View from the top: So far, Ainge encouraged by point guard play, depth

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

View from the top: So far, Ainge encouraged by point guard play, depth
By Steve Bulpett
Sunday, November 16, 2003

Nine games into the season, Danny Ainge has taken stock of the Celtics and
reached some conclusions. Among them are that the point guard situation is
better than he thought, that the Paul Pierce [news] problem is a team problem,
and that a good playoff team can be molded out of the ingredients presently on
hand.

     On the first point, the director of basketball operations has pretty much
ceased his search for a veteran to guide the club and help develop Marcus
Banks [news].

     ``Yeah, I've changed my thought on that because I'm really encouraged by
the way Mike James [news] has played for us, and I'm really encouraged by what
I see in Marcus in practice and in spots,'' Ainge said. ``And we have a third
option in Jiri (Welsch). It's good to get him some minutes there in case we
have an injury and we need another point guard. I think he's really going to
be able to play there eventually, and he's helping us already.''

     The second issue has come to the forefront because Pierce is the Celts'
remaining All-Star after the Antoine Walker [news] trade, and he has struggled
at times with shot selection and turnovers during crunch time.

     Ainge sees the fault elsewhere.

     ``You know what? I really believe the single biggest issue with Paul is
that the rest of the players have got to step up and have confidence,'' he
said. ``I really believe that's it. I believe that the guys are so trained in
the things that we run that we just look for the last options, which is
usually Paul, and we're not looking at the options beforehand.

     ``We're not looking to take advantage of Kedrick (Brown). We're not
looking to give anybody else any opportunities early in our offensive set
except Eric (Williams) and Paul. I'd like to see those other guys gain enough
confidence in themselves to make plays. It's not (coach) Jim O'Brien's fault.
I'd like to see Kedrick and Jumaine (Jones) and Mike James and other people
step up.

     ``We've seen the evolution of Mark Blount's offensive game from last year
to this year. He's playing with confidence. I don't even care if he misses
some shots; he's shooting when he's open and he's passing when he isn't. I'd
like to see that same evolution - which I see in practice and which I see on
occasion in games - with Jiri, Kedrick, Raef (LaFrentz) and Tony Battie. They
all show it in spurts, but they have to be thinking, `Hey, Paul's not open,
I'll take it. I'll go run a two-man game.' ''

     As for the latter matter, Ainge knows the Celtics aren't presently loaded
for championship bear, but he's optimistic. He was asked point blank if he
thinks the Celtics are equipped to make a playoff run.

     ``Today, no,'' he said. ``But I'm hoping we get there. I'm hoping these
guys get better. I believe in these players, and I believe that these guys are
all going to get better.

     ``I believe we're going to get Raef healthier and playing better. Mark
Blount's really playing good for us. Battie had a nice game (Friday). I
believe Paul's going to play better than he's playing. The encouraging thing
to me is I feel that we're not playing great. We're playing solid defense and
our offense is up and down - and really bad at times. I feel we can get so
much better, and I think we are.''

     The search for the right mix was evident in Friday's 91-82 win over
Cleveland when O'Brien inserted Jones, a ``DNP'' in the previous three games,
into the starting lineup and used Welsch as the main backup at the point to
James.

     ``I think that Jim is trying to find out who he has,'' Ainge said. ``We
didn't really have Jiri in exhibition season, and Jumaine was hurt a lot of
the time. So Jim's trying to figure out who Jumaine and Jiri are. . . . I like
what Jiri does for our passing game. He moves the ball really well. He can
space the floor. He's an excellent decision maker.

     ``I personally think the way we play makes it extremely hard on our point
guards - all of them, whether it's Jiri, Marcus or Mike James - because we
give them so much responsibility for getting us into our offense.''

     After seeing what the Celtics have thus far, Ainge is putting the
responsibility for later success on the players he has now.
Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx