Re: In praise of sluggish play

[Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

"Berry, Mark S" wrote:

> Last night was the fourth game in five nights. None of us like it, but in
> the NBA you see games like that in those situations.

I think that's an excellent point and the most relevant one to make about last
night. The Hawks were playing on three nights rest besides, and were anxious to
end their 0-6 start to the preseason.

Still, there really appears to be little margin for error on this Celtics team,
even with Pierce back in the lineup and especially without him.

Last night the Celts starters went all out in minutes against a weak team that
lacked two of their three players who averaged double-figures last season in
Alan Henderson and Dikimbe Mutombo (who is only the best defender and rebounder
in the conference) along with lottery pick DerMarr Johnson. Combined
Mutombo/Henderson provided over 21 boards per game last year.

When you subtract those two from the lineup, Atlanta should not have been able
to stomp us on the boards with a +9 differential (47 to 38).

If you are tracking trends, the offense-free Hawks shot a handy 46.6 FG% and
Boston's rebound total was even less than their average over the past four games
(40.0), which as noted yesterday would have ranked them easily dead last in the
NBA in rebounding last season.

The lack of rebounding so far will make Boston's margin for error even smaller.
Above-average performances from both our franchise players in the same game
won't necessarily guarantee a win this season, whereas on many NBA teams that
would generally be the case.

I, too, am concerned about the trend that has seen Eric Williams start the last
couple of games and the talk yesterday in the papers that he has "won" a
starting job. Williams is not a very multi-dimensional player. If someone can
confirm to me that's he been playing good defense in the preseason, then that
would add a second dimension I guess.

Moiso has played slightly better for two straight games now, and he could still
climb out of the 12th man/IR list all the way up to starter sometime during the
season. In the meantime, I'd much rather see Adrian Griffin get twice as many
minutes as Eric Williams.

But like Mark says this was four games in five nights. And it was a good lesson
and a respectable enough achievement to get two legitimate road wins out of the
five.

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