Re: the words I've been waiting to hear

[bird <birdw@aloha.net>]

>From: Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>
>
>     In general, I think we are so accustomed to bashing our centers that
>there will be a time-lag before perceptions change that we have a pretty
>decent young duo there (I said "pretty decent" not "great"). It took awhile
>for people to drop most of  the knee-jerk criticisms of Walker.

Um, have they dropped those knee-jerk reactions?  I hadn't noticed. 
In fact, there was one in the very digest your post appeared in, Joe. 
I have noticed that a lot of those knee-jerk reactions have been 
transferred to Pitino and Pierce the last few weeks, but Walker will 
still get criticized for "jacking up the three" when he's 31-66 (47%) 
shooting the trifecta.  (Still early in the season, true, and I will 
agree with those who point out that he still takes the inopportune 
three -- the fast-break three, the three with 18 seconds left on the 
clock, etc.)  Walker's even averaging 9.1 rebs this year -- a good 
improvement over last year's sort of wimpy rebounding performance. 
This is especially necessary this year, I think, what with the C's 
weakness in that area.

>Over the years, the "Crisco Kid" has pursued a player personnel
>strategy that isn't that different from Poultrino's, namely he's been forced
>to pick up bargain basement guys like Bruce Bowen and Anthony Carter and
>tried to turn them into useful bench players/spot starters.

I think he suceeded with AC.  Actually, better to say that he got 
lucky.  Seeing AC play in college, you knew that he would one day 
make a servicable NBA point guard.  I was hoping that he'd land with 
the C's, but that wasn't to be.  We have our "point guard in 
training" right now in Herren, anyway (and I'm excited about that), 
but, given our pg woes this year, AC sure would've helped in that 
regard.

>I want to say for the record than I'm feeling pretty upbeat about the
>team because they have shown two or three times in the first month that they
>are capable of playing not just adequate but great defense. I don't remember
>seeing the Celtics demonstrate that ability in the past.

I'm as suprised as you, Joe.  One legitimate thing to criticize the 
team for in the Pitinoball era has been the layup-giving, 
dunk-allowing, scatterbrained-looking, feather-flying "defense".  But 
every now and again, and a few times this year as you mentioned, the 
team makes the headless chicken work.  It makes me think that it 
_can_ work like Pitino wants it to.  Oh, I've still got concerns 
about whether it'll work against good passing teams, or teams that 
can prepare for it (as in a playoff series), but I'll be satisfied 
just getting the damn thing to work on a regular basis before 
concentrating on that.  It sure hasn't so far, but it _can_, and 
that's a good sign.

Regards,

Bill