Frustrating loss

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

Josh summed up a lot of my thoughts with his earlier post. The team played a
great first half and a terrible second half. Josh hit on about everything
that went wrong. One thing I kept thinking, though was this line in Sports
Guy's evaluation of the trade:

And that's what this Celtics
team needed, a little unpredictability off their bench and two guys who
could occasionally carry this offense for a quarter or a half at a time.

Wasn't that just what they needed last night? Pierce and Walker were
no-shows in the second half, and when that happens-and your whole offense is
built around getting the ball to them and getting out of the way-it only
figures that the team is going to struggle. I wasn't surprised Obie didn't
play Rogers, because he's so damn conservative, but they sure could have
used him in that second half. They needed someone-anyone-to hit some shots.
Rogers could have been that guy. I know he didn't have any practice time,
but neither did Jalen Rose and he poured in 36 for the Bulls in his debut.
Joe Johnson and Palacio jumped right in for Phoenix. Instead, we got a huge
serving of Walter McCarty.

Also, Josh was right-on in his Kedrick take. Strick came in and played
extremely well, but when the Mavs slowed him down, he became a definite
liability against Finley. That, in my opinion, was the death blow. Nowitzki
was going nuts, but it wasn't until Finley started shooting over Strick at
will that the Mavs really made their move. I thought Obie blew that one. He
needed to come in with a bigger guy. If he wanted to keep Strick on the
floor, play him at PG, but get a bigger guy in there to give Finley some
problems. I'm not clamoring to see more minutes for Kedrick per se, just in
that situation, it called for a bigger, better defender than Strick.
Kedrick, Eric Williams, Rodney Rogers... someone.

Also... is it true that Wallace said, during his interview with Tommy and
Mike (those of us with League Pass had the Dallas announcers), that they
drafted with the idea of creating competition and eventually finding one guy
out of the three picks? Someone posted this to another list. That can't be
true, can it? He wouldn't have said that?

And finally... no Omar Cook signing. That doesn't bode well. Let's hope it's
just a timing thing.

Mark