RE: A lighter Antoine

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

I don't buy that Alex. The greatest post-up point guard of all time played
with Kareem and Kurt Rambis/A.C. Green. Those guys weren't spotting up for
jumpers. Just because Antoine posts up a small point guard doesn't mean the
only alternative when a double team comes is a 3-pointer (although with
Pierce and JJ on the court, you'd certainly have that option). Assuming the
opponent doubles with either the PF or center, how about having the Celts'
PF or C diving to the basket? Vitaly certainly is capable of hitting 15-foot
jumpers. Look at the mid-80s Celts. Bird acted as the "point forward" and
posted up smaller small forwards a lot. He was playing alongside Parish and
McHale. Again, those guys weren't three-point snipers, but the offense
worked just fine.

But that argument just feels like missing the forest for the trees. This
team desperately needs to rebound and defend the interior better. Can anyone
argue that? If you can play Antoine at PG and add a big, physical power
forward to the lineup (hypothetical-we don't have that guy on the roster
right now), you address a lot of those problems. To pass up that opportunity
because it might not be the best strategy when Antoine posts up just seems
silly. You bring up Milwaukee-they've been trying to add Anthony Mason all
summer. They've won without the big PF, but it's clear they'd be better with
that guy (and they have a pretty good post-up point guard of their own in
Sam Cassell).

And even if Antoine never posts up-unlikely, to say the least-his size is an
advantage in seeing the court and delivering entry passes to the post from
the PG spot. The best spot for a slimmed down Antoine is SF, but with
Pierce, JJ and Kedrick at SG/SF, those minutes aren't there. Antoine will
play PF or PG. I say put him at PG and add a banger.

If this team has to choose between adding a Dale Davis or an Austin
Croshere, I think there's no question who is the better fit. Give me Davis
any day.

Mark

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Alexander Wang [mailto:awang@MIT.EDU] 
Sent:	Tuesday, August 28, 2001 11:57 AM
To:	Berry, Mark  S; 'celtics@igtc.com'
Subject:	Re: A lighter Antoine

At 07:58 AM 8/28/01, Berry, Mark  S wrote:
>Alex wrote:
>
>If you could
>add PFs that can shoot, which is more common, you'd be able to run this
>lineup with all three of our current centers, and it would help when
>Antoine is not on the floor too. Guys that the Celtics have previously been
>interested in with these characteristics: Van Horn, Nowitzki, Croshere, and
>maybe Troy Murphy.
>------end-----
>
>Have to disagree here Alex. None of these guys-or their type-do anything to
>solve the Celtics' two glaring weaknesses: rebounding and interior defense.
>If you're going to play Antoine at point guard and add a power forward to
>the lineup, I want a real power forward-one who will rebound and defend and
>add some toughness. The last thing this team needs is to just add a McCarty
>to the floor for more minutes-he doesn't rebound, he doesn't defend and he
>makes terrible decisions. Other than that, he's great. Of course, O'Brien
>seems to have his own ideas and you're probably right about McCarty seeing
>more time. I think we'll usually see a small guard in there when Antoine is
>at PG (Palacio, Randy Brown, Forte), or McCarty. Ugh.

Definitely, I don't think McCarty is the solution. I just used him as an 
example of what type of player O'Brien would want at that spot, a PF who 
can shoot. He's not actually very good in that role, or in any other.

But adding a PF who doesn't shoot and then just saying "Antoine has a big 
height advantage at PG which will help us" doesn't work out either. Antoine 
won't be able to exploit that advantage on offense unless the PF can shoot. 
You just can't put up three post up players and only two shooters and 
expect the offense to work right. You always have teams who think that - 
they play some PF or tweener who only has 15 foot range at SF because 
that's the personnel they have, and they look good on paper and stink on 
the court. The Wizards tried it with Webber and Howard, Vancouver did it 
with Shareef and various PFs, the Warriors struggled with Fortson and
Jamison.

My main point is that if you plan on posting up Paul at SG or SF, and 
Antoine at PG say, you can't have two prototypical inside players. The 
offense just won't work - especially for the Celtics, who don't have any 
center that can really post up effectively. Now, if the Celtics acquired a 
real offensive post up center/PF, that would be a different story - but I'd 
actually think they'd be more effective playing him alongside the shooting 
PF (which might be Antoine) rather than alongside Battie or Potapenko, say. 
Because I don't really think that either of these guys is an effective 
interior defender either.

My guess is that when Antoine is playing PG, it's only on offense and he's 
still defending the opposing PF. If you put him alongside a truly tough 
rebounding C/PF type, I think we'd be set in defensive rebounding actually. 
I think Antoine's a solid rebounder especially when he's in shape - the 
center position is where we don't get enough production.

I think Milwaukee is an example of what this team could look like. They 
have one decent center and for many games put four offensive players on the 
floor, Tim Thomas, Robinson, Allen, and Cassell. Each of these guys can 
shoot from outside while they can post up any of them depending on 
matchups, or rely on Cassell's penetration. They're not a dominating 
rebounding team or a powerful defensive inside team - Mutombo was killing 
them - but they're competitive just because of their offensive firepower. 
Now I'm sure the Bucks, like us, would love to acquire a quality PF to add 
on to that, but of course that's hard to manage.

Alex