Re: Antoine's moves

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

Joe H. wrote: 
"Last point. I think Antoine is capable of playing straight-up, no-switch
defense in Obie's salmonella-free, personal accountability defense. The poke
on Jason Terry--like the poke on Tim Hardaway--shows he can at least bend
his knees and take away the dribble from even the quickest players in the
league. And it shows that he's competitive and takes pride in trying to shut
down an assignment."

Don't mean to zero in on one small point of Joe's good post, but I think it
gets to the heart of the pro-Toine-anti-Toine and patience-vs.-blow-it-up
arguments. I think everyone can agree that Toine is capable of plays like
this. He's capable of playing defense. He's capable of triple doubles. He's
capable of shooting 50 percent. The problem is, he doesn't do it enough for
many of us. Personally, I'm exhausted by the roller coaster. 47 points
followed by 3-for-19. Playing decent defense against Chris Webber, but being
abused by Othella Harrington. I can understand why many on the list want to
show more patience with Toine. He has the ability to do some special things.
But you can't count on him to do them, and he's a fifth-year player.

The team is the same way. They can dominate Phoenix and lose at home to the
Bulls. They show up in spurts. Many believe the whole problem was Pitino and
point to the improved play recently to prove their point. Let's see how long
it lasts before we make any judgments. The players are playing harder
(again, how you can cash a $10 million paycheck and not play your hardest is
a mystery to me, but the horse is dead, so I'll get off it), but they've
never shown an ability to continue that kind of effort in the past.

I subscribe to the Bill Parcells theory when it comes to Walker and these
Celtics: They are what they are. Walker is a talented, undisciplined player
with strong selfish tendencies and a few glaring weaknesses (defense, shot
selection) that will always keep him from being as good as he could be. The
team has a couple of nice pieces, a lot of garbage, and not a lot of
options. They are a mid-level lottery team at best and only dreaming of the
playoffs because of an incredibly weak conference. I understand the
arguments for patience; I just don't agree with them.

Mark