Well, that was disappointing ...

[Frederick Hurley]

On Thu, November 2, 2006 9:12 am, Steve Ouellette wrote:
> The part of last night's awful game that I hated the most (other than the
> wretched free throw shooting), was the fourth quarter offense. I don't
> blame Pierce, except for one possession where he tried to drive through a
> triple team, but every possession everyone on the Celtics tried to force
> the ball to Pierce.
>
> It was like a high school game where the regular players give it to their
> star and step back. Gomes passed open a wide open 15-footer to throw it
> back out to Pierce. Delonte passed up a wide open three. Telfair had a
> clear lane to the basket, but tried to figure out a way to get the ball to
> a triple-teamed Pierce. I think Wally would have shot the ball, but no one
> would give it to him.

I hate to say it, because I tend to like Doc, and think he's a nice,
affable guy, who seems to be just generally a decent sort.  One of my
least favorite things about sports is thinking a coach should be fired,
because they make way less than the players, and tend to be older guys
with families, and god help me if the public got to vote on my job on a
bad day.  But I feel like all of the problems with last night's game,
free-throw shootng aside, were problems that coaching could have fixed, or
at least improved.  A coach who wants the young guys to be part of the
team would impress upon them the importance of seizing their
opportunities, right?  I am 100% willing to accept the often silly
mistakes of young players.  I'd LOVE to watch a young team make mistakes
and learn from them, knowing that what I was REALLY watching was the
forging of a winner, but I don't see that.  Of course, we'll see how
Friday goes.  Maybe the emotion of the evening did get to them, or playing
in front of all those guys who have numbers hanging from the ceiling. 
We'll see.  But I still say they're easily a playoff team, and maybe a
first-round winner, with a better coach.   :-(