BosHerald C-Notes

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

Mark Cofman reports Herren also needs to drop pounds, Waltah injury
doubtful,  Adrian was the "best player in practice the past four days"
according to Pitino. Go Celts!

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Herren, McCarty start on shelf

    (....) Herren has not been at full capacity since spraining his
ankle in an exhibition game against Washington on Oct. 21. The
second-year point guard has been taking part in practices, but with
lingering pain in the ankle he was a logical choice to begin the season
on the the shelf.

``Obviously his ankle is still bothering him,'' Pitino said. ``Plus, we
have another 17 pounds (of weight loss) to go to get Chris ready.''

As for McCarty, his sudden bout of tendinitis was more a case of his
being the odd man out on an overcrowded roster. ``Walter has some
tendinitis in his knee, and he went for X-rays earlier in practice,''
said Pitino, trying to sound convincing. Asked which knee, Pitino said:
``I think both of them.''

Griffin gets message

If Adrian Griffin didn't pick up the pace in recent practices, it would
have been him instead of McCarty starting the season on the IL. Pitino
admitted the second-year swingman, whose father died at age 48 four
weeks ago, played far below par until his recent surge.

``Adrian has been the best player in practice the past four days, but
prior to that I was very concerned about him,'' Pitino said. ``Four or
five days ago, I told him, you're going on the (IL) because you're not
yourself and you're not in shape to play Celtics basketball. You're just
not getting it done. He got the message.''

Walker answers Charles

Informed of ex-NBA star Charles Barkley's comments that he needed to
establish more of an inside presence to help the Celtics, Antoine Walker
replied: ``When you're not winning, everybody is going to have an
opinion. They're going to say you have to do this, you have to do that.
Well, I want to do whatever it takes on any given night to help this
team win, but that might be different things against certain teams.

``What some people don't understand about my role is that our offense is
geared for me to be on the outside a lot and handling the ball, so I do
a lot of different things. (Barkley's commentary) is one person's
opinion. But the only opinion that counts here is whether Coach Pitino
thinks I'm doing what I should be doing to help this team win.''