Re: Spurs-Celts

[Josh Ozersky <josh_ozersky@yahoo.com>]

Superb post, Tom.

--- Thomas Murphy <tfmiii@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Happy Turkey day all!
> 
> As a number of you have noted, one should not panic
> over one loss.
> Personally, I'm ecstatic that the Celts are 7-5, and
> although December
> looms as a difficult month we also need to remember
> that the Cs will -
> hopefully - finally get to see the dividends
> (Fortson) of their big
> off-season trade by the end of the month.
> 
> A loss is a loss whether by 1 or 31, but Way does
> raise a valid point
> however in discussing the way in which the Cs lost
> to the reigning champs.
> SA got by Philadelphia by a score of 94-91 two
> nights ago. Now we can
> simply chalk up the differences between our game and
> the Philly game to the
> "hot hand" but I think that would be misleading, at
> least in part. We could
> also deduce, as has Way, that our frontcourt is
> inferior to Philly's hence
> making a trade a necessity but I think that this
> inference is also
> mistaken. As someone (I believe Cecil) pointed out,
> the Twin Towers were
> anything but neutralized in Philly - 48 pts 28 rebs
> in 78 min as opposed to
> 41 and 24 in 62 min against Boston. (FWIW IMHO
> McHale & Parish never got
> "twin tower" status because of the presence of
> Bird).
> 
> I think the key differences between the two games
> can be traced to coaching
> philosophies. Brown is content, even eager to play a
> slow-down game -
> nothing surprising here since the slower the game,
> the more important each
> point scored by Iverson. This is the same logic that
> made Phil Jackson look
> so smart during the MJ era. Pitino, as we all know,
> prefers a much faster
> paced game - "frenetic" is the word that comes to
> mind - and employs a
> defense intended in part to force the pace. This is
> why the bench is so
> much more important for a Pitino coached team than
> any other team. I have
> to give Pitino credit this year because he has shown
> a degree of
> flexibility that seemed absent in previous years.
> However, even given this
> new openness Pitino still remains firmly committed
> to the coaching
> philosophy that got him here - and why shouldn't he?
> Again, this is no
> surprise. I'm not going to criticize Pitino or his
> philosophy. I've done
> enough of that in the past - and in any case
> Heinsohn's being doing it for
> me lately. ;>) At this point I'm content to chalk it
> up to differences in
> philosophies. But in analyzing losses like the one
> against the Spurs we
> should take into account the fact that it may say
> more about the coaching
> than the players' effort or the make-up of the team
> personnel.
> 
> I'm not saying Pitino "lost" us the game; after all,
> I think we all had
> this in the loss column from the beginning of the
> season. What I'm saying
> is that his system, which when properly adjusted can
> result in wins like
> the one over Indiana, can also lead to implosions
> like the one last night
> EVEN IF THE PLAYERS FOLLOW IT TO A "T". 
> 
> The effectiveness of the pressing/trapping defense
> is in direct proportion
> to the selfishness of the opponent (one reason why
> it works so well against
> the Knicks!). As the most veteran team in the NBA,
> the Spurs have had a
> little practice in sublimating the ego and passing
> to the open man. In
> looking over the boxscore a stat that leaps out at
> me is that SA had 35
> assists on 47 made baskets - nearly 75%!! - and five
> Spurs had 4 or more
> assists. Bill Cooper's game summary/analysis is an
> invaluable asset to this
> list (thank you, Bill, once again!) but I do have to
> challenge him when he
> singles out only one player (in this case Paul
> Pierce) for chastisement
> regarding "easy lay-ups and open threes".
> Unfortunately, that is precisely
> what Pitino's defense generates *IF* there is no
> steal/forced
> turnover/forced shot. (Just as a side note, when
> will the announcers stop
> crediting the "press" for every steal and turnover
> but blaming an
> individual player for every break-away dunk or
> wide-open shot?) SA may have
> had the hot hand, but they were certainly helped by
> a defensive schema that
> rarely allowed ANYONE to play one-on-one defense.
> Personally I would much
> rather make the "superstar" beat us (and hopefully
> wear him down trying)
> than allow a Mario Elie to shoot 10-12 on what were
> basically uncontested
> shots. (I love the fact that MJ's career high points
> in the playoffs came
> in a LOSS to the Celts!) Pitino on the other hand
> would rather gamble on
> whether the more marginal players are able to step
> up for the other team -
> a difference in philosophy.
> 
> As mentioned above, another consequence of Pitino's
> particular Bball
> philosophy is a reliance upon the bench. Rick didn't
> deviate from this last
> night as McCarty, Cheaney, Battie, Barros and
> Williams all went for big
> minutes in the first half long before the game was
> obviously lost for good.
> Many of them came away from the game with good stats
> (Eric W in particular)
> but this is skewed by the fact that the Bomb Squad
> also got the bulk of the
> garbage time minutes against the Spur's flunkies.
> Now although I can
> understand the logic behind Pitino's playing the
> bench extensive minutes, I
> am still amazed that ANY pro coach would insert a
> player of such marginal
> quality as McCarty (my latest whipping boy, as my
> wife well knows. . . )
> into a game 3/4ths through the FIRST quarter when
> the game is still within
> reach but rapidly spinning out of control. Bball is
> a very psychological
> game (Shaq at the FT line. . .) and the difference
> between playing 20-24
> minutes and being down perhaps 10-12 at the half
> versus only playing 12-14
> minutes and being down 24 seem pretty significant to
> me from a
> psychological standpoint. Resting starters for the
> stretch run only makes
> sense if there is going to be a stretch run rather
> than garbage time. But
> beyond the issue of resting starters, Pitino
> obviously feels that he has to
> take his best players out in any case because
> otherwise the players on the
> floor would not have the energy to be able to
> continue to implement his
> defense schemes. So once again a difference in
> philosophy dictates certain
> decisions - playing our scrubs significant minutes
> and playing them - in
> this case - when the game is on the line, that is to
> say, when the deficit
> was threatening to become psychologically crippling
> (not just for us but
> also for the refs, remember). These same
> considerations - and not
> necessarily the lack of a "killer instinct" - are
> what have prevented the
> Celts from completely blowing out - psychologically
> - opponents like
> Chicago early in games.
> 
> A final comment on why last night's game does not
> "prove" that our
> frontcourt is in need of revamping. For one thing,
> for my money it was not
> the twin towers that beat us but the fact that the
> Spurs as a team and
> particularly the more marginal players stepped up to
> the challenge of
> passing the ball and making open shots. Secondly,
> our primary frontcourt
> players did not really play all that much, and not
> because they were
> limited by foul trouble: Pervis - 10 min 1 PF,
> Vitaly - 26 min 2 PF, Tony -
> 20 min 0 PF!! Once again coaching decisions played a
> larger role than
> player shortcomings in determining the minutes and
> the final numbers, and
> even the numbers were not too bad considering the
> competition: 
=== message truncated ===

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