RE: [Celtics' Stuff RE: The real problem with 3's

["Ravi Singh" <kelticsfan@attbi.com>]

Obie never lost it Cecil ;-)

Actually, I have nothing personal against the head coach.  I just think
he's clueless in his approach to offense.  You can be a perimeter
oriented team and still not have to shoot 30 three pointers per game.
Case in point?  Seattle.  Last night Seattle, which has NO low post
game, scored 112 points against the Rockets and they only took 9 three
pointers. Transition and mid range game is how they've developed their
team and the coach must get most of the credit for it as he has
instilled the value of motion, outstanding ball movement, and consummate
team play.  Sure he struggled to get these ideas through the players
heads early on, but the team is the better for it now when it needs to
gear up for a post season run in a very difficult Western Conference.   

The Celtics need to find a coach that has the mannerisms of O'Brien to
keep the players on an even keel, but they must also have a coach that
knows the proper way of playing basketball which on offense begins with
first seeking out the highest percentage shot.  It's just a matter of
freakin odds.  This is not brain surgery as Kevin McHale used to say.  

Ravi

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-celtics@igtc.com [mailto:owner-celtics@igtc.com] On Behalf
Of Cecil Wright
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 11:20 AM
To: Celtics@igtc.com
Subject: Re: [Celtics' Stuff RE: The real problem with 3's


I see Obie has regained his dickhead status. 

Cecil


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ravi Singh" <kelticsfan@attbi.com>
To: <Celticsstuffgroup@yahoogroups.com>; <Celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 7:09 AM
Subject: RE: [Celtics' Stuff RE: The real problem with 3's


> I have to agree with Kestas here JB.  While I don't believe the coach 
> wants such poor decisionmaking on offense, I'll say this.  You 
> wouldn't see that poor decisionmaking with a Pat Riley, Phil Jackson 
> or even Nate McMillan as the head coach.  If you did, the guilty 
> parties would be sitting beside the coach on the bench, getting an 
> earful.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-celtics@igtc.com [mailto:owner-celtics@igtc.com] On Behalf

> Of Kestas
> Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 6:34 AM
> To: celtics@igtc.com
> Subject: Re: [Celtics' Stuff RE: The real problem with 3's
> 
> 
> At 07:22 3/23/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> >        ************
> >   I am as aghast as you at the disintegration of the C's last night,
> >Ravi, but I don't think it's fair to blame the coach. Do you really 
> >think that O'Brien was happy with Delk's missed bomb, with about a 
> >minute left and the C's down four?
> 
> Well, he's just reaping what he has sown. He publicly implores his 
> players to take the first trey that shows - so they do. Whether he's 
> stupid enough to actually believe that this is the best strategy for 
> this team, or simply covering up for his stars who love to shoot it, 
> doesn't even matter. It takes a player of great discipline to not be 
> seduced into chucking up a three and instead expend energy to get a 
> better shot. Most of our players aren't mature enough to resist the 
> Siren call of the three-shot. And, like Chuck Barkley keeps 
> reiterating on TNT, "that's why the Celtics are going home early in 
> the playoffs. That team shoots entirely too many threes."
> 
> When the coach encourages the players to succumb to their worst 
> tendencies, that just makes the problem so much worse. It results in 
> an offense where everyone's stationed around the three-point-line, 
> nobody's moving without the ball, and nobody's rebounding. I'd be 
> curious to see what the correlation between the number of 3s taken, 
> and the rebounding differential is. When the players play with a sense

> of urgency, searching out the best shot, moving without the ball, 
> playing tough D - as they did in the first quarter last night, in the 
> second half against the Cavs, and usually do against the best teams - 
> they can roll over Eastern Conference teams, and stay in the game with

> or occassionally beat the best Western teams. But once Iverson was 
> out, it was Obie offense - three-point-city, baby, which gives rise to

> all kinds of other problems. Pierce summed it up best:
> 
> ''We didn't play with a sense of urgency [when Iverson was not in the 
> game],'' said Paul Pierce (26 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists). ''We 
> didn't have a war mentality in the second half. We must have thought 
> we could just cakewalk with Iverson not playing the second half. We 
> just sat back and let them dictate the tempo and dictate the game for 
> some reason. Why, I don't know.''
> 
> Kestas