POST GAME JAZZ

Well I thank God for many things including:

TG we met the last 2 teams going down hill;
TG for Ray Allen and his 3 pt touch tonight;
TG this road trip is over!

New members of the team showed little tonight. Baby had a real stinker and we allowed over 50% of Jazz points to be scored in the paint. Guess we are going to have to except this through the playoffs. We are becoming a shooting team. Guess Danny wants more offense like Orlando who's won nothing to date.

The saga rolls on!

112288

112288,

While Kristic and Green didn't display Hall of Fame credentials tonight, I'm pretty happy with 11 points and 5 rebounds from Nenad and a +1 for the bench while Green was on the floor.

I don't know what I have to do to convince people that the proof of the pudding is NOT in what these players do individually but, rather, how the TEAM does with them as team members.

For example, the starting five of PERK, KG, Pierce, Ray and Rondo averaged 69.3 points per game and 30.4 rebounds this season. The starting five of KRISTIC, KG, Pierce, Ray and Rondo compiled 91 points and 34 rebounds tonight. I call that improvement—especially in only the second game with the new guys.

I fully understand that the Jazz score more points than the average for Celtics opponents this season. But the name of the game is to outscore the opposition. The Celtics have now done that twice despite getting reorganized, and it's not their fault that they happened to be scheduled to play mediocre teams. I've been saying I expect the revamped Celts to give up more points but to score commensurately more points than earlier in the season, and that's exactly what has now happened twice.

Let's see how the new guys (and the team with them as an integral part of it) are doing by April.

Sam

Things I liked:

1) Krstic had his hands full with AJ. He did about as well as you could expect from someone in his situation. I actually thought he played pretty good defense given who he was guarding. Always up in his shirt, not fouling, standing straight up, backing off when necessary and not fouling. Only once did he give up an And 1. Al played out of his brain. I'll say this again. This guy is huge and it looks like on TV he takes up more space than Perk. With AJ comments on the other thread and his past relationship with Boston, he was genuinely out to prove to us what we were/are missing with Perk gone. He showed us and we are thankful. Duly noted.

2) Once again, great insightful announcers in Utah. They understand the problem with Jeff Green. This is Doc's problem and he will figure it out. Doc may have to change/shift his rotation times to give Jeff more into the flow he was used to and give him more time. But he will figure it out. He can easily give him 24 minutes with 6 left in first/third to 6 left in 2nd/4th. Maybe overlap/shifting as the starters come out since he can play 3 or 4. It ain't 37 but that's two full quarters and then throw him in situational deals for a few more. He definitely needs more time. Of he and Krstic, JG is the odd man out right now. I'll take 10 points and 5+ rebounds any day from Krstic. That's 2 points better than Perk. 4-2 leaves two more points we need to make up, LAL.

3) Very entertaining game. Utah saw blood with DWest out, 4th game of a road trip, all the crap they/we've have been through to date. Give them credit. Utah and Al Jefferson gave us just what we needed to see without giving us the added sting of another loss. I hope Boston sees it that way.

4) Better add another possible statue outside of TD Garden for RA. Enough said.

5) Our schedule going forward, MIA schedule going forward, CHI's schedule going forward, SAS schedule going forward.

6) While I don't wish ill or injury on any team, for SAS that has to be a record for how long a team has had their starting five play consecutive games without injury. It's been long overdue. Having TP go down is about as huge as you can get. Will Pop figure it out? Of course. Are they going to come back to the pack? Yes. Will it be enough for us to have home court throughout? Probably too little too late. But it's going to be close, though.

7) I really like our chances. The season and our position in the playoffs will be determined in the next three weeks. Our biggest rivals of CHI and MIA have horrendous schedules, CHI's is a little weaker to their favor. Given our (relatively weak) schedule and situation (reshuffle, injuries, chemistry) combined, I'd put ours on par with CHI's for degree of difficulty. I've included the allowance of another injury or two for us.

Thought game was exciting, but too close for comfort, great to see Rondo hit that clinching jumper, hes got to take that shot and make them pay.I want him to keep taking that shot and have confidence in it come playoff time.I'm losing confidence in Baby fast, thats 3 bad games in a row, we should have went with Krstic in the finishing stretch as Baby really got abused, other than drawing charges he really doesn't have length to defend.

I would like to see more minutes for Jeff Green, he can play, we've got to get more out of him,Pierce looked tired in the second half and Ray bailed us out and won the game for us. I know Delonte wasn't playing, but we need more offense and we got just enough hero shots, that I don't want to rely on, as our interior defense was getting torched and KG couldn't cover everybody as Milsap also had his moments late.

This trade can and will work, but there has to be concern with KG, Baby and Nenad as our only bigs.Right now were seeing glimpses, hopefully we will get it together. I like Nenads game, fundamentally sound, better defense than I thought, but we are gonna need a heavy dose of Shaq and some JON to get it done in playoffs.I like the added versatility, but hated seeing Big Al abuse us like that.

I was quite pleased with the overall effort. Kristic got off to a fantastic start. one play in particular he caught the ball on the block and QUICKLY spun to his left and with one step layed it in. He felt/sensed the pressure on the right and spun away. Plus the pass to him was spot on. I actually think he can average 10-15 PPG perhaps more, once he figures things out a bit more.

For a brief time early Avery looked like he'd been shot out of a cannon. Always pushing the ball up the floor after rondo got dinged. The one play where he went coast to coast for an and one...............was after a made basket! Plus he's not afraid to shoot. Played tight if not always great D.

Seems we got many more easy hoops than has been the norm.

And when things bogged down a bit PP penetrated and got to the line 9 times in the first half. ( and made them all)

Our early run after we were down 10-2, was fun to watch. Believe it was like a 23ish to 2 run.

Is Ray Allen 24YO?

So Big Al went of a bit. So? Without Williams he may feel he has to take on a little more scoring. He did take about 1/3 more shots than he was taking before the trade. 21 last eve vs 15 per game prior.

Most importantly we won and Rondo did hit a key shot late.

Baby is in a funk right now. He needs to snap out of it.

I think this would ahve been a game we lose last season.

So far I'm recovering quite nicely from the shock of the trade.

I think things will all work out for the best and by the end of the season we will be a better and much more versatile team.....I hope.

beat

Right beat, was only in briefly but Avery Bradley had his best game. Didn't see that deer in the headlights look, he was aggressive and hes got some serious speed. If we can get him going and thought he took good shots, hes supposed to have a mid range game.

Cow

I assume in practices Avery has to guard Rondo................seems that would make almost anyone else a bit easier to stay in front of.

beat

112288 wrote:Guess we are going to have to except this through the playoffs. We are becoming a shooting team. Guess Danny wants more offense like Orlando who's won nothing to date.

Yeah, because the way a team plays in February in the second game with new additions is CLEARLY how they will play in May and June

I hate when the Celtics play like this. They come out hot, run up a nice lead, then slack off and the other team catches up. Then, they just coast until the last few minutes and turn it on. I know we're the better team, but they were playing at home and trying to turn things around post-drama. This was their first home game after picking up Favors. That made them dangerous.

1. We got outmuscled last night. They were crashing the O-boards relentlessly. We did better than usual on the O-boards too, with Davis doing some damage there. We have to do a better job of boxing out and keeping them away from the hoop instead of letting them come over us to keep them alive. We need some beef. If length is all we needed, Chris Johnson would have gotten more than just a cameo. If Ty Corbin had put Fesenko in there I think we would have been pounded into paste.

2. My status update on "The Trade" is that it's not unfolding, at this point, like I thought it would. I thought Nenad had a decent game. His effective offense came out of the flow of the offense and his less effective offense came when he tried to create his own shots. I find that odd considering he knows himself and his moves but is not familiar with the playbook and his teammates. You'd think a "it's all about me" approach would work better now. His defensive rotations were no slower than you'd expect from any newbie and better, quite frankly, than I expect from any Euro. The player who was considered the best player in that 4-player trade, Jeff Green, has not produced the same positive first impression for me. His offense is mostly ME-ball and his defense is ugly. His man-to-man on players who are not shooters (like AK47) was to get right up in their faces at the 3pt line. This resulted in them putting the ball on the floor and running around him. His team defense rotations were slow too. I would have thought the results would be reversed, with The Stud starting out strong and The Stringbean struggling to play tough defense. Having said all this, I'm not ready to throw my hands up and surrender. We're only 2 games and one practice into this. With Q going down with a questionable future, we NEEDED a backup 3. If Green never gets better than he is right now, we're still in better shape. Krstic is doing an adequate job as starter and will be even more effective coming off the bench when Shaq returns. I expect Krstic and Green playing together on the second unit will provide better continuity and performance then.

3. Ray Allen is amazing. I've said this so many times in so many ways I've run out of new adjectives and the old ones just don't seem to give him enough credit. That last backbreaking 2, with AK47 on him, was amazing. His hot streak of 5-8 3s was amazing. His movement without the ball which got him layups is amazing. Raja Bell, a very good defender, was hopeless last night.

4. Pierce didn't have the shooting night Ray did, but we needed all of his fts. 11-11. When you consider he got those fta in lieu of fga, it makes his effort look more effective. Sure, he only shot 4-10, but his productive trips to the line replaced fgm. Figure those in and he's closer to 9-15.

5. I did not like Rondo's game last night. Yes, yes, I know he shot 9-16. I know he had 11 assists. I know he had 18 points. I also know he took, and missed, how many jumpshots? Since when did he start thinking that's his game? He was 7-10 for points taken in the lane and 2-6 for shots beyond it (and that includes a made 15' shot from the corner of the free throw line, which is right on the edge of the lane). How many coast-to-coast layups did he give up to Harris? Harris was 5-7 from inside the paint (virtually all of them layups) and 1-4 from outside. I think Rondo's play over the past few weeks has been very sloppy. His mind has been and is somewhere else. Goose is gone, Maverick, let him go and think about what needs to be accomplished going forward. You have two new teammates you have to learn. Focus on that and win another championship.

6. Big Al had a Big night. When was the last time you saw a player shoot almost exclusively with one hand? He really wanted this game and did more than his part to try and win it. I couldn't believe it when Big Al the Teddy Bear got in KG's face? What the youngster missed, but the announcers caught, is that KG was just trying to get into his head, and he did. Jefferson was 2-5 in the 3rd quarter and 2-4 in the 4th. KG completely got him out of his game. The announcers said that he has never beaten Boston after we traded him. Where he was let down was his bench. They shot a combined 6-18.

7. As bad as Big Al's bench was, ours was worse. We shot 6-21. Baby had another stinker with 2-8. He's doing a lot of other good things, but his shooting has been atrocious for how long now? The season's only 4 months old, yet it seems like his shooting has been bad for months. Jeff Green was 2-6 and Bradley was 2-6 (in just 6 minutes). The Utah bench out rebounded ours, out scored ours, out assisted ours.

8. KG had a quiet, yet powerful game. 14 rebs, 16 points on 7-13 shooting, 3 assists and only 1 turnover. Ho Hum, just another double-double and an emotionally disrupted opponent for the future HOFer. We're so lucky.

9. Bradley looked more comfortable out there. Not shooting that well (I still can't believe he took 6 fga in just 6 minutes), but his defense is solid. His arms are ape-hangers, he has young legs and he uses them on defense.

Well, our little road trip ended up 3-1, with the loss being the short-handed, oxygen-deprived, broken-hearted-post-trade game in Denver (which we still had a good chance of winning). I can nitpick about Nenad and Jeff, but 2 straight wins, even against lesser opponents, does wonders for my disposition. When you consider that those two players don't even have residences picked out (I'm sure the Celtics organization has arranged for them to stay in a Marriott or somewhere until they do, they're not homeless) we've done well for a team needing to integrate new players into a regular lineup without having the time to have any real practice sessions. We've weathered the initial storm well. Better than Utah, at least as well as NY (2-1, with a road victory in Miami). Once Doc and Frank figure out what to do with Jeff Green and Shaq comes back and Nenad goes to the bench (and, dare I say, JON returns?) we'll be even better.

I know we're not beating great teams now, but we are winning. If we can win, and stay ahead of Miami, while we integrate our newbies, then we've accomplished our goal, right? Our goal is winning.

bob


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btw, the announcers on NBATV last night said that they've seen all the top teams come to Utah to play; Boston, SAS, Miami, LAL and they thought that Boston is the best one they've seen. And that was last night, when we are about as discontinuous as we can be.

bob

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Hey Bob, I'm not familiar with the term "discontinuous" or its root "discontinuity." What do they mean?

Sam

sam wrote:Hey Bob, I'm not familiar with the term "discontinuous" or its root "discontinuity." What do they mean?

Sam

It means you are discontent and dissatisfied with the discipline displayed (see, Discombobulation).

bob


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bobheckler wrote:

sam wrote:Hey Bob, I'm not familiar with the term "discontinuous" or its root "discontinuity." What do they mean?

Sam

It means you are discontent and dissatisfied with the discipline displayed (see, Discombobulation).

bob


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LMAO you guys are a riot!!!