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Re:Globe article / Personal comments
STARTERS - Last night Obie played our starters 157 minutes. Byron Scott
played his starters 108 minutes.
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**If I'm reading O'Brien's quotes correctly, he seems to think he needs to
play his starters more minutes in order to keep them in shape. This doesn't
make much sense to me, but then again I don't agree with a lot of O'Briens
beliefs.
And looking at boxscores across the league it looks like O'Brien is on an
island by himself with this line of thinking.
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WOLKO - He looked great. Give this guy some more minutes.
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**We played three guys at center offensively; Walker,Baker, & Wolkowyski.
Wolkowyski was the only one of the three able to get an offensive rebound.
He was at least willing to mix it up a bit.
Other than that he looked pretty average to me.
I was in the vast minority of fans who actually liked Potopenko. I still
think V fits the teams needs a little bit better than Wookiee.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SUNDOV and SWILLIAMS - Their excellent outside shooting seems to fulfill the
Wallace/Obie criteria. Yet scrappy SWill is not a point guard and his height
will remain a constant liability. Meanwhile, Sundov appears to be a SF in a
7 ft. 2 inch body. He is not an NBA center on either end of the court, and
his attempt at defense is painful to observe.
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** I was lucky enough to catch an interview with Shammond Williams yesterday
afternoon. There were two things that he said that stood out to me.
He said that he loves playing in the Celtics offense but it takes some time
to get used to because of major differences.
"Some of the things you weren't allowed to do on teams before, they want
you to do here."
And....
"Coach wants me to shoot more."
How many times have we heard that?
I know some people find it really hard to believe that this is O'Briens
offense. They want to believe it's the captains offense and O'Brien is just
along for the ride. But how many times do you have to be hit over the head
with quotes like this from players, coaches, and the front office personal
before the light finally goes on?
Williams may not be our idea of a point guard, but he's doing exactly what
O"Brien wants him to do. He's hitting open shots (better last night than the
previous outings).
We might as well get used to it because it doesn't look like the offense is
going to change anytime soon.
The one thing I really like about Sundov is he isn't hesitant to shoot. They
even have him coming off picks! So many times in the past we had players
that looked like they were afraid to shoot the ball. Even Rogers had that
problem at times last year. Not Sundov. I've only ever seen him hesitate
once, and that was last night when he and Pierce were playing a two man game
and he kept passing it back into Pierce and Pierce kept passing it back out.
I think Sundov can be a major weapon on offense, but your right his defense
leaves a lot to be desired.
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DELK - Looks much better this year as he seems to have found his shot. Like
Shammond, he is still unfortunately a SG in a PGbs body. Yet if we play him
at SG next to SWilliams or Bremer, we will have the shortest backcourt in the
NBA.
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** Delk looks much more comfortable this season. I haven't been all that
impressed with his defense however. I suppose we can say that about the
entire team right now. Hopefully it will be just a matter of time before we
all get on the same page.
Remember it took awhile before this team jelled defensively last season.
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BATTIE - Not to harp on my pro-Battie kick, but we certainly missed his
underrated lateral-movement, help defense last night.
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** Agreed. I would also add rebounding to that list. Battie is very
underrated as a rebounder (then again, so was Vitaly).
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THE CAPTAINS - Paul again looked very good last night.. 27 points,7 assists.
Each year he seems to methodically improve upon a specific aspect of his
game, so I am expecting that this year he will be uppinghis assists per game.
But since our overall offense still comes off as helter-skelter anarchy,
when he and Walker stepped in at some point and took over last night ... I
could only think that no matter how many offensive weapons we add, without a
system, nothing has changed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** I've been calling for an offensive guru since about this time last year.
I just don't think O'Brien has it in him. He needs help and he needs in now.
Any volunteers?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BAKER - All of the above pale in comparison to how Baker fares this season in
his struggle with the storm of fate. In the last three games, Baker has more
fouls than points and rebounds combined. His quote from the Peter May
morning column (reprinted below) is pathetically telling.< There's no
discouragement at all; I'll figure it out in the next couple weeks. > -
Baker
Where is our coach on this one? Since the Baker trade, why has Obie not sat
awake nights gleefully strategizing how to maximize Bakerbs skills into
additional wins? Since when are players responsible for figuring out their
own niches or roles with their teams? Baker is such a psychological guy that
he needs direction, pampering, inclusion,and confidence NOW. Why is he not
getting it? I find Obiebs handling of him so far to be cruel and unusual
punishment, and condemn the fault, not the actor of it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** I agree to a point. It is the coaches responsibility to make Baker
comfortable and to get him involved. Once again, I don't think O'Brien has a
clue as how to do it.
However the foul problems don't help and this is where Baker is the problem.
Most of his fouls seemed to be reach in's as players drove by him or grabs on
players cutting without the ball. That's just plain lazy and the fault has
to lay with Baker there.
I also don't see him working very hard to get his spot. In fact, I can't
recall a single time seeing him post up strong and not get the ball. He
seems to be more than willing to set picks on the perimeter, but then he
doesn't go to the basket. Why would anyone pass the ball to Baker outside 18
ft?
The guy's been playing basketball long enough to know what he needs to do on
the court to be successful and he hasn't been doing those things since the
first exhibition game.
I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the guy. It's still early and he
could snap out of it.
But he certainly isn't doing anything to make me feel I overreacted in my
original reaction to the Celtics off season moves.
TAM