Another loss to a bad team

[Kim Malo]

At 11:22 PM 12/6/2006, Eric Albert wrote:
>I know Al got a dozen boards, but I continue to see him
>as a very soft rebounder.  If no one's on him, or the ball
>falls cleanly into his hands, he'll grab it.  If the ball's above
>his head, he taps it, and rarely controls the results.  If
>someone else is fighting him, that someone else usually
>wins.  Al just has below-average hands.  They're not
>Blount-level hands, but they're way below Perk or Pierce.

Not tonight, he wasn't getting soft rebounds. And he's cut way back 
on slapping rather than grabbing this season. Clearly someone's been 
working with him on it, for the first time as far as I can tell, 
which is why I suspect Clifford Ray's influence there. And you've 
just got to be kidding about hands. I love Perk, but I have no idea 
how on earth you can consider Al's hands way below his, much less 
below average. Al's great hands were one of the first things that 
stood out about him. Now, there's hands and then there's 
technique/focus/inexperience. He IS capable of getting the ball 
swatted away through inexperienced/not smart play, or like so many of 
his teammates have trouble handling passes from certain others of his 
teammates, but even there Perk is so much more susceptible I just 
don't get the negative comparison.

I'm with Cecil. On a night when we specifically badly needed him to 
stop up he did. That's huge. Not just that he played well but that he 
did it under pressure when we needed him to. Al stepping up under 
pressure isn't something we'd normally expect up until now. He also 
played reasonable defense, certainly much better than he usually 
does. My only issue was two dumb fouls of the sort he should have 
been consciously avoiding tonight more than any other time - the 
first one where he went for an obvious fake and the second where he 
was up to his old trick of trying to draw charges. Not tonight Al. 
Even if you get it, not worth the risk. But even with those, he 
managed to give us what we needed from him with Perk down - minutes, 
and useful ones at that. And that was the only dumb charge attempt 
when he usually has several per game, so clearly someone said 
something and clearly he took it to heart.

I suspect his play went down a bit after the scintillating start in 
part because he lost flow and starting worrying too much about fouls 
after getting pulled when he got two. And this isn't a time when I'm 
criticizing Doc for pulling him - he needed to. And I also think his 
offensive numbers were down from where they might have been based on 
that start for that reason and also because a) Doc again had him out 
on the high post a lot, which isn't to anyone's benefit - he's not a 
good enough passer to help out there and his offense is inside and b) 
they may have drilled into him to focus on the other things this game 
because they needed him to and inside banging runs the risk of 
getting an offensive foul instead and c) per usual the issue is 
feeling him the ball regularly - and while they did at first, once he 
was benched and came back it went back to same old same old.

>If Al's going to be a potent weapon, he's going to need
>to do it on the offensive end.

No, he IS a weapon there. They need to use him more when he's out 
there and it's the other things he has to step up so it's not a bit 
of Hobson's choice on playing him.

>The Celtics should be looking
>for him to score 20 a night, if he's playing 30+ minutes.

And that's the big problem with him on offense - they need to feed 
him. Just like the need to feed Green when he's hot (why the hell was 
that next to last possession wasted on Rondo who can't shoot to 
Pierce to Rondo to Pierce to....   ignoring the guy whose shooting 
got us back into it and who was open on the weak side.

BTW, nice to hear the crowd actually cheer Scal for probably the 
first time since his initial introduction as a Celtic, when he came 
off the court and honestly deserved it for some clutch shooting plus 
some of the little stuff. Also nice to hear the Garden rock a bit 
there at the end. Even though 1/3 or more of the crowd (and it wasn't 
exactly a sell out) left half way through the 4th when it looked like 
more of the same, when they started that come back, that place got 
LOUD. Much louder half full than I've heard it most of the time with 
a full crowd.

Kim