Eric

[Josh Ozersky <josh_ozersky@yahoo.com>]

As far as Eric is concerned, it seems obvious to me
that the reason he went crazy the first two games and
has been a nonfactor since is that teams remembered
that he won't shoot from the outside.  I mean, he'll
pass up an open ten footer.  The refs see this as
well, and so Eric has gotten any love from them on his
deliberate drives.  On defense, he'll get there.  He's
a good athlete and a hard worker.  But Andy Enfield
better get busy with him in practice.

--- opi@unesco.org wrote:
> W wrote:
> 
> > Greg,
> >
> > Stockton finally said he was retiring in two
> seasons so the Jazz rewarded him with a two year
> contract at $11 per .
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Warwick
> 
> In fairness you could also point to bad guy Charles
> Barkley, who without any reasonable doubt accepted
> the minimum so
> he'd have a chance to win a ring with Pippen.
> 
> Utah is doing what the recently maligned Celtics did
> in letting their aging stars finish their entire
> careers on one
> team, at the risk of a far more difficult and
> cap-constrained rebuilding process in a few years. I
> still think this in
> the honorable thing to do (at least with
> championship caliber athletes), and - in the case of
> the several
> post-championship era Celtic teams - usually was
> rewarded with a swift return to glory via a visit
> from the leprechaun
> (manifested in ROY's Dave Cowens and then Larry Bird
> but not Tim Duncan). The Toine/Pierce combo will
> have to do, I
> guess.
> 
> Regarding tonight's game, I'm not sure Pitino has
> any video evidence from the preseason that 6-5
> Adrian Griffin has
> settled down the Celts starting frontcourt and made
> them play better as a unit. The more logical and/or
> deserving
> candidates to join the starting lineup are veterans
> like Tony Battie, Walter McCarty or Eric Williams.
> 
> Tonight's opening lineup reminds me of the Jimmy
> Rodgers/Chris Ford era of undersized, mistake-free
> forwards like Kevin
> Gamble, Blue Edwards, Jim Paxson. I guess the idea
> is to start someone who might contain the 6-7 Vince
> Carter,
> something Antoine (playing alongside Battie and
> Pots) Eric Williams or Waltah may not be fit to do.
> Still I think we
> may be playing to Toronto's strengths by forcing
> Antoine to cover the Oakley, Davis and Willis combo
> instead of
> assigning him (or Pierce) on Vince Carter. It would
> be somewhat akin to benching Larry Bird just because
> he didn't
> match up defensively with Dr J, if you know what I
> mean. I say let the golden boy Vince Carter worry
> about stopping
> Antoine defensively, not just the other way around.
> Carter will have free rein to concentrate on offense
> tonight, with
> Griffin on the floor. If the smaller Griffin can
> just shut down Carter for awhile and frustrate him a
> bit, then the
> Celts can go to other rotations that play to our
> strengths. I doubt Griffin has ever had to guard
> anyone like VCarter,
> so it will be a "welcome to the NBA" experience for
> him.
> 
> Another issue is that either Walter or Eric Williams
> will now have to be left out of the second unit,
> which might look
> like this:
> 
> f- Walter/Williams
> f- Battie
> c- Pervis
> g- Cheaney
> g- Dana/Turner
> 
> Here is what Pitino had to say about Eric Williams
> in Sunday's Mark Cofman article, which leads me to
> wonder about his
> status on the key pressing unit:
> 
> "....(Eric Williams) may need to a year to put it
> all together (...) he's one guy who's not used to
> playing this style
> of basketball, so while he's going to be terrific in
> the future, it won't happen overnight. Right now I
> think Eric is a
> bit confused by all the things we're doing,
> offensive and defensively, but he picks up things
> rapidly. I figure he'll
> get it by midseason and then you'll see him start to
> really come into his own."
> 
> ****
> 
> 


=====

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