Re: if you have a virginal win column, Boston's your date.

[opi@unesco.org]

Kestus, I'm just catching up here. Your post is insightful and has great yuks.

No question, BTW, that the Bulls team we lost to is by far weaker than the league's worst Clippers team of last year (Taylor, Wright, Olowakandi) that we clobbered on St Pat's Day. If Brand continues to struggle, the Bulls will easily achieve the worst NBA record in history despite the Celts best efforts to help them. It was a truly humiliating and needless loss, and the now strangely silent Pitino better not make any excuses.

Still, if the Celtics really were destined to have a "respectable" 4-3 record at this point, then its by far preferable that they accomplished it by beating good teams (never trailed against the Knicks, flexed 20 point leads on charlotte & toronto) and choking against bad teams, rather than vice-versa.

Next up is Cleveland ("Ringo's Stars") featuring not one but two solid point guards, and a resurgent, roof-raising Bobby Sura (14.3ppg, 4.7 apg, 2.33 spg, .508-.800).

There are "good" 3-point shooting teams and there are "great" ones. The Cavs are so far a GREAT 3-point shooting team. Take away Danny Fairy's 1-8 contribution (didn't we trade Fortson for him awhile back? <g>) and the Cavs are shooting .435 from out there and knocking down five per game (spread out between Sura, Person and Trajan Langdon).

BTW, it's at least a blessing we got V instead of Z (Zydrunas) in the Cleveland trade. Not only does Zydrunas make exactly as much money as Walker, Iverson and friends, but he reportedly has the same chronic foot condition as Bill Walton and most surely will miss his second straight season. Amazingly, other than Tim Duncan, no quality center has entered the NBA since 1992, and there are none in the college pipeline. You almost have to rank Kandi-man and Vitaly among the top three pure center "prospects" under the age of 25 (unless you think of Camby and LaFrentz as true centers). This is a pretty sad statement, more than anything. Shaq and Mourning are the only other two All Star caliber centers under the age of 30.

Cheers,

Joe

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Kestutis Kveraga wrote:

> For a guy with Ricky's coaching credentials, his ability to shoot himself in the foot is amazing. It typically goes like this:
> The starters are kicking the other guys' butts, so Ricky decides to make a game out of it and makes an en masse substitution. The "Bomb(ed) squad" receives instructions to run around like beheaded chicken and tire themselves out, while pretending to play defense and giving up uncontested layups. Being true Pitino disciples, they dutifully do just that and soon are so tired that they couldn't make a shot if the basket was as big as one of those backyard trampolines. (That is, if they could get a decent shot, which they can't because Barros is their "point guard". ) By that point, the crowd is in the game, and Ricky's feeling like he's back at Kentucky and screaming "good shot" whenever one of the Wildca.., er, Celtics takes a three-pointer while they're in the midst of a 4-on-1 break.
>
> Come on, we have NO business losing to these Bulls, and especially not when the starters are playing so well. If Ricky hadn't decided to ice the first unit on the bench and start a bricklayers convention (15% shooting for the second unit), we would've blown the Bulls out.
> If you just must let the bench play, despite having the next 3 days off, why not at least try all your options (namely, Ellison and Overton) when the other bench guys are clanking it up to the tune of 3 for 20? And, I guess, Rick's assurance that "we are going to press out of strength this year" really means something other than what I thought it did: namely, that they're going to press themselves right out of their strengths. I mean, who on this Chicago team cannot be contained by a regular man-to-man defense (other than Hoiberg)? Hello?!?
> Isn't the goal here to conserve as much energy as possible while tiring the other guys out, not the other way around? Or is Ricky just trying to give his guys a workout?
>
> I guess the most charitable interpretation of Rick's coaching in this game was that he lost the game for didactic purposes, by letting the bench try to work out their problems in real time, thereby creating a tough game for his starters out of what was a blowout in the making.