Re: post mortem, pet peeves

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

Great post here Tom.

> I have to agree with what Jim had to say before the game, that the Cs are
> better off playing man-to-man and trapping only occasionally. If I were
> Pitino, I'd force Grant Hill to beat me (and hopefully tire him out) rather
> than let the rest of the team enjoy easy opportunities. It was very
> disheartening watching the fourth quarter knowing that every time that
> Detroit got the ball in the half court all they had to do was get it to
> "Mr. Grant Hill" (Heinsohn) and wait for the *automatic* double team. The
> scramble would then begin. . . and end with Detroit having either another
> open, uncontested shot or a foul by a late defender leading to another trip
> to the charity stripe. How many times did Jerome Williams *alone* benefit
> this way in the last frame? It would be one thing to be beaten by Hill, but
> by Jerome Williams (5-6 FG, 10-11 FT, 20 pts, 16 rebs)?!?

One thing that I would say is that Jerome Williams did most of his
damage in the fourth quarter; in the first three quarters he had a
respectable but not devastating 9 points and 8 rebounds, I believe. I
think Heinsohn was calling Hill "The Great Grant Hill" whenever he got
the superstar calls from the refs. The fourth quarter strategy of
trying to trap Hill and Stackhouse ended up being a pretty miserable
failure. I have to say though, last year I remember a Detroit game
where the fourth quarter strategy was to try to guard Hill one-on-one,
and that failed miserably too. They just went to him over and over
again and he destroyed us to the tune of 32 points. It was another
fourth quarter collapse: we entered the final quarter up by 10 and
ended up getting outscored 29-12. It really shows the benefit of
having the superstar in the final quarter; the Bulls would do the
exact same thing with Jordan down the stretch. I think we just have to
live with the fact that Hill is going to burn us in the fourth
quarter; to beat them, we have to either blow them out earlier or keep
the offense running in the fourth.

> Since our team was inexplicably slow tonight (as Heinsohn reminded us time
> and again - jeez, what a nag!) why not go big? Battie (once again
> ineffective at the center position) played only sparingly and Ellison not
> at all. I never thought I'd be calling for more Pervis! The Cs seemed to
> have a real tough time on the boards tonight (again in part due to the Hill
> "trap") and some additional size would have been welcome. Detroit is a
> fairly small team; if we couldn't beat 'em on the break we could at least
> have beat them on the boards (Det 46 Bos 40).

The defensive rotations on the trap just don't seem quite polished
yet. I have to say though, those rebounding stats might really have
gotten bloated during that atrocious fourth qurater. The Celtics can't
rebound when they can't make the Pistons miss =) and the Pistons
certainly had a lot of Celtics misses to grab. Some of Williams'
offensive boards were definitely after the Celtics were out of the
game and I think Antoine had kind of given up.

I think that Fortson might actually be well suited to defensive 
rebounding for a trapping team. Admittedly, we didn't get a chance
to see much of him in the preseason, but he looked to me like the
type of guy who can rebound in a crowd without necessarily having
everyone boxed out, just by ferociously going after it. When the
team traps, people get out of position and it would help to have
this kind of rebounding force, rather than the type of rebounder
who just boxes out his man. I'm interested in hearing what other
people think after having watched Fortson a bit. 

> Finally, as some on the list have noted (but
> Heinsohn has yet to figure out - jeez, I'm tired of his recycled
> "commentary" - bring on the Cooz!), Walker is a player who possesses many
> skills but they do not include the skills of a conventional post-up player
> like an Olajawon, Malone or even Ewing. He doesn't have a pet move or money
> shot, he has difficulty passing out of the post or shooting over
> double-teams and in many cases he is actually smaller than the man who is
> guarding him down low. 

Yes, Walker is a part-time low-post player right now because that is
what the team needs right now; otherwise they only have Vitaly. He
definitely looks best (as in the first two games) when he gets his
points from a variety of sources: a few fast break buckets, a putback
or two, some easy assists for Kenny, a couple of nice drives, a three
pointer. It's amazing how easy he can make it look to get 18-20
points. You almost think, "The guy didn't do anything spectacular or
difficult but has 18 points." On the other hand, he's not the player
who you can just give the ball to and say, "Get us 2 points NOW,"
because as Tom notes he doesn't have any sort of reliable pet
move. Actually none of our players are that type, though actually
Kenny is the best bet for that because generally the worst that can
happen is that Kenny will miss a layup when he gets bumped and doesn't
get the call. I actually think he's one of the best in this league
right now at getting to the basket and making good things happen,
because he doesn't turn the ball over and when he doesn't have his man
beat, he dribbles right out of trouble.

It definitely helps to have a superstar go-to player in this league
but I think that Utah may end up being a model for what the Celtics
will try to do without one. Of course Malone is a dominating power
forward so this might sound silly, but his game doesn't really depend
on taking his man one-on-one. It seems that when they toss the ball
to Malone to do his one-on-one thing, he'll more often than not end
up with a turnaround fallaway. He relies on the Utah system to get
him the ball in a good position, to create easy baskets for him off
the pick-and-roll, to give him passing targets by having players cut
when he has the ball. In the same way I hope that the Boston system
develops where it consistently looks like the first two games, where
Antoine is not counted on to create one-on-one but rather the offense
creates good opportunities for him. I think that eventually, we'll
see him getting his points primarily from getting good inside position
on defending small forwards, getting putbacks, running the break,
and hitting the occasional open three-pointer. We won't see as much
one-on-one play.

Alex