No Subject

Anyways, Antoine is not hitting the boards as hard as he could every
game but as far as I can tell it's generally not hurting the team
rebounding. He seems to "snowbird" (Pitino's term) on defensive
rebounds to create fast break opportunities, that is, he doesn't go
for the rebound but runs up the court; I believe this is probably
a coaching decision based on Pierce and Griffin being superior
rebounders at their position. Similarly, Griffin and Potapenko are
always hitting the offensive boards - Griffin because of his ability
to steal rebounds and get to the ball, Potapenko because he is hard
to move from his inside position - so Walker may be getting back
on defense instead of hitting the offensive boards as much as he
has in past years. Remember that in past years, the Celtics have 
been a relatively easy team to run on because Pitino usually sent
so many people to the offensive boards. This is probably a good
decision when you are a poor FG% and halfcourt defensive team, as
we were two years ago, but the team is executing better on both
ends so it pays to be more conservative.

Anyways, as long as the team is rebounding well, I'm not worrying
about Antoine's rebounding stats. And when Fortson returns, we are
probably going to see his rebounding stats decline even more, because
the Celtics may very well run Antoine on every defensive rebound and
bring everyone but Fortson and Potapenko back on most offensive
rebound opportunities. It's similar to what happened to the 
rebounding stats of most of the Bulls when Rodman joined their
team; they went down but the team rebounding was much superior.
I doubt that Pitino is looking for the 16-12-6 stats for Antoine
anymore now that Fortson and Griffin are on board. Rather, Antoine
shouldn't focus too much on individual statistics and play within
the game, scoring within the flow of the game, and using his 
passing and ballhandling for the benefit of the team. One note on
Antoine's FG%, Joe: You should always break it into 2pt FG% and
3pt FG% to make it a fair comparison with traditional PFs. His 2pt
FG% is still a very respectable 47.7% and his 3pt FG% of 35.9%
is even better on a per shot basis.

I do agree that Antoine's assist stats must go up but he's been
showing signs of life in the past few games, with 15 assists vs.
7 turnovers in the last four games. In general, the team's assist
numbers haven't been very good; I wish that they'd publish 
percentage of baskets that are assists somewhere because I don't
feel like calculating this stat, but anyways, it's not very good
for the Celtics. When Antoine does make an assist, it's often
a great pass that creates a layup or dunk for a teammate (rather
than a perimeter pass that gives the teammate an 16 foot jumper).
He just doesn't do it often enough.

Alex