Boston's offense

["hironaka@xxxxxxxxx"<hironaka@xxxxxxxxx>]

As a fan, I find it pretty hard to picture Boston even 12 
months ago sweeping a back-to-back (or even consecutive 
games) by shooting .558 from the field (and holding the 
opposition to .418). Its a confidence booster, and 
exactly what you'd hope to see after a disappointing loss.

At the same time I have a temptation to dilute Boston's 
achievement in light of the soft weekend schedule. But 
sometimes that's not the whole picture. 

One fear was that Cleveland had scored 444 points in the 
four games leading into the Celtics game. Few teams have 
been lighting it up like that, and it led to some big 
wins for them.

The Knicks coming in to Saturday night had been on a 5-2 
run, not counting the two Celtics games. They were 
improving on both ends with Sprewell back. Remember that 
they had a 1-10 and 2-12 start. They actually are "a 
better team than their record" right now. They better be, 
with literally double Boston's payroll.

For that matter, Phoenix is also certifiably hot, and 
that's equally true of the Bulls, who are 3-1 coming into 
tonight's game, since playing 13 of their first 19 games 
on the road (more than any NBA team) while the circus was 
in town. That included two sets of four games in five 
nights. The Bulls are as hot as they may be all year.

So while its true that the Celtics haven't faced off 
against several of the surprising teams this year 
(Indiana, Detroit), let's wait until we play them before 
making a judgment. 

Those guys are ahead of other good teams in the 
standings, in part because Boston has already played and 
pinned losses on their rivals. ;-)

Boston's big 228 point weekend has the team inching up 
toward 100 points per game. They are now up over 98, 
averaging 1.20 points per every shot attempt. 

According to ESPN, that's an "adjusted FG%" of .485 - 
which sounds pretty good whatever it means. This 
includes .467 on 2-point attempts, which comes as a bit 
of a surprise to me. If you haven't noticed, the ESPN 
Celtics stats page is more wonk-friendly than the NBA.COM 
stats site.

I have to say the Knicks road win seemed too easy  
(although watching Pierce's knee buckle without anyone 
touching him nearly gave me a heart attack). 

The Knicks announcer Clyde Frazier credited Boston's 
defense, but the Knicks also missed a lot of open outside 
shots and looked even more inept from inside the paint. 

Both Harrington and "Dinnerspoon" played like they had no 
business being in the NBA, while Vin Baker looked for one 
night like a third Celtics All Star. None of his points 
came in garbage time, when the game was already over.

For the first time, he deserved the All Star vote I've 
been casting everyday for all the Celtics on the ballot.

The next guy I'm going to start showing support for are 
the two Williams, particularly Shammond who is in a 
worrisome shooting slump. Up to now I've been writing in 
Tony Delk's name every day.

Joe H.

***

-------------------
L'e-mail gratuit pas comme les autres.
NOMADE.FR, pourquoi chercher ailleurs ?