Re: Jersey

[Frederick Hurley <Frederick.T.Hurley.Jr.01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My thinking on this is that perhaps Pierce feels like he is the only 
one on the team who has a lot of "crunch time" experience, at least 
over the last few seasons.  With Kenny Andersonlong gone, and now 
Antoine, it wouldn't be unexpected for Pierce to feel a little more 
pressure to make ALL the big shots.  If you were a veteran, would you 
particularly trust that Kedrick, Banks, Battie, et al are better at 
making a big shot than you?  Maybe Baker would be an obvious #2 option 
down the stretch, but he has a couple more months of this type of play 
before he begins to really regain some stature as a big-time player.  
Perhaps as he further establishes his role as the #2 guy, and proves he 
really is back, the Paul will feel less pressure to try and shoulder 
the entire crunch-time load.

On Nov 7, 2003, at 10:04 PM, Douglas342@xxxxxxx wrote:

>    A small problem which will, I hope, go away, is the feeling near 
> the end
> of the game that I can sort of describe like this:  "Wow, it's real 
> close, but
> it's nervous time, so I guess we better get it to Paul, our main man 
> who can
> save us."  And Paul has his mantra too:  "It's crunch time, and the 
> guys have
> played well, but this is what they pay me for, so bring it on."  He 
> then tried
> to dribble up the floor and gets stripped.  End of game.
>      I knew that this season, or at least the first part of it, would 
> be a
> step backwards.  I still like what I see overall.  This was, despite 
> the result,
> a tremendously entertaining game .