New wrinkles to iron out

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

New wrinkles to iron out
Practices pushed full steam ahead
By Shira Springer, Globe Staff, 10/26/2003

WALTHAM -- The next few weeks, maybe even months, will be a learning
experience for the Celtics as the players adjust to a new offense and new
acquisitions. There will be many days like yesterday, a two-hour-plus practice
in which coach Jim O'Brien worked on different parts of the game. At first he
was reluctant to divulge his practice plan, though eventually he relented,
slightly.

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"We're trying to do everything, just making sure our guys know our plays and
they're getting what we want," said O'Brien. "We went through a lot of
shooting, a lot of foul shooting, and we worked on our full-court pressure. We
worked on our press."

O'Brien will continue to hold intense daily practices until the regular season
starts Wednesday against Miami. He has been happy with what he's seen since
the Antoine Walker/Raef LaFrentz trade with Dallas last week.

"I think we're making good strides," said O'Brien. "You really feel like
you've got to spend so much time teaching what we're doing. It's just not Raef
and Jiri [Welsch]. It's Vin [Baker], instead of backing a player up at power
forward, is now starting at power forward.

"There are a lot of different situations that we've got to kind of get in a
groove on. We just want to maintain our defensive intensity as we move on."

Count the ways

With the final exhibition game in the books as of Friday, director of
basketball operations Danny Ainge reflected on what he observed. He said there
were no disappointments, just weaknesses he must address. And there were, by
his count, four pleasant surprises.

"I would say Vin and Kedrick [Brown] and Paul Pierce," said Ainge. "When I say
Paul, everybody knows what a great player he is, but I think that his work
ethic and his leadership skills, his leadership by example, has been an
incredible surprise. Everyone said he was a good guy and he worked hard. And
he does work hard.

"Then, I'd say another pleasant surprise from my perspective is just how hard
our team plays and how hard they work, day in and day out. And that's a credit
to Jim O'Brien.

"Those are four of the real bright spots that I see."

On the rebound

Eric Williams was particularly aggressive on the glass during the exhibition
season. "I think our guys are doing a nice job rebounding, both offensively
and defensively," said O'Brien. "Certainly, what was a weakness for us in the
past, we can hopefully build into a strength because we should be able to have
two big guys on the court at any given time." The Celtics averaged 40.3
rebounds during the exhibition season. "That's the only way we're going to be
able to compete, if we rebound," said Williams. "We've got a whole set of big
guys that can come in there and bang out. But I think that our smaller guys,
the small forwards, the shooting guards and the point guards are making the
extra effort to try and get some loose rebounds and help our team so we can
get out on the run." . . . Pierce and Tony Battie missed practice. Both have
ankle injuries, but O'Brien said they should be fine, probably by today.

Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx