Celts-Spurs

[Kestas <kkv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What a horrible game tonight for the Celts. The Celtics stif...err, big 
guys were having a lot of trouble with SA's big front line - yes, even the 
infamous Ernest Brown was outplaying our guys. Then again, Bruno was our 
center, God help us. My biggest pet peeve was that Conner seemed to be 
running an affirmative action program for BWS and other guys I had no 
interest in seeing. Only later, upon reading the box score, did I find out 
that a lot of the guys I wanted to see - like Kendrick - were injured. 
NBATV's announcers couldn't be bothered to tell us that. But they did 
tell  us that the Celtics have re-signed Corey (sic!) Blount and that Bruno 
was a rookie last year (hard to blame them for that impression, though).

Speaking of the players I DID want to see, my first sighting of Banks 
impressed me the most - which is not saying a lot, given the quality of the 
team's play tonight. As advertised, Banks really is amazingly quick and 
fast. He does seem to a have a point guard mentality, although he did not 
really control the game the way a true PG should. But at least he can make 
an entry pass, unlike our "point guards" last year. His penetration skills 
seem to be top notch, but he did not always finish it off well, and of 
course it remains to be seen whether he can similarly penetrate at will 
against NBA starters. His outside shot is shaky, and he gets out of control 
sometimes. Surprisingly, he did not seem to work very hard - or well - on 
defense. He looks pretty short, but obviously has a huge vertical, as his 
attempted flying dunk over several people demonstrated. His handle looked 
solid as well. He does appear to have oodles of confidence and cockiness - 
maybe even more than Toine, which is saying a lot. The summer team was 
undoubtedly HIS - even the veteran roster players were clearly under his 
command. If Toine doesn't get shipped off before then, this will be an 
interesting situation to watch.

Brandon Hunter - worked hard, but the knock on him as a too-short PF is 
correct. He couldn't finish against much bigger SA front line several times 
because of his lack of "length". Still, he got 4x as many rebounds as Bruno 
despite being 8 inches shorter. He's basically a more athletic Danny Fortson.

Kedrick - showed a nice J several times and his usual "ups" on rebounds. 
His D was pretty crappy; whoever was driving at him for SA got wherever he 
wanted to go at will. I don't see him being a major contributor next season 
either, unless they run a lot, which he seems willing to do.

Bremer couldn't throw it in the Dorchester Bay. While he was in for Banks 
at PG, the offense ground to a complete halt (in the second  q.). SA ran 
off like 15 straight points and never looked back afterwards.

David, Recker, Sundov -  Conner had to play someone with so many injured 
players, although I'm not sure why it had to be Sundov. Even David and 
Recker showed a lot more spunk than Bruno, who was a total stiff. Oh well, 
at he least he got really pissed when his dunk attempt was deflected and 
just belted the first SA guy (it was some small guard) that he came near at 
the other end. Should have been ejected for that one. I wish he put as much 
anger into his rebounding (2 rebs in 27 mins). If we had to have a white 
stiff on our roster, the MJ of Hungary would be a lot more useful (then 
again, the same goes for a crash test dummy).

Looking forward to seeing the whole game tonight - DirecTV changed NBATV's 
channel, so I missed the first quarter while trying to figure out what 
happened to Ch. 720. For those of you who have DirecTV and don't know it 
yet, it's now on Ch. 601 (apologize to those who can't get it at all!).
Kestas