Apology and comments

[Ryan W]

What "growing pains" are you talking about?  We're
winning by 15 points a night!  Until these so called
growing pains actually contribute to losing a game,
all your Paul bashing amounts to BS.  He may have
taken like 5 bad shots so far, but he's earned that
rope, especially when those shots have come when he's
absolutely dominating the quarter.  And with the
lineup we have around him, we can afford Paul being
Paul because either he'll make that questionable shot
(because he is Paul F-ing Pierce after all), or KG
will get the rebound, or we'll stop them on the other
end. 

Paul has taken constructive criticism from Doc the
last 3 seasons and become a more complete player and
there's nothing, absolutely nothing, to indicate he
will or has even begun trending in the opposite
direction, especially given the situation he currently
finds himself in.  He's saying all the right things in
the press, committing himself to defense and guarding
the other team's top offensive player while letting
the offense come to him.  Paul needs to be Paul and
not some idealized robotic player for this team to win
the championship and after 5 games he's right on
track.  I have no worries about him.  None.  

As for his commitment to defense, here are the other
team's best wing players and what they've scored
against Pierce (mostly) in the first five games:

Game 1:

Butler: 18 points
Pierce: 28 points

Game 2: 

Kapono: 10 points
Pierce: 13 points

Game 3:

Anthony: 11 points
Pierce: 26 points

Game 4: 

J. Johnson: 16 points
Pierce: 23 points

Game 5:

Jefferson: 28 points 
Pierce: 28 points

Looking at just the PPG, Pierce has outscored the
opposing team's best wing man by an average of 7
points (23.6 to 16.6) a game!  That's half of our
average margin of victory coming from Pierce's scoring
and defense against the other team's best wing player.
 Defense is about a lot of things, but at the end of
the day if you're averaging 7 points more than the
person you're guarding then you must be playing some
good defense.  And that's not even mentioning the 2
steals per game that he's averaging, which is 13th
best in the NBA.  If you're going to try to nitpick
this team after they race out to the best record in
the league, you should try finding something actually
worthy of nitpicking, like perhaps the fact that we're
playing KG, Paul and Ray a little too much.  

Ryan
--- Alex Goldblatt <alex.goldblatt at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jorge,
> 
> I never doubted Paul as an individual offensive
> player - problem is
> that he still have ways to go to become a true TEAM
> player. Unless
> he'll overcome this growing pains, this team will
> not be able to
> compete with the best of, IMO.
> 
> Players like KG, TimmyD could put quite a show if
> playing like that -
> but never do. At the end of the day you choose
> between a scoring title
> and the banner.
> 
> AG
> 
> On Nov 12, 2007 9:50 AM, Pereira, Jorge M
> <jpereira at rwmc.org> wrote:
> > Actually, I think what really shut down the Nets
> and said no, not
> > tonight, was PP suddenly going inside consistently
> with super
> > high-percentage shots.  He carved himself enough
> room inside like no one
> > else can and basically said to the Nets, it's no
> use: everytime you
> > score, I can do this to you.
> >
> > Jorge
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: celtics-bounces at igtc.com
> [mailto:celtics-bounces at igtc.com] On
> > Behalf Of Alex Goldblatt
> > Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 8:09 PM
> > To: The Boston Celtics Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: Apology and comments
> >
> >
> > ...I have a lot of reservations with Paul though.
> He's not on the same
> > level, at least not yet. Dumb decisions, stupid
> TO's, well contested
> > shots, gambling in the passing lane, etc, etc. BTW
> we have yet to see
> > his improved D game he's been bragging about. He
> moves better - but
> > that's as far at it goes.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Boston Celtics Mailing List
> > celtics at igtc.com
> > http://www.igtc.com/mailman/listinfo/celtics
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 


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