open practice observations from ESPN message board (LONG)

[Francis Hsu <francis@ai.mit.edu>]

Taken from the ESPN message board, here's a compilation of
evaluations/observations of some people who attended the open practice on
Sunday:
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 Posted by: sdanielcampbell (28 Msgs)    12:43PM PDT, Oct 7, 2001  
Hey all: I went to the open practice in Lowell - then came home and
watched CNN for an hour+ - but I thought I'd post my many
observations. This will be a pretty long post and I'll try to answer
questions I saw posted on this board earlier in the week. 

1. Has Antoine really changed, both physically and mentally? 

Antoine definitely looked more fit, played hard (not necessarily well, but
hard) on defense, and his passing was great for the first half of the
scrimmage. He was doing a great job on drive-and-dish plays, and was
REALLY finding Pierce. I have to say that Pierce looked AWESOME on offense
and tough on defense. This year, we will see Pierce move into the star
scorer's role and Antoine will be the complementary player - good news is
that IMO Antoine understands this. In the second half, Antoine shot and
missed a bunch of threes, but these were off of called plays - I hope Obie
doesn't call the deep pick-and-pop with Antoine all that much this year. I
think Antoine has improved, but it's not going to be a huge leap, it's
going to be an incremental improvement. 
Also, Antoine was much more active on the defensive glass, he was almost
certainly the leading rebounder in the game. He even seemed to jump more
than six inches for some of those rebounds - way to go, Tim Grover! 

2. How does Tony Battie look/who'll get the most minutes at center? 

Tony Battie was on the white (non-starter) team, looked agressive, but was
not as effective rebounding, scoring, or defending as Mark Blount. Vitaly
has made no significant improvement that I could discern - he still blew
layups, he still puts the ball down one too many times, but he hustles and
his defense was not noticeably bad. Blount hit a few jumpers and was able
to get himself around the rim. 

3. Rookie report? 

Johnson played with the green team, although he did not start. He shot
very poorly, but he has a comfortable, natural look out on the floor, and
he made some plays (including some nice rebounding work). He won't start
but he will contribute this year - he has to knock down the outside shot,
but I think he just wasn't getting the shot to fall today (he shot well in
the summer league). 

Forte was impressive and might well make more of an impact than Kedrick
Brown. Forte made two long jumpers which were right on the button, seemed
very in control of dribble penetration, and did a nice job of finding open
men for jumpers. I thought he was more impressive than Herren. I doubt
Forte could guard starting NBA PGs, but then, neither can Kenny. Milt
looked solid, but he missed his jumpers. 

Brown looked really lost in the first half but noticeably improved in the
scond half. He does not have a good feel for when he's open for the
jumper, he passed up a bunch of open shots, but he's super quick and made
several nice moves to the hoop (including a rising reverse 180 clean dunk
with a foul that left my jaw hanging down) and a nice block on
Walker. He's got the tools, but he's got to settle in, and it'll take at
least half a season. It's 
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Posted by: PtruthP34 (52 Msgs)    1:12PM PDT, Oct 7, 2001  
 
There was a surprisingly great turnout. Maybe 3,000 or more people. Seems
the excitement surrounding the Celts is spreading. The team seemed in high
spirits and there was noticeable comraderie. 
It was somewhat dificult to get a good feel for the team through the
scrimmage, but I'll try my best. It was basically the starters vs. the
backups in two 15 min halves. 

I'll break down each player: 

Pierce: Unstopable. Easily the highest scorer hitting threes and driving
to the hoop for scores. Had at least 33 pts by my count. Walter, Kedrick,
and I think Mcloud guarded him mostly. 

Walker: Physically, Walker looked pretty good. He was thinner and
noticeably more muscular, but he was still Antoine and therefore not
"cut" by any means. He ran the offense well and made a few great passes
but his shot was off today and didn't do too much scoring. 

Kenny: Looks like hes in great shape. Didn't do all that much though. Hit
a few midrange shots and some driving floaters over Milt and Herren. Made
a few nice passes. 

Milt: Basically the same as Kenny. Had a few great dishes inside for
scores. Hit the open shot and pushed the ball like always. 

Herren: Hit a few threes, other than that not too much worth noting. Looks
like hes in good shape. 

Forte: Played a lot at point guard, but was unimpressive. Didn't seem
confident in his ballhandling and didn't display any playmaking skills. On
the plus side, his defense seemed solid, He has a great outside shot and
can hit the three, and he is very effective in transition and finishes
well. 

JJ: Displayed great ballhandling and quickness, good defense, would have
had a ton of points if his shots were falling. Had a nice ally-oop from
Milt. 

Kedrick: Showed flashes. Defense needs a little work, but nothing that
experience wont fix (he guarded Pierce and JJ most of the game). Had a
loud dunk plus the foul, also made an impressive rejection on
Antoine. Antoine spun into the lane and tried to get his shot off, but he
was met by Kerick who elevated over Walker and sent the shot out of
bounds. Kedrick didn't looked for his own shot. 

E-Will: Solid E-Will play. Good defense, the occasional offense. 

Mcloud: Couldn't get a good feel for what this guy brings to the table. He
played hard though and rarely looked for his own shot. 

Walter: Walter's shot was on today but thats nothing to get excited
over. We all know how Walter is inconsistent and can show flashes. 

Blount: It was hard to get a feel for the low post play becasue it was
messy and the refs weren't really calling many fouls. His rebounding and
hands seemed improved but he didn't make too much noise offensively or
through his shotblocking. 

Battie: His ankle seems to have healed well. He displayed good lift on a
fastbreak dunk. 

Vitaly: The usual, Vitaly scrapped down low and hit the 18 footer. 

Overall I think the team looked good. Pierce looked like he was in
midseason form, and Kenny and Antoine looked like they were in great
shape. The rookies showed flashes but it was apparent that Forte needs a
lot of

the rest of that post is supposed to say its apperent that Forte needs to
work at point guard unless his primary roles is to play D on the opposing
pg, hit the open jumper, and fast break. 


I read some of the other Lowell posts and I agree that Forte played well
overall, I just didn't think he played well as a point guard lacking the
ballhandling and playmaking skills necesary. 
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Posted by: CeltXzibit (25 Msgs)    6:11PM PDT, Oct 7, 2001
I was also there, and I thought Forte played pretty well for a 2-guard
converting to a point, especially a rookie. He hit his shots, played solid
d and his handle was better then I suspected. 

One thing that I haven't noticed anyone say is that Pierce looked pretty
good on defense. He had a couple blocks and steals and he shut down
whomever pretty well, especially Kedrick. Pierce also looked much more
explosive, like when he went up for layups he seemed to get up there
pretty high and just floated past defenders. I remember him blocking
Kedrick's shot on a turn-around and you know Kedrick gets up there. 
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 Posted by: celticman2 (129 Msgs)    8:05PM PDT, Oct 7, 2001  
Hey guys, I guess I'm a little late today for posting. I have read a bunch
of previous posts and I have agreed with some of it, but a lot of it I
disagree with. 

1. Pierce by far was the best player out there. It looked like he was
dominating and everybody else was about 3 months behind (training
wise). He was hitting every shot playing amazing defense and didn;t look
tired at all. 

2. Walker couldn;t hit a shot to save his life. He had some amazing passes
though. He also played really good defense actually. But he airballed
about 5 threes and hit only the backboard on 2 of them. 

3. Rookies - JJ was ok. Not that impressive. He has the Walker disease (he
couldn;t hit anything on offense). He seemed a little lost out there but
played ok on defense. Kedrick looked completely lost. He did show a lot of
quickness though. He had an awesome reverse jam on one play. But other
than that he was unimpressive. Forte looekd the best of the rookies. He
played a lot fo PG and he looked pretty good to me. He hit a few jumpers
in people's faces, and under pressure. 

4. Centers: Battie looks like his ankle is still giving him problems. He
had a few opportunities to jam it all alone on a break but gave it the two
handed lay in. He also missed a lot of mid-range jumpers. His defense
looked slow and his rebounding wasn;t even there. Potapenko was completely
terrible. I don;tt think he palyed all summer by the way he looked
today. He turned it over many times and missed a ton of shots. Blount
looked OK. Nothing spectacular. He did the best out of these 3 overall
though. 

5. Others: Eric Williams played amazing defense. He must have had about 5
steals and stripped the ball a half dozen times. Roshwon McLeod looked
ok. I think he needed to learn the offense. He played pretty good d
though. Herren was burying 3's before they started playing, but didn;t do
much else. Kenny looked like he was in great shape. He made a bunch of
sweet passes and he was actually very good on defense.

The starting lineup appears to be this right now: 

1. Kenny 
2. Pierce 
3. Eric Williams 
4. Antoine 
5. Blount 

The way the seemed ot run the offense was this: Kenny would take it up to
half court... Walker would get the pass from Kenny at the top of the 3PT
arc, then Walker would run it from there. I didn;t liek this only because
Walker still took a lot of threes. He did have a lot of good passes
though. But like I said Pierce looked by far superior to everybody else. 

I think a lot of the missing shots can be attributed to
rustiness. Hopefiully, because otherwise this team will be relying sorely
on Pierce all year which is not good.