ESPN.com (Peter May) camp report on the C's

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's Peter May's Celtics camp report and "five observations" from
ESPN.com.

The one thing I'll say about the eight-man rotation... I think Kedrick gets
squeezed out. I think we'll see Delk and Shammond Williams together in the
backcourt at times, as well as splitting the PG minutes. And it is sounding
more and more like Sundov will play. I think Kedrick will have an
opportunity, and I hope he grabs it, but it wouldn't shock me to see O'Brien
go with a lot of small lineups featuring Williams, Delk and Pierce when
Ewill is on the bench. We saw plenty of small lineups last year with Kenny
and Delk/Strick. 

Mark


What do you do when your team has its best season in 15 years, surpasses all
expectations, restores fan interest and comes within two victories of the
NBA Finals?
If you're Paul Gaston, you tell your basketball people to try something new
this year because it costs too much to keep the team intact. Then, you sell
your team for the largest figure in NBA history -- $360 million -- and walk
out the door, counting the dollars along the way.
Oh, and you leave the team without a point guard and with three players
earning the NBA maximum salary. But, hey, that's someone else's problem now.
There's a new look to the Boston Celtics
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=bos> , one forged more out of
desperation than desire. Coach Jim O'Brien didn't want it this way, but he
has a pretty good track record in the cleanup department. You may recall he
oversaw the Herculean task of picking up after Rick Pitino left town.
O'Brien has five new faces on his team, and some of them are going to have
to play well. You've got to like the Celtics' chances because O'Brien got it
done with Pitino's players and he got it done without Pitino's players. He
has cast this team in his own mold: tough, committed and opportunistic.
O'Brien has done an outstanding job in his 1= years as the head coach of the
Celtics. He got them to the conference finals last year and then pleaded,
publicly and privately, for Gaston to re-sign key free agent Rodney Rogers
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1280> . Gaston
humiliated his coach, and his general manager, by allowing them to offer
Rogers a deal he knew would be rejected. But the old owner, who was already
working on his exit strategy, then approved a deal for Vin Baker
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1279> , which left
fans scratching their heads and left the new owners with a whopper of a
payroll next year and beyond.
Last year's Celtics were all about chemistry. Gaston never saw that. Now,
it's a new bunch with five new faces, the most publicized of which is the
soon-to-be 31-year-old Baker, who is promising to resurrect his careening
career and reputation. He has said the same things before. But he has always
craved to play in Boston. It's a time-will-tell proposition.
O'Brien leans on his veterans and he has the same trusty twosome that led
the team last year, Antoine Walker
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3112>  and Paul
Pierce <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3253> . They
are leaders as well as scorers, and they may be the best 1-2 offensive punch
this side of the Staples Center.
There also is the same, unwavering commitment to defense epitomized by Eric
Williams <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3016> , now
slimmer, quicker and injury-free. The Celtics' defensive mindset led to 49
wins in the regular season and nine more in the postseason. There are some
intriguing newcomers in Bruno Sundov
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3278> , a 7-foot-3
center who likes 3-pointers, and Shammond Williams
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3277> , a 6-1 guard
who likes 3-pointers.
The more things change ...
Yes, the Celtics will continue to hoist 3-pointers, and why not? The shot
was a critical weapon in their offense last year, and O'Brien embraces it.
He encourages his players to shoot it and, surprise, they oblige; no one
shot more 3's than the Celtics last year.
But while the 3-pointer might be their public persona, their success was due
more to a defensive makeover that was as dramatic as it was successful.
Under Pitino, the Celtics couldn't stop anybody. O'Brien took advantage of
the rules changes, which allowed for more zone coverage, and imported
defensive guru Dick Harter to make sure things went right. The Celtics
became one of the better defensive teams in the league -- overnight -- and
they have no intention of backtracking this year.
They ended up third in the league in defensive field-goal percentage. "We
want to be first this year," O'Brien said. No jaws dropped. Pitino always
talked about playing defense, too. No one listened. They listened to Harter
and O'Brien and saw the results. Now, the players are proselytizers for the
defense-first mantra.
"We've got to understand what got us to where we were last year," Walker
said. "We understand how good it felt to go as far as we did. To me, No. 17
(championship) doesn't look as far as away as it did this time last year."
Well, who's to fault the lad for some truly forward thinking? No one seems
remotely worried about the fact that there is no real point guard in camp.
Or that the departed Kenny Anderson
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=393> , who is a point
guard, played a huge role in the team's success last season. There are three
point candidates, all of whom are shooting guards in a point guard's body.
Walker may lead the team in assists anyway; he's an excellent passer and
ball handler.
No one seems concerned that Baker won't be integrated seamlessly into the
Celtics' offense and defense. He does give them an interior option they
haven't had since Pervis Ellison. (That says more about their recent options
than it does about Baker.) Whether Baker starts is another question. O'Brien
understands that Tony Battie
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3176>  plays better
as a starter and doesn't want to lose him, so Baker may, at the beginning,
come off the bench.
Oh yes, the bench. We had to get there eventually. Do Baker, Tony Delk,
Bruno Sundov and Kedrick Brown do anything for you? Here's what they do do
-- they make O'Brien pray that Pierce and Walker stay healthy.
Sundov will get some minutes in Rogers' role from last year. Delk is what he
is -- a streak shooter who shoots 38 percent. The acrobatic Brown may get
some time at small forward and shooting guard. He had his moments as a
rookie last year, mostly with spectacular dunks and blocked shots. Walter
McCarty <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3100> , Ruben
Wolkowyski <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3465>  and
rookie J.R. Bremer round out the roster, which, thanks to Gaston's
line-in-the-sand stand, will stay at 12 -- unless the new owners see fit to
add a player along the way.
The Baker deal was an enormous risk. It would have been so much simpler and
easier to re-sign the free agents. But you gotta go with what you have, and
O'Brien already has proven he can make chicken salad out of you know what.
That he has to do it all over again wasn't something he wanted or
envisioned, but it wasn't his call. That was made by his former boss, who
now is out of the way, counting all the money he wouldn't let his team spend
to try and keep the good times rolling. 




1. Vin Baker <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1279>
might not return to his All-Star form, but if he doesn't, it won't be
because of any weight problems. He is down to a for-him svelte 255 pounds
and he looks terrific. He has been so consumed by working out with the
Celtics coaching staff and their strength and conditioning coach that he
still hasn't found a place to live in the Boston area. Baker is uber-pumped
about the upcoming season, given his historical yearn to play for the
Celtics as well as his own need to resurrect his spiraling career and
reputation. Coach Jim O'Brien called Baker into his office before the start
of camp and told him to relax and not worry about any expectations. It
remains to be seen whether Baker will even start; O'Brien has been careful
not to anoint him as his first-string center at the expense of the sensitive
Tony Battie <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3176> .
But Baker is back to the playing weight he had when he was an All-Star in
Milwaukee. That's a big first step.
2. Point guard? What point guard? The Celtics took a bit of a gamble in the
Baker trade by dealing Kenny Anderson
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=393> , whose play
last season was a big factor in their surprising run to the Eastern
Conference finals. Now, there are three point guards in camp and they all
have two things in common: none is a real point guard, but all of them can
shoot and shoot the 3-pointer, a must in any O'Brien offense. The coach says
he's not worried about the loss of Anderson and, in fact, said Shammond
Williams <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3277> ,
rookie J.R. Bremer and veteran Tony Delk
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3086>  are all
superior defenders to Anderson. That may be. But replacing Anderson's floor
smarts and savvy will be difficult to do -- and he did improve defensively
last season. Dramatically. Antoine Walker
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3112>  will get a lot
of the ball-handling chores, and there's going to be an inside-outside
emphasis this year for even more 3-point options. In the end, O'Brien's
probably right.
3. The Bomb Squad. No one shot more 3-pointers last year than the Celtics.
Not even close. The Celtics took 300 more 3-pointers than any team other
than Orlando. Antoine Walker
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3112>  led the league
in attempts with 645 but was not even in the top 50 in 3-point percentage.
No matter. Walker has an unchanging green light, and you're going to see
even more 3's from the Celtics this year. Whoever plays the point is going
to take more 3's than the departed Anderson, who took only 33 last year. And
what does O'Brien like the most about 7-foot-3 Bruno Sundov
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3278> ? You got it.
His ability to shoot the 3. Look for Sundov to be used in much the same way
the Celtics used Rodney Rogers
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1280>  last year.
With Sundov and Vin Baker
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1279> , the Celtics
also will go inside a lot, move to their spots and await the outlet pass.
Bombs away.
4. You'd hate to see this team without Pierce or Walker for any prolonged
stretch. Thankfully for O'Brien, that never was an issue. Pierce went
wire-to-wire last year and Walker missed only one game, a meaningless
regular-season finale. They are so important on and off the court that for
either to miss a lot of games could be disastrous. But both players have
shown to be durable in their careers, and there's no reason to think this
year will be anything different. But you wonder what O'Brien would do if he
faced the injury situation that Phil Jackson has with Shaquille O'Neal
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=847>  or Larry Brown
had with Allen Iverson
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3094> . Knowing
O'Brien, he'd probably welcome the challenge. But he'd rather not deal with
it at all.
5. Kedrick Brown
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3521>  will get every
opportunity to prove he's something more than a human pogo stick. The only
one still left from the Celtics' three first-round picks in 2001, Brown is
unbelievably athletic and should be granted an automatic pass into the
All-Star Game dunk contest in Atlanta. But can he actually play basketball?
While he's unlikely to start, there will be opportunities galore for Brown
in the backcourt or at small forward; he can do either. He can be a
tenacious defender; the Celtics still talk of his blocking Michael Jordan
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=175>  last season.
But he's also only a year out of junior college and he saw little action
last year. He couldn't even supplant Walter McCarty
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3100>  in the lineup
at the end of the season. That's not a good sign. Brown will be ready to
prove his worth this season. Otherwise, the 2001 draft for Boston (Joe
Johnson <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3520>  and
Joe Forte <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3535>  were
the other No. 1s) will go down as a colossal wasted opportunity. And they
won't be able to blame Rick Pitino. He was gone by then.