Preview of Toronto sequel

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

The Celtics begin their second week with a rematch against Toronto, who
will be hungry to beat us after the last game where they blew a 20 point
lead and dropped to 0-3. They've since won a game against Washington, where
Alvin Williams stepped up and gave them a career-high 22 points. Both the
Celtics and Raptors will be rested before this game.

This is an important road test. It's going to be tough to win those
back-to-back type road games so we need to win as many as the road games as
possible that aren't back-to-back. And it just seems like we're developing
a rivalry with Toronto, perhaps because of Carter vs. Pierce, or the way
they've passed us on the way to the playoffs, or the buzzer-beater. It's a
good contrast between two approaches to rebuilding: through youth and
relative patience (the Celtics), or through getting much much older (the
Raptors). 

Keys to the game: Roughly the same as last time. 

1. Oakley often seems to give Walker trouble which means that we may need
Pierce to bounce back and deliver a big game offensively. Walker has to
give us more passing too, with only 5 assists in 3 games.

2. Hopefully Vitaly is out of his funk and can compete with those strong
inside players. Battie needs to stay aggressive. We need to keep this team
perimeter oriented and keep them off the boards.

3. It looks like it will be very difficult to keep Carter from getting his
points, but if we can make him work hard to get the ball and prevent any
other player from stepping up, we should have a good shot.

4. It'll be much harder to come back and win on the road, I think. We have
to play a good game for the whole game instead of relying on a comeback.

Alex