[no subject]

Nothing comes easily for a Boston team that plays a "pick 
up style of offense, but when our third and fourth 
option scorers are draining 3-pointers like they've been 
doing, you can still get to 100 points quickly. 

I don't think our third and fourth scorers have just been 
hot in the preseason, I believe they are actually skilled 
at shooting the ball. We'll see. They'll get some open 
looks, that's for sure.

So it comes down to maintaining the status quo on defense 
and rebounding. Obviously we look much worse so far. We 
look atrocious. 

Yet on paper, we seem approximately as good or perhaps 
better. So we'll see.

For instance, what do you guys think of defense and 
scoring at point guard? I think it looks marginally 
better, given our style of play. I didnt trust Kennys 
spot-up shot or defense as much as I trust his 
replacements. Rebounding is a concern though. 

How about small forward? The EWill/Kedrick combination 
looks about the same on defense and rebounding as last 
year. It won't be much worse, and it could be far better 
if both stay healthy.

At center, we don't have a 6-7 backup anymore. We're not 
quite worse off in any of the three categories (defense, 
rebounding, scoring). Battie can play defense, and he's 
another guy just entering his prime.

All of that adds up to one additional win, possibly two
getting me up to 47 or 48 wins. 

The other three or four additional wins (51 total) comes 
in my view from the maturity and leadership of the 
franchise players. This is their first of four or five 
upcoming prime seasons, health permitting (knock 
furiously on wood). 

Having said that, I'm convinced you won't see any kind of 
dramatic "smoothing out" of their stats. Walker's NOT 
going to shoot .500 from the field. Hell have a good 
year though.

But what Im saying here is that the captains finally 
know the little things that turn into wins. We can thank 
the Rogers-Delk rental trade for giving them that playoff 
experience. 

They didnt have it. Now they do.

They won 57 games last year together. They won a deciding 
5th games against their greatest Eastern rival. They 
clinched two playoff series together. They came through 
in the biggest comeback in NBA playoff history. They 
eviscerated double figure Nets leads in every game they 
appeared in. 

I think they've actually absorbed something about winning 
from all that. 

This is a stars' league, other factors (apart from 
chemistry) being relatively trivial. You can still win 
with a thin bench AND with Iavaronis' and Rambis' and 
Eric Williams' starting. And everyone suddenly looks like 
an incredibly valuable "role player" when you've got the 
stars up front. That's why teams overpay for Tyrone Lues 
and that other chump the Lakers re-signed for the full 
exception.

If Walker and Pierce come to play like they learned to do 
in last year great stretch run and playoffs, we will be a 
better team than last year. These two guys are 25-years-
old and set to go. They are both outstanding young 
players in terms of temperament and talent. They just 
needed to experience winning, and learn the little 
veteran tricks it takes to defeat similarly talented, but 
inexperienced opponents. 

Joe H.

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