or below average skills in every other facet of the game, not to
mention that he's not exactly the brightest bulb on your Christmas tree.

Joe

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