Re: O'Brien's two cents

["Cecil Wright" <cecil@hfx.eastlink.ca>]

I find it interesting that nobody challenges the assertion that Williams is
a better defender than Griffin.  Wasn't his defense the primary reason for
his notoriety last year?

Cecil




----- Original Message -----
From: "Hironaka" <j.hironaka@unesco.org>
To: <celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 7:07 AM
Subject: O'Brien's two cents


>     From the Herald's C-notes, Jim O'Brien explains why he is moving the
> Celts back to a standard 8-man rotation and making sure his best two
> players are on the floor together. This sounds sensible to me and the
> results (at least so far) speak for themselves. O'Brien is proving to be
> his own man which is nice to see.
>
> ------------
>
> ``we're practicing those eight guys together so that they're always a
> unit - to be able to get to know each other better offensively and take
> a little pride defensively in stopping the other team, instead of mixing
> and matching all the time.
>
> ``The primary reason for limiting the rotations at the two and the three
> spots was not out of disappointment in Adrian (Griffin) or Walt
> (McCarty) or Chris Carr. It's just that I think Eric's the best
> defensive player that we have. I think he's physical. I think he can
> defend guys on the perimeter. He always understands the game plan and
> what we're trying to accomplish, and he verbalizes that so he gives you
> good defensive leadership. And because we were struggling for so long in
> our halfcourt defense, by giving Eric more playing time, then we're
> going to be a better halfcourt defensive team.''
>
> ``We know we can score at certain spots,'' said O'Brien, ``so when it
> comes to me looking down the bench to see who we put in, if it's not for
> Antoine, we're going to put in the best defensive option at the time -
> as long as we can have Paul and Antoine on the court at the same time.
> We never want them both on the bench.''
>
> ------------
>
>