Herald article: Rookies will play

["j.hironaka" <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

	Ater deferring to the veterans McCarty and Williams in the Charlotte game, 
Obie plans to introduce the three rookies into the regular rotation during 
the 5-game, 9 day exhibition road trip.

	This will be a big game tonight for the rookies, and I know they'll be 
eager to apply the lessons they have learned in camp (or atone for a shaky 
opening performance in the case of Joe Johnson). Let's hope all three can 
stay focused and bring their "A" game against the Mavs.

	I was trying to think of a good metaphor involving lighting up some Cuban 
victory cigars on Mark Cuban's dot-bomb team. Anyway, I hope Pierce, Walker 
and company will open several cans of whup-ass on a Dallas lineup that is, 
in reality, as talented as you'll find in the NBA....humongous frontline, 
outstanding backcourt.

	The Mav's are a bit soft (a minus 3.5 rebounding deficit, only 7.5 steals 
per game), but they put on an awesome shooting clinic last year (.894FT%, 
.460FG%) and turned the ball over just 13.9 times. The Celtics will have to 
be intense, confident and prepared in order to get Dallas to miss shots and 
turn the ball over at home. Dirk was wide open against Pitino's headless 
chicken outbreak defense last year. If that happens again tonight, it will 
be a long night.


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http://www.bostonherald.com/sport/basketball/cs10122001.htm
``We're going to continue to play to win, but we're going to take that 
approach on this trip with some different rotations,'' said Celtics coach 
Jim O'Brien, balancing a need to experiment while maintaining his preseason 
philosophy to establish a winning tone. ``For example, I will take Eric 
(Williams), who is our starting small forward, and Walter (McCarty), who 
played very well (against Charlotte), and I will limit their minutes 
(tonight).

`I'm going to pick out a couple of guys and limit their minutes on any 
given game with the idea that will free up some time for Kedrick Brown, Joe 
Johnson and Joseph Forte.

``The (three rookies) have to be fed to the wolves a little bit. Generally 
speaking, we have players here that we need to see in game situations and 
rotations that we'd like to incorporate.''

``These five games, we need to make major strides,'' he said. ``And we will.''

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Obie's analysis of the first exhibition game:

``There were phases of that game that really looked ugly,'' said O'Brien, 
who dissected the film before practice. ``But the positive side is that 
sometimes when you're dealing with the first preseason game, all phases of 
the game look ugly. That wasn't the case here. The truth of the matter is, 
we did well at the things that we've practiced on the most. The halfcourt 
defense was much-improved, we did a good job of turning them over (23 
Hornets' turnovers), we played low-post defense really well, we didn't 
allow them too many opportunities at the basket, and the blocking out was 
the best it has been since I've been in Boston. I also thought we pushed 
the basketball well for most of the game, though we did not always do it in 
as organized a fashion as I would like to see. I was not happy with our 
transition defense, not happy with our screening, (the coaching staff) 
across the board was not happy with our habit of driving into traffic and 
leaving our feet. We turned the ball over quite a bit as a result of that. 
Obviously that performance showed there's plenty of room and need for 
improvement here, but I was pleased with more phases of the game than I 
thought I'd be pleased in at this point.''