Re: post mortem, pet peeves

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> The point is, though, that the Celtics' man defense has been so much better 
> than last year.  Especially Griffin at the 3 spot.  He managed to contain 
> Vince Carter, Mitch Richmond and Eddie Jones, all among the league's best 
> scorers.  I'd say let him have a shot at stopping Hill.  Of course Hill is 
> going to get his points, but at least you don't end up giving up uncontested 
> layups to stiffs.

Yep, in hindsight it looks like the right plan. I mean, it couldn't have
been worse than what happened. Though it should be noted that it really
was a combination of Stackhouse and Hill that killed the Celtics that
quarter. Also, although Griffin has done a good job on all the people 
you've mentioned (except Richmond; wasn't he covering Howard?), I don't
know if it's really be as much of a one-on-one defensive job as his 
efforts in denying them the ball (and the subsequent trap) that kept
them from hurting us. The Celtics were still trying to deny the ball 
but didn't have success.

> Certainly running a decent offense would have helped, and missing Kenny 
> before Overton has had a chance to get used to his teammates makes that 
> difficult, however it seems to me that the C's offense always looks like a 
> shambles when they are in pressing mode.  Part of that is that they tend to 
> press with offensively challenged players, but I'm convinced that pressing 
> itself contributes to the problem by tiring out the players, who end up 
> standing around on offense.  If you ask me, the press should be limited to 
> two minute stretches at a time.  Try to cause a few quick turnovers, then 
> settle back into a smooth offense.  Right now, if they get back into a game 
> using the press, Pitino almost always continues to press and they end up 
> falling behind again due to easy baskets.  He doesn't want to stop doing 
> something when it's working, but doen't that guarantee it will ultimately 
> fail?

Yep. The press basically needs someone to get hot or else there's no
offense. It worked when Williams was scoring like a madman or when 
Battie's shot is going down, but there isn't much of a team offense.

> >The defensive rotations on the trap just don't seem quite polished
> >yet.
> 
> Well it's been over two years now.  Is this ever supposed to work?  I 
> thought we were promised that we would only see the press out of strength 
> this year.  When it presents an advantage.  Half court trapping didn't seem 
> necessary against Toronto, Washington and Charlotte.  Well, I predicted 
> before the game that this was a bad game to try pressing and trapping 
> because the Pistons would be a rested, prepared and veteran team.  I also 
> predicted that that would not stop Pitino from doing it anyway.  I'm sorry I 
> was so right.

I think that just about every team in the league uses some degree of
half court trapping. The Celtics are improving in that regard - it 
actually did yield dividends in terms of steals in most of the games. 
It just didn't do anything positive during this past game. I see this
as one of those execution issues that improves as the year goes on,
and as the team gets more time together as a unit. Assuming that no
major personnel changes are made, hopefully we'll see continous 
improvement from season to season too.

> One thing I've been missing is Antoine blowing by his guy off the dribble 
> from the top of the key.  This is the one one-on-one move I like to see from 
> him.  He seems easily able to get by almost any player big enough to guard 
> him, and once he does he draws defenders and can either finish over them or 
> dump off to the open man, both of which he does much better on the move than 
> out of the low post.  There's no reason he can't keep making this move even 
> though he is playing power forward. In fact, it should create even greater 
> mismatches that way.

This is a really good observation. I don't think he dumps off enough
on this move though, because the defense really tries to collapse on
him in most cases.

Alex