Warriors Preview

["hironaka@nomade.fr"<hironaka@nomade.fr>]

Reading up this morning on Pedro's newly hulked up right 
shoulder   still carrying  the weight of New England on 
it  it occurred to me that the Celtics are the only 
Boston franchise in 2002 that is not either a World 
Champion or in first place. Wow, that a difference a year 
makes! 

(Tonight, they can close to 3.5 games of first place on 
idle New Jersey.)

Meanwhile, the rested and healthy Golden State Warriors 
finally open their second half tonight hoping for a fresh 
start at Bostons expense. 

Digression, yes, but I've always felt that if that 
franchise were known as the "San Francisco Warriors" (or 
the Oaktown Warriors) they would be significantly more 
bad-ass sounding. I wonder which marketing nerd piped up 
with the "Golden State" idea during some slick, 
brainstorming meeting. But that's Californians for you. ;-
)

Right now our "Baked Bean State Celtics" are facing a GS 
team that reeled into its five-day break. They've lost 15 
of their last 17 to put them 22 out of first place. 

But as someone else on the list just hinted, one can 
still find numerous teams that seem more desperately weak 
in talent, depth and "upside" than the Warriors. 

GS has a young guy that can drop 50 points on a given 
night in Antawn Jamison. They've got another guy 
averaging 12.5 rebounds (Fortson) plus credible shot-
blocking and toughness at center with Dampier, Foyle and 
Mark Jackson. They've got a ROY frontrunner in Jason 
Richardson, who starts in a tall and athletic backcourt 
alongside an explosive Larry Hughes (14.4 points and 5.3 
assists). The Warriors even have decent veterans like 
Bobby Sura and Chris Mills each contributing 8 points per 
game. They've got Troy Murphy too.

And yet we are talking about a 14-win team at the All 
Star break, whereas our Dunkin' Donut State Celtics are 
already going for a key 30th victory tonight (40 wins 
will be a real milestone). Boston needs to ignore the won-
loss column and get the job done tonight against a team 
with a +5.5 rebounding margin on opponents and over 7 
offensive boards per night from Jamison and Fortson. 

Basically, GS is a team that needed a point guard in the 
last draft but, like most teams, elected to pass twice on 
the talent available (Tinsley, Parker, Hassell etc.). The 
GS starting point guards have something like a 2:1 
assist/turnover ratio (our Kenny Anderson is 4:1).

In terms of the B2B effect, Paul Pierce played just 24 
minutes last night due to foul trouble but Walker is 
coming off 46 minutes at mile high altitude. He had his 
15th game with 7 or more assists last night, and the 
Celtics have been 13-2 in that scenario. And thats when 
Walker's not busy fighting for the Taliban. ;-)

Make no mistake, this is a big game against the leading 
rebounding club in the NBA. Boston will have to box out 
all night long. In essence, it's the second "quarter" of 
a brutal four-games-in-five-nights scenario. And the next 
two games are against teams with winning records.

Go Boston Chicken State!

***


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