Philly game

[bird <birdw@xxxxxxx>]

Man, oh man, I do so love beating the Sixers.  Especially the day after 
their NFL franchise bites it.

That was a great second-half to watch.  Down by 20, come back win on a 
Pierce surge and an Antoine Walker three to win.  Just great.  But, to 
appease the critical side of me, I'll mention that we need more than 
"Give the ball to Paul Pierce" as a play in crunch minutes.  When he 
comes through, it's great, but we milked it too long without 
diversifying the offense.  It was when Walker again touched the ball 
with the intention to score that we were bailed out.  Oh, and the 
larger issue of Walkerpierce playing time, much less reliance -- 
Piercewalker was like 73% of our offense -- sill exists.  Without these 
guys operating at this level, we don't win.

Then again, we really miss Tony Battie.  Who knew we could ever say 
that?  But it's almost undeniably true, imo.  Baker again played well, 
but didn't look really good, either.  Still, I'd be pleased if we get 
this out of him consistently.  Eight rebounds is very good.  But 
Battie's defensive presence to this team cannot be overemphasized.  Two 
Baker plays stuck out at me; a) when he allowed Van Horn to block his 
shot at the rim, and b) when he just missed blocking some Philly 
player's shot (Mckie?  I forget) in the fourth (I think).  The last one 
was a good effort, he didn't go for the fake and timed it well, it 
seems, but the ball crept over his hand.  I just remember thinking that 
Vin Baker may just have lost what spring he had in his step.  Oh, well, 
like I said, he played pretty well for the second game in a row, he 
deserves credit.

Bremer, once again, impressed.  Brown also looked active, and I'm not 
looking a double-double each time out, so I'm satisfied.  Wallah hit a 
big three down the stretch.  Shammond under-performed, he's obviously 
in his own funk.  Nary a sign of Sundov after playing well in the last 
game I saw.  And EWill, as seemingly always, did a yeoman job and had a 
decent all-around stat line.  As for Grant "Long, Grey Beard" he looked 
a little lost, but recovered faster on defense than I remembered.  The 
refs called him for many a foul, all but the one defensive block (that, 
my friends, was a charge) I thought were warranted -- this can be good 
or bad in a backup big man.  For now, I prefer to keep an open mind and 
go with the idea that he's at least active for a big guy.  I still 
would have preferred a better shotblocker, though.  Oh, well, Grant 
"Long-in-the-Tooth" it is.

I also liked Walker's not-so-subtle interference between Pierce and the 
refs before, during, and after the "T".  He also seemed to go over the 
the official (Sean Corbin?) and discuss it after.  And I really enjoyed 
the finger-to-the-lips at the end.  Yes.  Yes, I did.  Because the guys 
who deserve the last word tonight are Antoine Walker, Paul Pierce and 
the Celtics.

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin... .

Bird