Algebra, Calculus, Trig, and NBA winning strategies

[Patrick.Ryan at westover.af.mil]

I've been thinking about Gilbert Arenas.

 

No, not in the dreamy "isn't he wonderful" kind of way - yeesh...

 

The Wizard's Agent Zero has made the proclamation that the way to beat
the Celtics is to run, run, and run some more. I'm not entirely sure
that's correct. Last year such a strategy was tailor made to beat the
Celtics - not based on speed or age, but upon terrible transition
defense and a proclivity to turn the ball over as the Celtics themselves
got caught up in a fast pace.

 

This year, those two aspects - transition defense and turnovers are
greatly reduced because of the following reasons:

 

1.       Rondo at the point.  We all love Delonte, but he was not a
transition defender at any level. He was pretty good at half court help
defense, but really wasn't built to "keep the man in front of him" in
either the fast break OR the half court. Rondo is much better at those
aspects and perhaps his strongest asset is his hand quickness - time
after time he deflects passes - especially on the break by generally
just being a pest. This forces teams to pull the ball back out much more
then against past Celtics teams - which brings me to...

2.       KG.  Simply stated he doesn't have an "off" button. He doesn't
even have a pause button (no idea if he has an SAP button - would be
cool to find out though).  I don't buy for one minute that he has lost
so much to age that he won't be going as fast in the fourth quarter as
he did in the first quarter. Nothing over his career demonstrates that.
He consistently beats his man down the floor on both offense and
defense. In simple terms - he is way better in an up-tempo game than
anyone on the Wizards team - Arenas included. 

3.       Depth at certain areas.  Okay, Agent Zero - you're right in one
way - if the Celts go to a lineup of Pollard, Scal, Posey, House, and
Pruitt you'll decimate us. We Celtics fans are hoping, praying Doc isn't
that dumb.  However, if, as stated, you're counting on Ray Allen's
ankles to simply disintegrate under the pounding of a running game let
me introduce to a word of four letters: rest.  The Celtics may be way
undermanned at the PF/C spot (BUT see point#2); however if there's a
spot we have depth AND talent - it's the 2/3 spot. Pierce/R.Allen/J.
Posey/T.Allen/E. House.  You might be able to run one guy if that was
all we had, but we can rotate four guys in there and still feel pretty
confident we're not losing near as much ability as we did bringing G.
Green out there last year. 

 

I'm not saying the Wizards can't beat us.  They have the PF/C beef and
depth along with a top 3 in the league scorer in Arenas to win any game.
I'm just not sure the running game is the best way to do it. In fact,
I'd preach the opposite. I think the best way to beat this Celtics team
is to be physical, bruising, slow down, slog it out, old style
Knicks/Pistons type team. Drag them into a game of fouls and frontcourt
depth, make Garnett play a lot of center and harass the heck out of both
Rondo and whoever else is bringing up the ball.  THAT to me is the
formula to beat this particular Celtics team.