Scalacrappi

[Eric Albert]

I felt the same way as Kim: it was surprising (OK, astounding) to see
how fundamentally sound Scalabrine looked.  Maybe it's just because
the Celtics have lowered the bar so far.  But he played hard and
honest defense, made some decent passes, and did nothing stupid.
Really, I felt he was a calming influence.  There's now no question I'd
rather have him out there than Tony Allen.  Again, that may just
say how bad things have gotten.

Also, Olowokandi looked pretty good, both on defense and offense.
In fact, he seemed to be really trying.  (And no one on the list was
more down on Kandi than I was after his play last year and during the
preseason.)  Frankly, he looked much more like a center than Perk
has so far.

Nice to see Gomes back in his fill-up-the-stat-sheet groove.  And
to see D. West getting an extended chance to run the offense,
which I thought he did pretty well.  He's the point most willing to
pass it up the floor, and, even when he doesn't, he at least dribbles
*quickly* up the floor.  Even that small amount of effort puts
*some* pressure on the opponent's defense.

I have no idea why Rondo got zero minutes.  This is how Doc drives
players, and fans, crazy.  And someone on the list (Mark?  Steve?)
has already been proved prescient: he said Doc would play Delonte
10 minutes one game and 30 the next.  Previous game: 11 minutes.
Tonight: 24.  DON'T TELL ME IT'S MATCHUPS.

-- Eric

>At 08:51 PM 11/8/2006, ryan nelson wrote:
>>i see he is having a career game at half time.  10 minutes, 0-1 from the
>>floor, and 3 personal fouls.  Amazing.  I would make a joke about him
>>being 0 for 1 and raising his career shooting percentage but I'm not
>>sure that is even funny.  Doc has to go, he has to.  This is just
>>embarrassing.
>
>Kim Malo wrote:
> 
>Just curious - do you actually watch the game or are you watching it 
>by boxscore? My guess is by boxscore, and this is a classic example 
>of why that's not really reliable. That's why I never comment on 
>games when I'm reduced to that.
>
>Because I'm no fan of Scalabrini, but he actually had an overall 
>useful game, mostly based in things that would never appear on the 
>boxscore. Honestly one of his better games as a Celtic, low as that 
>bar may be. He drew a few fouls we had no business getting, helping 
>to get them into the penalty early. His own fouls came because he was 
>genuinely playing hard, physical body up defense and getting away 
>with more of it than Perk was.
>
>He was the only one to quickly move to provide an outlet when someone 
>on our team got trapped with the ball (this BTW is one of the 
>fundamentals with the Cs that has driven me crazy the past few years 
>- if someone is getting into trouble then go out and give him someone 
>to dish off to, don't just stand around and watch until it's too 
>late). He was helping on defense, including trapping the PG in the 
>back court and honestly doing so usefully, even when it only lead to 
>time off the clock vs an actual turnover. Cripes, he ran to keep a 
>trap operating on their PG on one play along the sidelines and 
>actually kept up with him. And when he helped double and switch on 
>regular defense he wasn't slow on his rotations and rotations back to 
>leave other guys constantly exposed. While he really only took one 
>ill advised shot. Perfect or all-star quality? No, of course not. But 
>useful to have out there in a number of small, intelligent basketball 
>ways that were the sort of thing Ainge thought he was getting with 
>him and when we needed some minutes from him up front with Al out? 
>Yeah, pains me to say so but he was.