Re: the usual

[opi@unesco.org]

Josh Ozersky wrote:

> For some reason, I'm not that upset about the Chicago
> loss.  The team played pretty well on both ends of the
> court in terms of chemistry and effort, and the bottom
> line is that there are no automatic Ws.

Personally, I see the Chicago game as among other things a special vindication
for Sam Smith, the Chicago sportswriter who loves to favorably compare his Bulls
to the thus far miserably failing rebuilding effort of the Celtics and who also
is one of the league's biggest bashers of Antoine Walker (whom he may justifiably
feel has proven his point by missing 14 shots, 5 free throws, and choking from
the line for the second straight year against the Bulls).

Although this was in some ways the most humiliating losses of the Pitino era
(from my point of view, at least), one positive is that the Celtics deservedly
can stew over it for four nights before their next game. I can hardly believe
this happened, but I guess it is good for the Celtics to learn from their
mistakes now rather than later. Although it's hard to pin this loss on anything
other than the totally flukey 15% bench shooting (3-20) along with 3 assists and
7 rebounds, the coach also needs to look in the mirror too after failing to take
advantage of a Bulls team whose best big man is Will Perdue (a starter would you
believe?) with only Hungary's 6-9 Kornel David as a true backup.

Pervis Ellison's DNP-CD was bewildering to me. Tony Battie's continued poor play
at center (.269FG% on 7-26 shooting) and 12 rebounds over the past four games
suggests Pitino should experiment with Battie playing directly alongside a true
center like Pervis or V.

I still think Battie is a major mistake at center, and considering that his bank
account expands by around 50,000 dollars per game win or lose, I think he is in
grave danger of being hastily and prematurely traded unless he starts to show a
little extra fire (regardless of which position Pitino makes him play). If Battie
thinks he's not seeing enough steady minutes to show his skills, just wait until
Danny Boy takes off his cast and steps onto the parquet for the first time.
Battie should be the biggest beneficiary of the Fortson injury and one of our
most probable early season contributors. Pitino needs to coach this kid out of
his funk, or determine if the kid simply has no heart and has started counting
all his guaranteed money instead.

Personally, I can't wait until the Bulls rematch and regard this particular loss
as humiliating for the team I love. Until we whup 'em, even a crap team like
Chicago can speak sanctimoniously about the pathetic basketball rebuilding effort
in Boston and how the hometown hero Antoine Walker tried but choked once again,
just as Ron Harper knew he would.

It's fine and dandy to take all opponents seriously and fear them on any given
night, as both Walker and Pierce did before the game according to the Herald. But
it's also important for the Celtics to learn to internalize a winning attitude as
a common team expectation and reward for confident, crisp execution. A 5-2 record
with a focus on working on solid team execution against a joke team (the Bulls)
is what the Celtics really needed IMO going into one of the two toughest
stretches of the year to finish this month. Ironically enough I think the team
should in a sense stop taking all opponents so seriously. This is what Walker
reportedly confided to Bulpett before the Chicago game:

``They're starving for a win and they're at home, so everything is working
against us,'' said the 23-year-old sage. ``We can't slip. We have to maintain our
composure and play four quarters of defense.''

To me, this is all Pitino's fault. If he's so damn smart, he should know the
Celtics aren't nearly good enough (as a team) or mature enough to profit yet from
this genre of pre-game negativity. This is the kind of psychology a coach would
employ on a 60 win veteran team. What Walker should have said after listening to
his coach is: "hey, there is no way the Boston Celtics are going to timidly let
some crap team play to our level and stay close in tonight's game, because we're
capable of being an excellent team when we play like we've already played before
and are capable of playing again if we stay focused and confident." This is what
Pitino should have said to the whole team. This team is too fragile and young for
him to instill "fear of a let down" (fear of losing, in other words) into the
pregame pep talk. Overconfidence is really very useful sometimes, like when you
are trying to hit a putt or knock down a tenth straight free throw. Hey, it's
true.

As far as I'm concerned, the "sum of the parts" on the Celtics really is as solid
as you'll ever find in the East (which is not saying much necessarily),
regardless of Pitino's seemingly total inability to coach his team to play
consistently and in a way that will allow the players to further hone and build
daily upon their relative strengths as the season progresses, rather than mosey
along. I'm not saying the Celtics are that great a team under Pitino, but I AM
saying that contrary to myth the other teams are nothing to write home about
either.

Take Charlotte (the best Eastern team on paper, says everyone). The Bronte's have
only one true scorer when you get right down to it, whereas the Celtics have two.
Based on past history, my hunch is that this Charlotte weakness will eventually
be exposed in a playoff series, particularly by teams that have a solid defensive
guard (like a Griffin).

Another occasional favorite for the finals, Milwaukee (a well-coached  team IMO
with GREAT athletes), has freaking Erv Johnson at center and even less as a
backup. Enough said.

Indiana is slow, old and much weaker on defense than any competitive team I've
seen in ages. They are a classic example of the "sum being greater than the
parts" under Larry Bird, but the parts are headed for the junkyard real soon.

El Greaso's Miami team is a little hard to take seriously in the playoffs, and
hard to take seriously as a Celtics fan based on last year. There is a huge
dropoff in talent after the "big three" (I'm including PJ Brown) and another
injury would remove the team entirely from the equation.

Even if the Knicks don't implode on their own, the Celtics match up as ideally as
you could hope for with that three-guard lineup (Griffin is 6-5) and we are
already tougher on the boards (with a healthy Fortson vs a gimpy LJ). One reason
we got V was because he showed as a Cav that he could shut down Ewing, another
guy BTW whose tank is near empty.

Basically, I want to stop reading about the Celtics' healthy respect for the
Bulls of the world. They need to stop solemnly fretting about how "hungry"
Chicago and the rest of these flawed teams are, before I start throwing up.
That's why those loser teams are playing up to our level....we've let them in
with our misplaced use of negativity.  I mean aren't we the freaking team who
should be hungry right now? We should be hungry to deliver serious cans of
whup-ass on these teams before breakfast, not warning each other in the pregame
about how "hungry" and potentially "dangerous" the opponents are. That's why we
got our butts handed to us by the worst basketball lineup I've ever seen, and
that's why Sam Smith is entitled to gloat to his heart's content that he was
right about our team (we are the losers).

Joe

****