last night

[Ryan W]

--- Eric Albert <Eric at ericalbert.net> wrote:
> 
> >Here's another concern: last night, Detroit
> >lost a game in which none of their stahtahs played
> >more than 29 minutes and one, Hamilton, didn't play
> at
> >all. Boston lost a game in which Pierce and Allen,
> the
> >latter especially no spring chicken, played 37
> minutes
> >and Garnett played 31. Granted, the bench was
> probably
> >a bit gassed after going into OT against Milwaukee,
> >but I worry about the Big Three heading into the
> >playoffs at less than 100%.
> 
> The Celtics won the game before the Wizards (against
> the
> Bucks) with none of our starters playing more than
> 22
> minutes.


I think what really undermined our effort against the
Wiz was the fact that our bench played starter's
minutes the night before, with Posey, Perk, House,
Powe, and Davis all getting 30 or more minutes. 
Against the Wiz, they didn't have anything.  House was
flat, Tony Allen invisible, Powe and Davis largely
ineffective.  I'm pretty sure this was the only time
all season that our bench was expected to perform in a
back-to-back situation after playing starter's minutes
in the first game and they weren't prepared for it. 
The big 3 actually played pretty well, Pierce and
Garnett especially, and if it hadn't been for the
careless turnovers we would have been right there with
them, even with a non-performing bench, a sick Rondo,
an injured Cassell, and a underperforming Perkins. 
That, and this was a must-win for the Wiz, and they
had confidence from prior beatings.  

That all said, they are going to be a test for us in
the playoffs, assuming we meet.  They might take us to
6 games, and make us sweat a little, but ultimately,
we're a better defensive team and that will come
through.  

Ryan

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com