Re: Pride of ownership

[Tammo29@xxxxxxx]

> NOBODY, outside of Wallace or Papile think THAT highly of 
>Walker.  I respect his effort; he competes... Kenyon Martin flat out owning 
>>him notwithstanding.

  I know that writing back to back posts critical of Antoine opens me up to 
the Walker hater label but something has been bothering me lately and this 
sentence about Walker's effort just seemed like the perfect opportunity to 
talk about it.

After game one when Eric Williams said he and Paul had been talking about the 
need to be more physical with the Nets, just to make them a little 
uncomfortable, reporters went to Antoine and he pretty much said he wasn't 
going to be part of it.
He said something about how he couldn't "afford" to be more physical because 
he wasn't Paul Pierce or Kobe Bryant.  Now I know that Antoine fouled out of 
game one, but 3 of those fouls came in the last 10 minutes of the game and it 
looked to me like at least two of those were frustration fouls.  And how many 
times have we seen Paul on the bench in the first half because of early cheap 
fouls? Numerous.  Many more than Antoine.
 How many times has Antoine fouled out?  Three, maybe four?  Out of 78?  It's 
not like he has some sort of history of fouling out of games.
This just really struck me the wrong way.  It was almost like he was looking 
for an excuse not to be physical.  Then in the last game, a game in which the 
Celtics were called for 27 personal fouls, Antoine played 41 minutes and 
didn't pick up his second foul until there were six minutes left in the game. 
 Kenyon Martin was going backdoor, dunking on lobs, beating Antoine done the 
floor routinely.  Yet Antoine never once just reached out to slow him down, 
or intentionally fouled him to stop an easy basket.  Not once.  It was always 
left for someone else to do.  Martin is shooting just 62% from the free throw 
line in this series.  Why wouldn't you make him earn his points from the line 
instead of letting him walk in uncontested?
I guess what I'm saying is that I disagree with the statement that Walker has 
put forth complete effort.  I have no doubt he wants to win, but wanting to 
win and doing everything in your power to make it happen are two different 
things.
There are things he could be doing that he isn't.  
Sure, he's only shooting 29% from the floor, 17% from the arc, and 57% from 
the free throw line in this series.  But what's worse is that he's down to 3 
assists a game from 4.8, and just .33 steals from 1.6. At the same time 
Martin is shooting 56% in this series after shooting 49% against the Bucks 
and 47% for the season.
Either Martin has become a superstar in the last week and a half, or 
Antoine's refusal to get tough with him has let him look like one. 
 I definitely think Antoine could be playing harder.



TAM