Re: Thoughts on the Bucks game

[Kestutis.Kveraga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kestutis Kveraga)]

--- Mark Berry wrote:
... Finally, a nod to Obie. I hate Obieball and his stubborn streaks and blind
loyalty to certain players, and his utter disdain for other players. Having
said that, the Bucks announcers said something last night that was interesting
(see Tommy, it can be done!). They relayed a comment made by Mike Gorman before
the game. Apparently Mike told the Bucks announcers that Obie inspires more
loyalty from his players than any coach during Mike's tenure with the Celtics.
Now, the Celts haven't had a who's who of coaches over the past 20 years, but I
still thought that was interesting, and something to keep in mind. 
--- end of quote ---

Then again, Mike thinks the world of Obie. But I agree: getting the respect and
loyalty of his players is Obie's strongest attribute. 

--- Mark Berry wrote:
They talked about how Obie will never criticize a player in the media (other
than Ricky Davis and Chris Mihm, apparently - take that, Danny), but will come
down hard on them in practice. 
--- end of quote ---

You should've heard Obie talk about Ricky last night. Someone from the Celtics
press corps asked him how he thought Ricky played (in that reverential, almost
whisper-like, we-are-in-a-sanctuary, in-the-presence-of-the-Almighty tone that
they use to address Obie). Obie grimmaced as though he had bitten into a rotten
tomato and spit out: "He was alright. He scored the ball". The worshiper then
offered something about Ricky's scoring 33 points, but Obie was clearly having
none of this Rickyfest. The scribe finally got the cue and asked Obie if Ricky
didn't defend well. Obie, being Obie, refused to point the finger at Ricky
explicitly, but was happy to do so implicitly, again reiterating that he did OK
scoring, but that nobody defended well and went on to imply that Ricky missed a
lot of rotations and assignments. 

I'm sure he wasn't too happy with Mihm's silly fouls, and if McCarty or JJ had
been able to hit the broad side of a barn, Chris would not have seen the light
of day in the second half. On the bright side, Blount had 13 rebounds (I didn't
think he was capable of it) and scored well. He's made a lot of progress in the
last few years, that's for sure. 

Anyway, I agree with Mark that you can't really blame Obie for this loss. He
was right in that the defense was pretty atrocious. Compounding that, of
course, were the offensive troubles of Jiri and Waltuh (and JJ, but he was only
brought in because the first two were horrible). Obie actually yanked a few
guys, including Jiri, Banks, and McCarty(!) after they took a bad shot. Jiri
was frustrated with the whole world, slamming a chair at one point during a
timeout. It was an off night for too many guys. Hopefully, it will swing back
to normal and they can sweep Houston tonight. 
Kestas