Re: celts center 12/29

[Dan Forant <dforant1@nycap.rr.com>]

You can't play basketball with 5 guys. Not one, let me say it again, not
one bench player has stepped up, and there are no signs of any improvement
either. Battie's got his dough and doesn't know what day it is, Barros is
over the hill, Cheaney more dead meat, Ellison should be doing community
work, McCarty is doing community work, Williams another loser, Fortson
should watch out, he'll catch the dreaded bench rot also. These guys
clearly need to find other opportunities in life besides basketball.
Exception Fortson. To make matters worse our coach mass subs these
characters all at once for the opponents to feast upon. This team is short
at least 2 good players. 

At 02:55 PM 12/29/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Thinking the Unthinkable
>
>Were we wrong?  Years of confident optimism are ebbing away from me as I
write 
>this, and many Celtics fans are likewise feeling dazed and doubtful, like
the last man 
>in a plane wreck to accept that help is not on the way.  The team has lost 
>nine of the last ten games.  They have lost to the Clippers.  They have
lost to 
>Houston.  They have played atrocious basketball.  They got Paul Pierce
back at full
> strength, and it still didn't matter.  Kenny Anderson is playing the way
he did two 
>years ago, with better defense, and it still doesn't matter.  The press is
in hiding.  
>Antoine Walker is averaging something like 7 rebounds a game.  Is it
possible? 
>Were they right?   Is the the team really mediocre?  Were Peter May and
all the other
> hack writers who picked the Celtics to finish last in the division not
merely evil and 
>perverse?  The events have raised that possibility, along with an even
worse one:  
>that Rick Pitino might not be the one to lead us out of the wilderness.
>
>I find this very hard to swallow.  No one can doubt Pitino's brains,
experience, work
> ethic, or track record.  Why then does this team play so poorly so often?
 Why do 
>they take stupid shots, give up layups, blow leads?  The first year Pitino
had a team 
>not of his own making, and managed to win thirty odd games by what seemed
to be 
>sheer force of will - that, and the secret weapon the Celtics, alone in
the NBA, 
>seemed to posess:  the mighty press.  Last year was excusable on account
of the 
>inability of coaches to coach and of the team to practice.  To what can we
attribute 
>the current losing streak?  Pitino has all his guys; the team is loaded
with talent, speed,
> size, versatility, and ambition; and we exchanged the one-dimensional Ron
Mercer 
>for the player whom we felt we could count on for 12 rebounds a night.
Danny 
>Fortson is still getting his rust off after spending the first months of
the season on the 
>IR, but who would have thought that Eric Williams would forget how to
score around 
>the basket?  Or that Tony Battie would go several games without a single
block?  That
> the press would be shelved in order to develop half-court defense, and
that we 
>would end up as just another half-court team, executing sloppily?  Who
would have 
>thought that the Cleveland Cavaliers would be giving us lessons in how to
fast-break 
>- along with the LA Clippers, the Utah Jazz, and everybody else we play on
the 
>road?  At first, there was a built in excuse - you can't be expected to
beat San 
>Antonio, Utah, and the Lakers without three fifths of your starting lineup
- but now 
>everybody is back and we are still playing like shit.  Most of us actually
expect 
>Denver to beat us Friday night.  And this after we shredded them by 20 in
the Fleet 
>Center just weeks ago.
>
>I am not too worried about our record, which currently stands at 5 games
under 
>.500.  If you play .500 ball for a few weeks, and put together two or
three wins 
>twice, you're back at .500.  .500 is striking distance for the playoffs
with another short 
>win streak.  But that kind of thinking is based on the idea that we have a
talented 
>team, primed to explode on the scene, coached by a man smarter and more
intense 
>and right where his critics have all called him wrong.  If they were right
about Pitino,
> and if the Celtics' early season success was a fluke, then what kind of
nightmare are 
>we in for?  Can we wait for another crop of players, another
administration?  Can we
> watch Paul Pierce go to another team?  Judas Preist!  The one ray of hope
in all this 
>has been Pitino's steadfast refusal to talk trade.  He has his team.
They're good guys.  
>They just have to play better, but this is the team.  Think of Paul Newman
in The Verdict: 
>"There are no other teams, this is the team.  There are no other teams,
this is the 
>team."  You're not going to get a stronger, faster, tougher center than
Vitaly 
>Potapenko, nor one with a better scoring touch, without moving Pierce or
Walker. 
> Upgrades at the other positions are equally unlikely.  No bench player is
going to 
>make a difference.  The team has to start to play better.  There are no
excuses left. 
> Right now they are simply a bad team.  I don't know why the Fred Hoibergs
and Ty 
>Nesbys of the world have career games against us, other than bad defense.
I don't 
>know why we can't execute simple high school basketball plays.  I don't
know why 
>we aren't practicing five hundred free throws a day.  I don't know why the
press is a 
>crutch that we dare not take up for fear of being exposed as man-to-man
pushovers. 
> I don't know.  I don't need to know.
>
>I need some wins, bad.  
>
>