Re: Hornets' dominance on boards sinks Green

[Tammo29@xxxxxxx]

>>>Well, he's right for the most part. Except for the Wesley-Pierce matchup, 
they
effectively ARE bigger and stronger.<<<<<<<<

Except Lynch was on Pierce for the most part and Pierce guarded Lynch quite a 
bit too.  When Lynch was out it was Augmon, also 6'8".  Kedrick started and 
had Wesley.  That's were the mismatch was, with Kedrick, and I believe with 
Jiri too.  Kedrick had two rebounds in 20 minutes.  Jiri had zero in 13.  But 
despite O'Brien's complaints to the contrary, the rebounding battle wasn't lost 
with the guards.  The Hornets starting backcourt had a total of four rebounds 
between them.  Armstrong had 3 off the bench.


>>>>The coach absolved, sort of, the big guys, who were manhandled by Jamaal
Magloire and P.J. Brown on Wednesday. Instead, he said, the perimeter players
were not doing their job in getting to loose ball rebounds, most of which
ended up in opposition hands.

As O'Brien put it, "A number of times, our bigs hit people and the ball hit
the floor. Their team got the basketball. So, the question is, where are your
perimeter people? They're not in position."<<<<<<<

>>>>>``You can't say that our centers or power forwards are the ones who have
to do the job, because if anything it's our perimeter guys who are not
executing what we want - which is pursuing the ball,'' O'Brien said. ``Where
are our perimeter players? They're not in position. We gave up four offensive
rebounds off free throws, and that's something we haven't done over the first
nine regular-season games and eight exhibition games combined.''<<<<<<<

This is a complete joke.  Blount had zero rebounds.  Zero.  Baker had 5.  
That's one more than Pierce, one more than Eric, one more than Marcus.  Brown and 
Magloire had a total of 16 offensive rebounds between them.  That has to be 
some sort of record, and he's letting the big men off the hook? 
When one big guy was being hit, as O'Brien wants to call it,  it was another 
big guy picking up the ball.  Battie has a horrible problem with timing and it 
shows in almost every game.  When he misjudges he leaves his guy free to go 
after the ball unabated.  Blount is just plain slow. And he cost his teammates 
rebounds at least twice in that game by knocking the ball out of their hands.  
Baker is showing marked improvement, but he isn't athletic enough to stay 
with guys like Brown and Magloire.
The Hornets shot some ugly free throws.  Of the four offensive rebounds given 
up on free throws two of them were balls that bounced high in the air and 
were gathered in by Hornets big men, Magloire and Brown.  Another was fought over 
by three Celtics and eventually won by Brown, while Blount stood and watched. 
 The fourth was another high ball that Eric had in his hands and just slipped 
out right to the shooter, Wesley, as he turned to go the other way.
Of the 24 offensive rebounds given up, 22 of them were to forwards and 
centers.  Only two were to guards.
After the game O'Brien complained about the long rebounds and the guards not 
being in place to get them.  But when you have your guards crashing the boards 
when the shot goes up because your big men aren't good rebounders, then they 
aren't going to be on the perimeter to get long rebounds.
It's just ridiculous to assume they will.  You don't know when a shot goes up 
if the rebound will be long.  And if you're a guard playing on the perimeter 
and you're told you need to rebound, you can't wait until the shot comes off 
the rim to react.
O'Brien is giving mixed messages here.  He either wants his team to play 
position rebounding,  staying with your defensive assignment and boxing out, or he 
wants them to persue the ball.  He can't have it both ways.  To blame the 
guards for this teams lack of rebounding when your 7 footer comes away with zero 
rebounds is just laughable. 

As for the offense being the problem, not rebounding?
Let's throw free throws out of the equation since both teams made 16.
Let's also throw out turnovers since they were about equal.
The Hornets took 82 shots and hit 37% of them.
The Celtics took 64 shots and hit 41% of them.

24 offensive rebounds means 24 more opportunitites.
The way I figure it, and Lord knows I'm no math major, the Hornets probably 
converted on an extra 8.9 attempts for at least another 17 points.
If the Celtics had gotten those rebounds they could have had another 24 
attempts worth 9.8 conversions for at least another 19 points.  That's a 
possibility of a 36 point swing. Considering we lost by 8, I would have liked our 
chances.


TAM