Telfair --- what's the point?

[Eric Albert]

Telfair's been showing me a lot.  Unfortunately, it's all bad.

I guess we can put down the unforced turnovers (stepping
out of bounds, palming, dribbling off his foot) to nerves, or
trying too hard to impress.  Though, after two years in the
league, you'd think he could muster as much calm as our
rookie point.  But what's killing me is that I see no sign --
none -- of a pass-first, creating point guard.

Telfair seems far too content to dribble the ball up the
court, rather than to make the simple pass.  Partially
because of this, the Celtics play half-court most of the
time he's at the point.  When they do this, he spends
an inordinate amount of time dribbling.  (He could learn a
big lesson from Wally about getting rid of the ball.)

If he finally does pass, it's just around the horn; it does
nothing to improve the offense.  When he dribbles, which
is often, he's almost always looking for his own offense,
which is mediocre.  The few times that he's dished at the
last moment, the player who's gotten the ball hasn't had
a good shot.  Oh, and he's *way* too willing to take an
outside shot, when his shooting percentage doesn't
support it.

This is why Telfair had only one assist in game one.  I don't
know where he got the four in game two -- I didn't see them.
Must be the same friendly scorekeeper who gave him only
four turnovers in game two; I counted at least six myself.

What's particularly galling is how Telfair's failed to run the
fast break.  On at least three occasions, the Celtics have
been off to the races, with numbers, and the ball in
Telfair's hand.  In all three cases, the Celtics failed to get
a basket.  (Once they got a foul.)

I was hoping to see Telfair manufacture easy baskets and
fast breaks out of nothing.  I was not expecting to see him
fail to capitalize on fast breaks that the average point
guard would finish off with ease.

You know who Telfair has been reminding me of, especially
when he was knocking down those threes?  Evil Toine.  A
guy who has some skills, and occasionally pulls off a
sparkling play, but who all too often hogs the ball because
he has too high an opinion of himself, and not enough trust
in his teammates.

Please tell me I'm wrong!

-- Eric