Post Game Thread - Celtics edge Toronto 117-112 10/15/2010

[dboss]

With the passing of Siggy, it just makes me realize how close I am to my own mortality. My prayers are with his family and friends. He was a perfect pick for a near perfect team.

Last night the Celtics improved their preseason record to 5-1 with a 117-112 win over the Raptors.

Boston won the game in the first quarter and was crushingn Toronto through 3 until the 4th quarter when the subs came in and were outscored 39-16.

Our points guards lead the way contributing 44 points between them and Rondo had a chance to work on his free throw shooting by dropping 12 of 15 from the charity stripe. Nate was again all over the court and on more than a few occasions, he unleashed his jets to get to the rim for layups.

KG played 15 minutes hitting all three of his shots. Looks to me like his jumper is back on.

Daniels once again is showing that he is more than an adequate BU for PP. Scoring off drives and long jumpers, rebounding the ball getting steals and assists. It was a very strong overall game for him in all areas.

Baby fouled out while only logging 10 minutes.

Erden managed to grab 8 rebbounds and dish out 4 assists. He continues to struggle getting his shot off in the post. He needs to just shoot the damn ball and forget about trying to replicate Kevin McHales' torture champer moves.

The other player of note was Von Wafer. He knocked down 4-6 including 3-3 from three point land. Still not totally sure if the Celtics should keep him at the expense of cutting Lasme. Lasme was not with the team. Does anyone know what happened to him?

Tonight Boston plays in Hartford against the wannabee Knicks.

So far so good. The Celtics are just about in regular season form. I cannot wait to see them play with a full compliments of players. Over the remaining two games I expect the bubble players to get minutes. Someone may get cut after tonight's game.

dboss

[bobc33]

Lasme had visa problems according to todays Globe.

"TORONTO -- The Celtics sent Stephane Lasme home yesterday in order to avoid any visa-related issues. Lasme's residency is in his native Gabon.

Rivers said:

It would have been easy to bring him but in exhibition season I don’t want to come through and get stopped with his papers and all that stuff. I don’t need the hour delay. So I just said, just stay back we’ll catch you in Hartford.
The process will be done, but because he’s from a country going to another country you get all this stuff. Semih had all his stuff so we brought him. But I just told our guys if there’s a chance of any issue, stay home. I don’t need the hour-and-a-half sitting on the airplane."

[mrkleen09]

I just love the chemistry with this team. If things continue to gel this way, they will be able to absorb injuries, keep the veterans well rested, and still not miss a beat.

There isnt a team in the NBA that can run out a second unit that is as complete as the Celtics.

I am stoked for the regular season.

[Sam]

I started a post-game thread on the game-on forum by mistake and am transferring my initial post to this thread.

For three-quarters, as the Celtic built a lead of as many as 28 points (at the end of the third quarter), this game vacillated between entertaining and sloppy. Some good things happened. KG (in limited minutes) looked very good shooting the ball. Rondo completely took over the third quarter, during which the fact that he hit 12 of 15 throws doesn't begin to tell the story of how he was turning the Raptors inside out. Ray looked solid. Jermaine continued to look good on the defensive end. And Marquis, subbing for Paul Pierce who got the night off, was positively scintillating. Quis simply did everything. His rebounding was fantastic. He played absolutely superb defense. And he alternated between gliding (Tommy's new word for him) to the bucket and sinking shots from as far away as 43 feet (ending the half). Despite Rondo's outburst, Quis was definitely my player of the night. Nate was also contributing a lot of points, ending the game with 23 off the bench. Even Von Wafer shot smoothly and had one good defensive play (and several poor ones).

Then came the fourth quarter, which had the aroma of 73,000 rotten eggs being smashed in a toxic waste dump, as the Celts were outscored 39-16.. Doc pretty much stuck with a quintet of Semih, Nate, Wafer, Mario West, and Harangody. And the results were beyond awful, as the Raptors came back to within (I believe) 3 points before the Celtics pulled it out on some good shooting by Nate and a big jumper by Semih. Harangody was off his shot, hitting just one of several jumpers, but he still looked like he knew what he was doing out there, sneaking underneath for a nice pass reception and layup, and rebounding and defending very well. With West and Wafer on the floor, however, most of the time in that quarter it looked like the Celtics were playing no better than 4 on 5 and sometimes 3 on 5. They had something like 5 or 6 turnovers by the end of the third quarter and wound up with 15. The Raptors finally caught on to trapping in the backcourt, and the Celtics looked like the Marx Brothers, running around frantically, calling timeouts, losing the ball, etc.

Despite the fact that Wafer scored points, he doesn't seem to have the instincts. Once, he and Harongody were on the perimeter and spreading the floor nicely. So Harangody swung the ball to Von, who had just decided he'd like to vacate his spot in favor of running over BEHIND Harangody. (Harangody looked bad, but it was Wafer's bad.) West basically contributed nothing and was an obvious deterrent to any kind of flow out there.

Lasme didn't make the trip, apparently because of VISA problems. But I hope the roster is now pretty well set at:

C Perk, Shaq, Jermaine, Semih
PF KG, Davis, Harangody
SF Pierce, Quis
SG Ray
PG Rondo, Bradley
Swing (PF, SF) Lasme
Swing (SG, PG) Delonte, Nate

I am extremely happy that Delonte is on this team, because Nate is very inconsistent as a PG. He has the potential to be a decent ball distributor. In two games, he has had 13 assists in 63 minutes. But in the other four games, he has had only 6 assists in 91 minutes. And it's not just because he shared the PG responsibility with Delonte in three games. Nate's two high-assist games included one playing with Delonte and one playing without Delonte. I suspect Nate's still trying to seek the right balance between shooting (which I know Doc keeps telling him to do) and playmaking; but, right now, it's pretty hit or miss. And he looked anything but sure of himself as he was being stripped of the ball in that last quarter. I mean, it's pretty sad when Semih Erden has two more assists than any other second unit player. I believe Delonte's presence will act as a kind of balancing mechanism as they both function as swing men (which is why I listed them that way above).

As for Lasme being a possible swing man, no one can now say that he hasn't defended against smaller guys, since he did a great job on Iguodala the other night.

I know there's some rule that allows certain cut players to go to the DL without being members of any NBA team. I hope that will happen with West, although I expect Wafer will want more money and will get it overseas.

Anyway, we have official threads, and my patience is now officially threadbare at seeing the major responsibility thrust on the kids to see how well they can play, with ersatz lineups sometimes resulting. I hope it's time to begin seeking a more representative rotation.

Sam

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