I want to be Jim O'Brien's west coast love kitten.

["pmaurice" <damekmo@teleport.com>]

Fifty-two games in and I think I love Jim O'Brien more and more every day. The
following is from the Oregonian. But before I forget, there was a something
about Rasheed Wallace onlist this morning. Yeah, Rasheed is incredibly
talented, has a great game, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everybody in Portland has
heard it all and seen it all. Shareef is the most overrated player in the
league, and Rasheed comes in a very close second. A ton of talent but no, and
I mean, zero heart. Like Shareef, as long as Rasheed plays his "nice" game,
putting up nice numbers, and contributing like everybody else, it doesn't
matter whether the team wins or loses. He rarely takes responsibility for
winning or losing, since in his own mind he's just "One of the guys." Look at
that talent, he's not just one of the guys, he's the guy who could carry the
Blazers on his back at any point during a game but he "selfishly," yes
"selfishly" just wants to blend in. No leadership...absolutely none. And yes,
he does get tossed out of games because things aren't going well for him and
the team. Everybody loves Rasheed. Nice numbers. But as eveybody on this list
will say over and over again, and has said over and over again for as long as
I've been here, numbers aren't everything, while they, at the same time,
recite a player's numbers as "proof" of their value.

So...from this morning's Oregonian:

"That was really a superior effort by our players," Celtics coach Jim O'Brien
said.
That the Celtics shot 66.7 percent (12 of 18) in the fourth quarter wasn't
their most impressive statistic. Instead, it was that it came two nights after
they made two of 19 shots in the fourth quarter of a 92-75 loss at Golden
State.

"Against Golden State, we had played the night before," O'Brien said. "Our
tendency is to shoot a lower percentage -- not that low -- and some nights out
of 82 games, you're just going to miss shots.

"If you miss the shots tonight, I think it was because Portland was defending
the heck out of us. The other night, we were getting any shot we wanted. We
just weren't making them."

The Celtics don't have an inside game to speak of. They might sneak a lob pass
to center Tony Battie for a dunk every once in a while -- they caught Blazers
napping twice that way -- but for the most part, the Celtics are going to
shoot from the outside.

"It's by design," said O'Brien, whose team averages 23 three-point attempts.
"That's my plan. That's the way I'm building this team. We don't have a
dominant low-post presence, and especially with the new rules, I have a team
that can stretch the defense.

"Now, we are not anywhere near an efficient offensive team, but I have no
problems whatsoever with the amount of three-point shots that we take."

The Celtics made no secret of how they intended to play against the Blazers.
On the first play of the game, Anderson penetrated the top of the lane, passed
the ball out to Pierce for an open three-pointer and . . .

Clank!

So, they don't make them all. The Celtics, who entered the game shooting 41.8
percent from the field, made enough shots Friday night not only to stay in the
game, but also to win it.

"That's just our game," Anderson said. "We're known throughout the league for
shooting threes. If they're open, we're going to keep shooting them. Coach has
given us the confidence to shoot those shots, and if we're getting good looks
and hitting them, we're good."



Paul M.