Miss Cindarella; your coach awaits.

[JB <JBMetzEA@yahoo.com>]

   As much as the Detroit game showed me a team, not of playoff caliber,
last nights game displayed a  team that can play at that level. As a
measuring stick, of this aspect of the team play, I've been looking for
those "good," or productive possessions, that give the team a better than
average chance to score and I saw very few "bad" possessions, last night.
Two stats. from the box score underline this:
   1. We had thirty assists. When is the last time we saw that?
   2. We shot .513 (they shot .425).
   Playoff basketball 101. Smart, unselfish possessions, good defense,
against a quality team.
   I am stunned at the following quote from Shira Springer, writing in the
"Boston Globe," who did not give her source. No other writer mentioned this
today: 
   "With the blessing of coach Jim O'Brien, Antoine Walker took over the
Celtics huddles in the fourth quarter last night."
   One of the articles this AM, noted that it was also Antoine who called
for the two isolation plays for Anderson;  one that led to the Battie dunk
and the other, that spectacular drive and lefty hook over Keon Clark. Can we
presume that it was Walker also who put the ball in Kenny's hands, for those
last 4:25 seconds, when the team held off Toronto's late charge?
   What to say ? I'm in shock.
   Tommy Heinsohn's last word on the game: "Well, they got the ball into
Kenny's hands, just at the right time."
   If Walker can make those kinds of decisions, again, taking the ball out
of his own hands, as he has often done to get Pierce more involved, he truly
is a special player and deserves all of the confidence that Jimmy O'Brien
has shown in him.
    
        JB



                  Unchain My Heart !