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Globe/Herald on Adrian Griffin
The praise and rightly so is pouring in...
[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
A new lucky charm
After years, Griffin an overnight success
By Paul Harber, Globe Staff, 11/06/99
The man most responsible for the
Celtics' victory last night wasn't
even on hand. His name is Gerald Oliver,
and he is the general manager/assistant
coach of the Connecticut Pride, defending
champions of the Continental Basketball
Association.
He is the one who believed in Adrian
Griffin. This spring, he spent an hour on
the telephone talking Rick Pitino's ear
off, telling him how magical Griffin was.
Griffin is quickly becoming a crowd
darling with the magical things he does on
the court, things that don't always show
up in the scorebook.
The Celtics were in a fix. Boston's
20-point lead had disappeared faster than
a $20 bill at Foxwoods. The Celtics had a
101-100 lead, but Charlotte had the ball
with 17 seconds remaining. The Hornets'
go-to guy, Eddie Jones, had the ball and
tried to dribble by Griffin. But he got a
hand on the ball and flicked it to Kenny
Anderson, and the Celtic victory was all
but secured.
Three games, three impressive performances
by Griffin. ''He's a special young man,''
said Pitino. ''I can honestly say I've
never had another player like him.''
When the situation gets tough, he is the
one who makes things happen.
For instance, before Charlotte in-bounded
the ball on the crucial play, Pitino took
Griffin aside. ''I just told him, `Make
the play. Make the steal. Isolation
play.'''
Pitino was right, Griffin made the play,
and the Celtics won. It was one of the
game-high five steals for Griffin, who
played a game-high 40 minutes.
''He has the softest hands I've ever seen.
Ever,'' Pitino said. ''He doesn't slap at
the ball like a lot of guys do. It's like
the ball's a magnet to his fingertips.
It's an incredible thing. He does it all
the time in practice.''
Said Griffin, ''It was a great
confidence-builder, but I'm looking now to
the next game [tonight in Indiana]. Nights
like this make it all worthwhile.''
There were a lot of nights when Griffin
wondered if he would ever play in the NBA.
It took three years of hard knocks in the
CBA to become an overnight success.
And Oliver was part of it. ''He is a great
man,'' said Griffin. ''Many, many times he
would open up the gym to practice on days
we didn't want to practice. He's a rare
person, one of the few who want to help
you out and expect nothing in return. He
helped me improve as a player, too.''
Over the years, Pitino said he has made
terrible decisions in recruiting players.
''I'd watch a guy once or twice and make
up my mind whether to keep them or cut
them and I really made some bad mistakes.
Now I watch a guy six or seven times
before making a decision.''
And that's what helped Griffin. In one
summer league, Pitino saw that Griffin
didn't make a mistake. He chalked it up as
a good week. But when the Celtics played
in the summer league at UMass-Boston, and
Griffin was flawless again, Pitino knew he
had something special.
Now, the whole NBA knows about the
Celtics' new lucky charm.
''He's my leprechaun,'' said Pitino.
Griffin says he doesn't know much about
leprechauns.
''But they are magical, aren't they?'' he
said.
They sure are.
This story ran on page G05 of the Boston
Globe on 11/06/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
Boston Herald
Rookie erases all doubt
by Steve Bulpett
Saturday, November 6, 1999
As the fourth quarter wore on last night, one could see the game slipping
away from the Celtics.
From a 20-point lead in the third, the margin dwindled to precarious
numbers against the Hornets. And back came the nasty habits of a year ago
- quick shots and the like. When Antoine Walker hoisted an ill-timed trey
and when he bulled his way to the hoop before the defense could be
loosened with passes, the crowd made vocal its disapproval.
But each time the Shamrock back got close to the fire, it was pulled away.
``We have a great eraser in the name of Adrian Griffin,'' said Rick
Pitino, who gave the rookie 40 minutes to Walker's 29. ``He's the best
eraser I've had in a long time, because we miss a shot, somebody takes an
errant shot, he comes back and tips it, keeps it alive and steals it.''
Early in the third period, Walker airballed a 3-pointer. Griffin saved it
back out to Kenny Anderson, who drilled a trey for an 18-point lead. With
the cushion down to nine five minutes into the final quarter, Griffin came
up behind an essentially unaware Bobby Phills. He didn't just tip the ball
away, he took it. Fourteen seconds later, Anderson hit Walker for a
3-pointer.
Walker scored on a fast break on the Celts' next possession, but he went
on to miss his last five shots and turn the ball over twice (7-17 from the
floor with six turns for the night).
``I think he got frustrated because he thought he was getting fouled, and
he let it mentally bother him,'' said Pitino. ``I think you've got to give
him his off night and just be happy with the win and that's it. Antoine, I
think, can take it two ways. He can take it like a young person, or he can
say, `This is great. I learned a valuable lesson tonight. I came away with
something good. And we won the game, which is all that counts.' ''
Walker went with that flow, saying, ``Whatever my play did don't matter.
We won. That's all that matters, man.''
He was able to have such perspective because Anderson scored 24 points and
Griffin supplemented his eight points with 10 rebounds, six assists and
five steals.
The Celts were ahead by a point when Walker dialed long distance again,
missing with four seconds on the shot clock and allowing the Hornets the
chance to go for the last shot.
Charlotte isolated All-Star Eddie Jones on rookie Griffin.
``My thinking is that he can get to the hoop and get fouled and he's going
to make his foul shots,'' said Hornet coach Paul Silas.
But Griffin tipped the ball away and Anderson collected it. Two free
throws and an awkward trey try by 7-footer Elden Campbell later, and the
Celts were safe.
``Defensively he did a great job,'' said Jones, held by foul trouble and
Griffin to eight points. ``He made me turn and I lost the damn ball.''
Said Anderson, ``He probably doesn't even know Eddie Jones. He's like a
garbage man. He cleans things up. We all lucked out getting to play with a
guy like that.''
A guy who grants second chances - to the Celtics and to Walker, who this
morning is captain of a 3-0 team.
``No question,'' said Pitino, ``he bailed us out of a lot of things.''
Griffin a real warrior
The NBA/by Steve Bulpett
Saturday, November 6, 1999
Every summer, the coaches stand on the sideline with their stopwatches.
They take detailed notes as the prospects run from here to there and jump
against a contraption that measures their altitude capabilities.
The coaches' charts fill with numbers, measurements that when taken
together are supposed to reveal NBA worthiness. When the chart is full,
when the prospect has been put through an individual obstacle course
against time and space, the coaches will decide who gets a professional
wage and the opportunity to go against real human beings in real games.
And every once in a while, someone like Adrian Griffin will come along and
bounce his way through several summer sessions. He will be told at the end
of maybe a day or two of measurements that he doesn't measure up.
And though Griffin is a quiet man, there will come times when he wants
more than anything to stop and scream to the coach - to the system -
``Hey, you got any category on that chart for basketball player?''
``I think when I came out of school in '96, they kind of labeled me as a
tweener,'' he said. ``They didn't know if I was a two or a three.''
He didn't fit the predetermined spaces, so he was exiled to the CBA.
Griffin has broken through and now starts for the Celtics, though it took
appearances in two summer leagues to really convince the club he belonged.
With so many players and so little time and so much money, the NBA has
become a league of charts and measurements.
``It has - sadly,'' said Leo Papile, the Celts' lead scout who took up the
Griffin cause last summer. ``What's the old NFL combine, Blesto? It's
become like that in a lot of ways. What happens is you get a pedigree.
Adrian was undrafted out of Seton Hall, and that becomes his calling card.
The guy who was the 18th pick, the busts, the Doug Smiths, they're still a
former first-round pick. Adrian is an undrafted player and that makes the
odds against him overwhelming.''
Rick Pitino readily admits that he and his staff did not recognize
immediately what they had when Griffin showed up for a minicamp.
``I think if you spend a day or two measuring his skills, you'll come away
saying that they're good but probably not good enough to make a difference
on your team,'' Pitino said before last night's game. ``When you spend a
lot of time with him, you realize that not only is he good, but he's an
extremely gifted role player.''
Griffin's main role is understanding what wins games - and knowing that it
isn't simply statistics. He is a competitor, a guy who will jump to one
height in a workout and then go several inches higher in traffic when it
matters. It used to be called court savvy.
Some players do quite well in a basketball skills competition. But when
you're at the playground and losing means sitting on the side for the next
hour, Adrian Griffin is the guy you want beside you in the 95-degree heat.
``There are three reasons I recommended him here,'' said Papile. ``No. 1
is basketball IQ. I think in life we have an IQ and we have a basketball
IQ. Adrian's a Mensa when it comes to basketball IQ. He doesn't make
mistakes. And this team had a very low basketball IQ last year. 'Nuff
said.
``No. 2, toughness quotient. This team last year had a very low toughness
quotient. The excuses were three games in a row and the lockout, and they
could be valid, but only history will tell us. I think anyone in the
building and on the coaching staff would agree there wasn't a whole lot of
toughness here.
``The third thing - I thought we needed some soldiers here. A soldier is
the first guy to go through the door. There weren't enough soldiers here.
You had a lot of captains and lieutenants and wannabe generals, but
soldiers are needed to win a war. And the NBA season is a war.''
Clearly, Adrian Griffin looks better in a foxhole than he does in a hoop
decathlon.