Improved play?

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

The Celtics are playing better under O'Brien than they did under Pitino
during his last desperate days. I don't know if I believe that they
consciously quit -- I really hope not -- but I think that the uncertainty
surrounding Pitino and his obvious stress and despair certainly didn't
foster a winning environment. So now he's gone and they're playing more
relaxed. But are they really playing any better than they did in his first
3 seasons and the very beginning of this season? It seems like people are
optimistic about a 3-4 stretch where we beat a couple of good teams and
played some other good teams close, and at the same time losing to a bad
team and getting blown out by a pretty mediocre one. 

Well, we had many stretches like that during the Pitino era. It seems like
they play well during certain periods -- when they're optimistic at the
beginning of the season, after Pitino blasted the fans last season, near
the end of the season when they're already out of the playoff hunt. This
may be one of those times, when they have a slight reprieve from the
negativity of the Pitino situation. I think that the people who are using
this stretch as "evidence" to take shots at Pitino are "seeing" what they
want to see. It's too early to judge. I'm all for optimism about the team
and O'Brien but does it have to be accompanied by these continuing shots at
Pitino? I mean, the guy failed, he admitted it, and quit, but it seems some
people take perverse joy in still writing about how he did absolutely
everything wrong and announcing every day or so that they never wanted him
in the first place. 

O'Brien seems to have some good ideas. Shortening the rotation makes sense.
Pitino had that extended rotation work for him in the past, but with the
way that he was playing Antoine and Paul for 40+ minutes, it didn't make
much sense to rotate 8-10 guys around them. The idea of the deep rotation
was to wear the opponent down but Antoine and Paul are not physical freaks
who can run for 40+ minutes. He seems to be making Moiso more comfortable,
which is admirable because it's a longer-term move when O'Brien's future is
unclear.

As to O'Brien giving Antoine even more touches -- I don't think he really
has any choice here; even less than Pitino did. O'Brien has less power than
Pitino and is even more beholden to his stars. His NBA head coaching
ambitions are in their hands. So far, Antoine is doing a pretty good job
with his responsibility, but again he's done it for stretches in the past.
If you thought that the players needed more discipline under Pitino, I
think you're in for a disappointment. O'Brien doesn't have the security to
be a disciplinarian.

Alex