Re: Celts Overtake Cavs: Boston 114- Cleveland 103

[opi@unesco.org]

Bill Cooper wrote:

>         A really nice win for the C's, their best of the year in quite
> a few ways.  A large portion of the credit has to go to Paul Pierce,
> who played rather poorly in the first half, I thought due to his
> recent illness.  But he came out in the second half, and got himself
> back into the game, through pure hustle.  Pierce carried the Celts
> back into the game, and Griffin and Potapenko were there to get the
> Celts home in the 4th.  Pitino reversed direction 180 degrees on his
> use of the bench, basically sprinkling in the second team with the
> first throughout the game. (.......)
>
> Coaching: Good to see Rick make the adjustment on his rotations.  It's
> hard to imagine that this is the permanent solution, thought, as
> Griffin, Pierce and Walker won't be able to consistently play 40+ all
> season long (or else the Celts are going to have to change their
> preferred tempo).  I guess we won't really know until Fortson gets
> back how things will shake out (I bet Rick doesn't know for sure what
> he'll do either).

I'm not especially happy about the result, because I knew we were going to
win anyway. :-)  On the other hand, outscoring the opponent 38-20 in the
4th quarter is really a nice change, more like the Celts Pride of old.

One of my pet peaves has been that the Celts were outscored in every 4th
quarter of every game this season (average -7ppg).  Last night shows what
hometown fan support can do to turn around a very young team that's tired
and down, but will NEVER be out.

Bill Cooper often saves his best insights at the end or well hidden. In
last night's post, I think he's obviously right on to spot the
un-Pitino-like trend of giving major minutes to the starters. I checked it
out to confirm that Pierce, Walker and Griffin are all averaging at or
over 40 minutes per game since Chicago, and Anderson is not far behind.
It's a good thing they were rested four nights, or we probably could not
have sustained last night's comeback. It's hard to believe this trend is
sustainable in general. I hope the return of Cheaney and Fortson (the
Herald said December 15th) will improve Pitino's faith in his second unit.

FYI, half of Gaston's payroll comes off the bench right now. These aren't
a bunch of minimum wagers like the last two seasons.

The Celtics last night did what they had to do to beat a team they can
beat. They contained Cleveland's perimeter spot-up shooters (2-10 on
3-pointers). Our centers (Pots, Battie and Pervis) got 9 offensive boards
on Ringo and friends. Paul Pierce showed last night that losing was not an
option in our mind. And almost as importantly, Walker wisely didn't turn a
horrendous first half shooting (1-11) into a personal crusade to redeem
himself by taking 25 shots. He went 4-6 and we got the win.

Still I think there is no excuse for Walker to not be collecting more
boards playing alongside Griffin and Potapenko. Needless to say, I'll bet
this morning's Peter May column will focus on Walker's horrendous overall
shooting along with an "off night" from Cleveland's distance shooters:
rusty from four night's rest and tired from the grueling flight to Boston.

Next up are the Nyets. Who in the world is Jamie Feick (a 6-8 white boy
center averaging 12.4 rebounds per game)???

It is now theoretically possible that the Celtics will win 3 of the
remaining 6 games this month. The Nets game is big.

Go you Celts!

Joe

BTW, I don't want to read from our Celts players or Pitino about how
"talented, hungry and potentially dangerous" the Nets are, and then
subsequently play down to that level. The Celts have the talent and team
players to deliver non-stop whup-ass on that selfish, zero-defense,
losing-tradition team from Exit 16W "Joisy". As a fan, I'm not thinking
ahead at all to goliath Miami on Saturday (although I'm sure Pat Riley
is). :-) The Nets game is the BIG game of the week (especially after how
we choked against the Bulls). It will decide whether the Celtics will be a
.500 team at the end of November (after the Spurs, Heat, Pacers and Bucks
get through schooling us), moving on into arguably the toughest month of
the year this December.

****