RE: Antoine

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

Josh, I couldn't disagree more. This team is at its best when Antoine is
penetrating and passing and hitting the boards. If you want lots of points
from Antoine, you're going to need lots of shots. He's never going to shoot
a high percentage or get to the line enough to justify those shots. When it
was the Antoine and Paul show, you could excuse some of it. But now there
are other options on this team. Continued indiscriminate bombing from
Antoine is the LAST thing this team needs.

You speculate Antoine has been hurt. Maybe, but we've had no indication. He
has been playing lousy lately. He was better yesterday and seemed to be in
"passing mode" which is all I'm going to ask at this point. He's going to
make so  many bad decisions on shots that I'm going to have to hold my nose
and my tongue. If he just passes the ball, I'll settle. His rebounding
really has dropped off. In my opinion, this mini-slump has coincided pretty
closely with "ball-hogging/no-rebounding" Antoine. 

Is it fair to lump the blame on him? Probably not. But he's the de facto
point guard on this team, like it or not. They're an undersized team that
refuses to run, and in the half-court, Antoine is the point guard. He may
not be labeled that, but he acts as that. It's his job to initiate the
offense. That's why all those comparisons of Antoine's assists to other
power forwards ring so hollow with me. He's a power forward in name only. He
operates as this team's point guard in the half-court. When he's doing it
unselfishly, it can be beautiful to watch. But too often his "initiating the
offense" means jacking a three before anyone else touches it. He averages
about 5 assists per game? Is that satisfactory for a 43 minute-per-game
point guard in the NBA? 

Yesterday was another 7-for-21, 1-for-9 on threes, no free throws game for
Antoine. That's terrible. But he moved the ball and the other offensive
players (and there are plenty now) carried the load. Antoine should have
seen how effective he could be in a distributor's role in the blowouts of
Orlando and Detroit, but that was yet another lesson lost on the guy.

Boston fans appreciate intelligent basketball and hustle, and even the
watered-down corporate crowds in the Fleet Center know a transition
3-pointer with no rebounders and a lane to the basket is a dumb, dumb shot.
They're a specialty of Antoine's. He makes so many dumb decisions, even my
wife notices. She's no Celtics fan, but she used to play basketball
(all-league in high school FWIW), and when she watches the games with me
she's always saying "What was that??!!!" or "Why did he do that??!!" You can
guess my answer.

The sad thing is Antoine controls things so much that he remains the key. If
he's in passing mode, this team can make a long playoff run. If he's not,
they're a quick out. I've been discouraged lately because he definitely
hasn't been in passing mode. Maybe yesterday was the day things click, but
I've stopped hoping for any kind of consistency from Antoine.

Mark


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Celtics-Digest-Owner@igtc.com [mailto:Celtics-Digest-Owner@igtc.com]

Sent:	Monday, April 01, 2002 11:50 AM
To:	Celtics-Digest@igtc.com
Subject:	The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V9 #103



Date:	Sun, 31 Mar 2002 23:52:37 -0500
From:	"Josh Ozersky" <jozersky1@nyc.rr.com>
Subject:	re: Antoine

This is becoming Bob's theme of themes, and may even be true to an extent,
but I think Antoine's recent performances belie it somewhat.  Twon has
clearly not been feeling himself, as evidenced by his 1-7 game against
Dallas and his many missed open looks today.  Although the Celtics won,
there is no doubt that in the long run they need Antoine to hit at least
some of his shots.  His passing is key, but I don't see him playing
effectively for the Celtics in a pure "point forward" role.  His major value
is as an offensive player, and that means shooting and scoring as much as
passing and rebounding, if not much more so.
Josh