Celtics/Pacers - STUDS AND DUDS: PAUL GEORGE, PACERS OUTSHINE CELTICS

STUDS AND DUDS: PAUL GEORGE, PACERS OUTSHINE CELTICS

WEEI

By Ben Rohrbach

The Celtics and Pacers traded runs in the third quarter, but Paul George ensured Indiana came out on top in the fourth.

George scored 17 of his 26 points in the second half and added 10 rebounds in a 102-91 victory that dropped the Celtics to 3-4 on the season.

Evan Turner led the Celtics with 20 points. Isaiah Thomas (14 points), David Lee (13 points) and Jared Sullinger (11 points, 11 rebounds) also reached double figures in a 41.6 percent shooting effort.

For a complete box score, click here. To go beyond the box, read on.


STUD OF THE NIGHT: Paul George.

It sure helps to have a superstar. Every time the Celtics made a run, George put an end to it. When the C’s answer to George was a whole lot of Turner, that should raise some questions.

DUD OF THE NIGHT: Marcus Smart.

After missing three straight games with a sprained left big toe, Smart returned to the lineup, albeit on a minutes restriction off the bench. He missed all four of his 3-point attempts — badly — and had the worst plus/minus rating of anybody on the team. But without Avery Bradley (lower left leg bruise), Brad Stevens was forced to rely on Smart despite the rust.

VINE OF THE NIGHT:


WHINE OF THE NIGHT: Whistling straits.

Through three quarters, the refs had whistled both teams for a combined 46 fouls. In the third quarter alone, there were 30 free throws (19 by the Celtics). Of course, that didn’t stop the players from begging for more whistles. Paul George leveled Isaiah Thomas, and then vehemently wondered why Thomas wasn’t called for traveling, earning himself a well-deserved technical foul. On the other hand, Thomas got a reaching in call from one ref, and then turned to another to bark about not getting the call earlier. Good times all around, fellas. Good times.

STAT OF THE NIGHT: 4-of-24.

That’s right. The Celtics made 16.7 percent of their 3-point attempts. They entered the game attempting the sixth-most 3’s per game (27.7) and ranked fifth from the bottom in 3-point percentage (30.1 percent). So, they’re not only missing triples; they’re missing a lot of them.
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Celtics can't cash in opportunities in 102-91 loss to Pacers

CSNE

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

BOSTON – No matter who was on the floor, no matter what plays were run, the Boston Celtics just didn’t look like themselves on Wednesday against Indiana.

Without any kind of flow or rhythm, the Celtics were never able to string together enough good plays which ultimately led to a 102-91 loss – their second to the Pacers within the last seven days.

It was a game filled with one opportunity after another for the Celtics (3-4) to make a play that could potentially swing the game’s momentum in their favor.

But those opportunities were often wasted on turnovers (18 led to 16 points for the Pacers), bad shots taken or a good play defensively by the Pacers.

And then there was Paul George who played with great pace for the Pacers, picking with precision when to attack or get his teammates involved.

He was easily the game’s most dominant force without forcing the action, tallying his fifth double-double of the season with 26 points and 10 rebounds with three assists.

Jae Crowder has been a solid defender this season for Boston, but he spent much of the game on the bench with foul trouble trying to guard George.

Crowder, one of three players on the Celtics averaging more than 30 minutes played per game, had five points on 1-for-5 shooting while picking up five personal fouls in 27 minutes of court time.

For Boston, it was yet another strong game for Evan Turner who led all Celtics with 20 points on 9-for-13 shooting.

Turner got the starting nod for Avery Bradley, who suffered a left calf injury in Tuesday’s win at Milwaukee and was unable to play on Wednesday.

The Celtics did get a bit of good news on the injury front Wednesday with the return of Marcus Smart after missing the three previous games with a left big toe injury.

Boston head coach Brad Stevens said he decided to have Smart come off the bench in order to better limit his minutes played.

Although he missed five of his six shots from the field, he finished with eight points in 21 minutes which is 12 minutes less than his team-leading 33.1 minutes per game average.

The loss also snapped the team’s impressive eight-game win streak dating back to last season in the second game of back-to-back sets of games.

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Anyone hear anything about Bradleys' leg injury?

If you shoot a lot of 3's and are in the bottom in % , maybe the "plan" needs to be adjusted some.

overall, we're about where expected to me, meshing of this team would take a bit and finding the rotations that work could take time.

I am AMAZED that Zeller has fallen to a regular "DNPCD" player !!

We need to just get through this year and several additional good draft picks and we will be in good shape.

Bottom line without a dominate center we are not going anywhere soon. There are reasons why we got to shoot outside, we cannot score in the paint consistently.

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There may or may not be a dominant center in this next draft. Lots of PFs though, and SFs.

One thing we don't really have much of though is length for position.

IT? super short for PG
Bradley? Poor length against SGs
Crowder and Turner? Poor length against SFs
Sully and Jerebko? Poor length against SFs
Lee and Amir and KO? Poor length against centers

I've been a proponent of playing Smart more at SF, but George was hot and just scored over his head.

I was excited to see Rozier and Hunter on the court together at the beginning of the 4th.
Rozier has great length for PG, and Hunter has elite length at SG.

Celtics are getting killed from the 3 point line more than from inside. Rozier and Hunter should both be better than most of their teammates at just getting a hand up, while still being quick enough to react to pump fakes and stay with their man on drives.

Getting somebody like that at SF or PF would be a big help, and luckily there's a lot of guys in this coming draft that fit the description, while still being good/great scorers on offense.

Here's the whole game if anybody wants to watch it

It's good to be Paul George.  It's pretty good to be the team that has Paul George too.  You could tell it was going to be a long night when George hit a falling backwards 3ptr with 2 Celtics draped over him at the buzzer to end the first.  We pulled it together a bit in the 2nd but then shot 31% in the 3rd.  We still scored 25 points in the 3rd, but imagine how many we could have scored if we had shot at a percentage even a bit closer to a coin flip.  We gave up two 30 point quarters.  Not good.

It's amazing all the things that did not go right this game.  Only 42% fg%, only 77 fgas., giving up 48% fg%, 18 TOs and just generally ineffective offense.  Yet, we only lost by 11.  We started the game off with 3 TOs and having a shot blocked.

Had the Indy announcers again.  Quinn Buckner is about to be inducted into the NCAA Basketball Hall of Fame.  He is only one of seven players to ever win an NCAA National Championship (Indiana University, 1976), an Olympic Gold Medal (Montreal, 1976) and an NBA World Championship (Boston Celtics, 1984) and he is only one of three players to do all that and win a state championship too.  Can you name the other two?  He always has nice things to say about Boston, and the Celtics, every time he comes back here to announce games.  His description of his championship season in Boston?  "Larry carried me".  Keep saying that Quinn and you'll probably keep your job of being the color guy for Larry's Indiana Pacers.  Quinn Buckner was Marcus Smart before there was a Marcus Smart.  Literally, Smart wasn't even born back then.  Damn, the years just fly by like SR-71 Blackbirds doing speed tests.  Oh, wait a second, they've been put out to pasture too...Shit.

1.  Thomas is killing us.  Another 4-13 night.  He's down to 37.5% fg% for the year and 26% from 3.  When Sully shot that from 3 we begged him to stop taking them.  He doesn't dribble out.  It's great that he can get in there, and yeah he does spin a few of them in, but when he gets swallowed up he doesn't realize that until he is already up in the air and when he tries to pass out he gets caught at it and intercepted.  His defense is NOT good.  He's in because his offense, when it is working, is worth the inferior defense but when it isn't?  Have a seat, son.  If only...Unfortunately, he really is all we've got right now.  Some of the bloom has come off the rose for me with Thomas, at least as a starter.  Off the bench?  Yeah.  Throw him into the waning embers and watch him light them up, but going up against their best from the start?  Only as an act of desperation, which is where we are right now with Bradley out with his shin bruise and Smart coming off the bench to slowly work off his rest and not rush back.  Take it from Clint, Isaiah, coming off the bench is where you should be.




2.  Smart is back and so is his horrid shooting.  1-6 and 0-4 from 3 but man, his 3s weren't even bricks, they were a ton of them.  They almost broke the back board, I don't think half of them even hit the rim.  By the end of the game Brad was so at wits end he had Smart guarding 6'9" Paul George.  Didn't help, of course, but that's where we were at.  One thing I'll give him is that he took more ftas than anybody else despite playing a carefully monitored 21 minutes.

3.  Amir is not being effective.  David Lee, on the other hand, is getting his feet under him.  Lee had 13 points on 4-5 shooting and 6 rebounds.  He was moving without the ball well for pnr buckets.  He was also using a spin move from the frito line to rocket (or as close to "rocketing" he gets) down the lane.  He's looking more like David Lee now.  Amir, though, is struggling.  He was out on top with Monta Ellis, NOT a favorable match up for us, but damn, did you have to break his ankles like that Monta?  Welcome to SportCenter, Amir, and not in a way you wanted it.  Amir sprained his ankle vs Indy in our first game, has been less effective since, and I'm sure that move by Ellis isn't going to improve it.  Time for another lineup change, Brad?  I know that will make our starting lineup shorter and less athletic but that's what we are anyway.

Here's the video of Ellis dropping Amir.  Mike Gorman is so matter-of-fact about it.  Quinn Buckner was not.  I love Mike but Quinn was closer to the truth.




4.  Sully played hard and got boards, 11 of them with 3 offensive, and most of them came from just outworking people.  On the other hand, he didn't box Lavoy Allen off the boards, 2 points.  He didn't box Mahinmi off the boards later, 2 points.  We saw that happen a few times in Milwaukee too.  God, and your mom, didn't give you that maximum gluteus maximus just to make sitting nice and cushy.  Stick it in someone's stomach, man, or, if they're a lot taller than you stick it into their knees but use it.

5.  I asked this question a few times on the Game On thread and I'll ask it again here, "When did Jae Crowder become such a shitty finisher?".  He hit a 3 and 2 fritos for his 5 points, but was 1-5 overall because he missed, badly, a shot from 3' and from 5'.  Smart's bricks were from 21'+, Crowder's were from less than the length of his body.  If there was one part of Jae's game that was working for him, and there was maybe only one part, it was that he will continue to lead the league with steals with the 5 he had last night.  You gotta finish, Jae, you gotta.  Another player that would be better coming off the bench.

6.  Watching Kelly carefully again last night.  A bad shooting night made him just as painful to watch, on offense, as most of the rest of the roster.  His defense, though, is starting to grow on me a bit.  He made a nice stab at the ball and almost got a steal off Hill (the Pacers were able to retain possession, but he disrupted their flow with it).  He played good defense on Hill down low.  Every time I say that, "Kelly with good defense down low", I really ask myself if I'm talking about the right guy because it is NOT who we have been watching for 2 years now.  He rotated nicely to force Paul George into a much tougher shot.  Paul George shot 10-22 for the game, so it's not like a lot of other defenders were having a lot of success making him miss either.  Hill, who had a great game against us as a starter in Indy, finally hit one from down low against Kelly but it was what Sam used to refer to as a "bull shot", just muscling it in.  He did a good job of forcing Hill to turn into defensive hands rather than away from them.  Kelly is getting to his position faster.  Another year of experience, another year of learning his opponents.  He's standing there, with his cute little alligator arms up, and he's actually forcing shooters to change their shots because of that.  It's hard to believe, he is NOT long (to say the least) but he's there, his arms are up and they feel like they need to shoot around him and that is producing some positive effect on throwing off their shots.  He'll never be a superior defender, not unless Danny hires Tomas de Torquemada to put Kelly on the rack to stretch him out a bit but this is, I think, the 3rd straight game where I can say nice things about his defense.  His offense, this game, however, sucked like the rest of the bench's.

7.  Speaking of the bench, as a whole, they were largely useless except as a collection of living "How Not Tos".  The second game of a back-to-back is when our depth was supposed to shine.  We got a glimmer last night, from David Lee, and that's it.  A combined 10-31 for the bench.  Take Lee out of that and we were 6-26 for a Seniors-Only league level 23.7%.  This is what I meant about so little going right this game.  Rozier was pressed into action, with Bradley sitting this one out, and he was 2-9 and a Thomas-esque 0-4 from 3.  Or is that Smart-esque?  Doesn't matter, they both sucked too.  Rozier doesn't have a rookie's fear of the bright lights and big stage but he does sometimes have rookie judgment.  RJ Hunter hit a shot from, what was it, 30'?  I thought Quinn Buckner was going to fall off his seat.  Hunter's defender was waiting for him around the 3pt line, thinking he'd dribble up, but RJ Sniper just said "Nah, I can see it from here, I'm good" and swish.  I could hear the crowd from 3000 miles away (with the help of microphones.  Whatever) after that.  Hunter and Rozier, and certainly Mickey, are such after thoughts Brad isn't running plays for them.  If he really is looking for offense because Thomas hasn't accepted the fact that Trick-or-Treat day has come and gone already, then he should be running plays for RJ.  I know bobc agrees with that (I think bob sleeps in an RJ jersey).  He took a brief hiatus from posting because he was settling in with a bag of pistachios and I was afraid he'd start choking when he saw RJ hit that.  Safety first, Bob.

8.  The biggest stud we had was Indy's throwaway, Evan Turner.  9-13 for 20 points.  When Turner is on, he's good.  When he's ME-balling he drives me crazy.  When he and Thomas are in together and doing their ME-ball thing, somewhere, an angel dies.  Last night he was pretty much all we had, and that's sad.

9.  Stat roundup:  They shot 48%.  That sucks (as in "we sucked at stopping them from scoring").  They got 10 offensive boards, a lot of it on the strength of Jordan Hill's 3 which came, like Lavoy Allen's by going over Sully.  We shot 4-24 for 17% from 3.  Roughly 30% of our fgas were 3s and we shot 17%.  Open up your dictionaries and look up ugly and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Our bench, itself was 1-13 from 3.  What does it say when your bench is taking more than half your 3pt fgas despite shooting 8% on them?  It says to me your bench has no shot discipline, isn't running an effective half court offense and is settling for the wide open shots the defense is giving you specifically because they can see you cannot throw the ball in the harbor from the edge of the pier.  Smart was rusty and Rozier is still quite the rookie, so who is running that bench offense?  

Despite all this badness, we were still in the game, down only 5 points at 92-87 with 6 1/2 minutes left, and we had 6 turnovers to go down 100-89 in 3 minutes to break the game open.  And that, more than anything, is why they are better than us right now.

Brooklyn beat Houston in Houston.  In other words, last night sucked from soup to nuts.

A day off to lick our wounds, or maybe for some film time to run salt into them, and then Atlanta, also known as "Spurs-lite" or "Celtics 2.0", comes to town.


bob


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What really makes this loss hurt is that Brooklyn won a game.. double yuck

rambone wrote:There may or may not be a dominant center in this next draft. Lots of PFs though, and SFs.

One thing we don't really have much of though is length for position.

IT? super short for PG
Bradley? Poor length against SGs
Crowder and Turner? Poor length against SFs
Sully and Jerebko? Poor length against SFs
Lee and Amir and KO? Poor length against centers

I've been a proponent of playing Smart more at SF, but George was hot and just scored over his head.

I was excited to see Rozier and Hunter on the court together at the beginning of the 4th.
Rozier has great length for PG, and Hunter has elite length at SG.

Celtics are getting killed from the 3 point line more than from inside. Rozier and Hunter should both be better than most of their teammates at just getting a hand up, while still being quick enough to react to pump fakes and stay with their man on drives.

Getting somebody like that at SF or PF would be a big help, and luckily there's a lot of guys in this coming draft that fit the description, while still being good/great scorers on offense.

Rambone

As far as Hunter and Rozier are concerned, they are rookies so I see no good reason to expect anything from them.  It is not like they were elite level draft picks.

Smart is not an answer at SF

last night the Celtics were not Killed from the 3 point line.  Indy only made 6 3 pointers.  The problem is just as much related to our inability to make 3 pointers as we went 4 for 24.  We also lost the battle in the paint, on the glass and on fast break buckets.

Only three guys earned their paychecks last night, Evan Turner, David Lee and Jared Sullinger.  The rest of the group played very poorly.  Ko came back down to earth and was helped by brad only playing him 15 minutes.  IT continues to brick 3 point shots.  

We shot 16.7% from the 3 point line.

Guess what this so called pace and space game is a farce because this team is not capable of making 3 point shots on a consistent basis but the offense is designed for them to take a lot of 3 point shots.

The Celtics did play hard but not well.  The Celtics could have used AB last night to pressure the ball.  Smart played like he has missed some games.  

The Celtics will continue to be a middle of the road team until they either adjust the way they play offense or they add the type of talent that enhances their offense.

dboss

Matty wrote:What really makes this loss hurt is that Brooklyn won a game.. double yuck

Marty

I switched over to the Nets game and I was like what the hell...they are beating the rockets on the road?

dboss

An RJ jersey?  Why stop there?  Check out the new avatar!

Rabone,

You do make a valid point about the Celtics being small at each position. The athlete of today in basketball is bigger, stronger and quicker then players 10 years ago and that is where the Celtics are right now.

Bradley is a minimum height at 6'2" and should be a PG and not a SG. Turner at 6'7" should be your shooting guard but cannot shoot from outside.

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What you see is what you get. Average talent will quite frequently result in below average performances. Good
effort and coaching alone can take you just so far. Be patient as Danny works to gather the chips necessary to put together a championship contender.

swish

Dboss

As far as Hunter and Rozier are concerned, they are rookies so I see no good reason to expect anything from them. It is not like they were elite level draft picks.

The Celtics will continue to be a middle of the road team until they either adjust the way they play offense or they add the type of talent that enhances their offense.

So our rookies can't help us on offense, because they're rookies and weren't picked in the top 10?

Hunter is already helping the offense. Rozier has shown plenty of flashes in the preseason, and is getting more and more comfortable each game.

Try watching the individuals, and not just doubling down on your pre-season prediction that our rookies couldn't possibly help us because they're rookies and weren't picked in the top 10, or whatever arbitrary draft position limit you put on rookies in order to believe they can help.

You want the Celtics to either change the way they play or get better offensive players, but refuse to consider the rookies on our roster as even possibly being part of the solution this year, despite the evidence to the contrary piling up.

And guess who's most likely to improve the most this season? The rookies.

I don't know how you can watch RJ Hunter and not think he's good for the offense, and the team overall.

Same with Rozier. He's close enough to as good as Bradley that he should keep getting minutes. You say we missed Bradley's defense, but Rozier and especially Hunter did a decent job. Hunter is much much longer than Bradley, and is much better at team defense.

You seem to suggest wanting to see things run a little different, well, try being a little more open minded about our rookies.

Hunter seems an obvious partial solution to our space/3pt shooting problem, and Rozier seems like part of the pace solution. He's faster than anybody but perhaps IT4 running up and down the court, and with the ball in his hands he's much faster than Smart, Bradley, Turner, or Crowder.

The Thunder thrive with having Westbrook push the pace and turn even made baskets into fast break opportunities. Now, Rozier isn't Westbrook, but he does have similar athleticism, playing style, and brass ones.

I'm excited for these two rookies to get more and more comfortable, though Hunter plays like a veteran already. With IT4 struggling in the starting lineup, we could do a lot worse than just giving Rozier a shot, with the same long leash/room for mistakes that IT4 gets.

It was interesting though to see that Rozier played pretty well at SG next to IT4, especially since Smart might be playing limited minutes at best in the near future.

I wouldn't even mind seeing Rozier and Hunter together in the starting lineup. I definitely don't think Hunter is any worse than Bradley already, and he might even be better overall right now.

Rambone - Excellent point about our lack of length.

Heck - I think Jae's problem is he's afraid of being called for charging so when he drives to the basket he keeps his head down instead of looking at the target. Tommy made that point. I had a Marquette grad in today for treatment. They are VERY proud of Crowder and his college teammate Jimmy Butler too. Je will be ok. He's making a correctable error on O. Kelly's D is better. Significantly. Sorry to see a lapse on offense.

Crazy to see Hunter ignored when he's on the floor and Rozier taking 3's instead. I would have loved to have seen Rondo feeding Hunter, but I am glad Rajon, one of my favorite Celtics, is gone. Ironic that.

Evan Turner is now our best player. Setting that bar pretty low, eh? "Eh" was for the Canadian on our team, Kelly.

rambone wrote:Dboss

As far as Hunter and Rozier are concerned, they are rookies so I see no good reason to expect anything from them.  It is not like they were elite level draft picks.

The Celtics will continue to be a middle of the road team until they either adjust the way they play offense or they add the type of talent that enhances their offense.

So our rookies can't help us on offense, because they're rookies and weren't picked in the top 10?

Hunter is already helping the offense. Rozier has shown plenty of flashes in the preseason, and is getting more and more comfortable each game.

Try watching the individuals, and not just doubling down on your pre-season prediction that our rookies couldn't possibly help us because they're rookies and weren't picked in the top 10, or whatever arbitrary draft position limit you put on rookies in order to believe they can help.

You want the Celtics to either change the way they play or get better offensive players, but refuse to consider the rookies on our roster as even possibly being part of the solution this year, despite the evidence to the contrary piling up.

And guess who's most likely to improve the most this season? The rookies.

I don't know how you can watch RJ Hunter and not think he's good for the offense, and the team overall.

Same with Rozier. He's close enough to as good as Bradley that he should keep getting minutes. You say we missed Bradley's defense, but Rozier and especially Hunter did a decent job. Hunter is much much longer than Bradley, and is much better at team defense.

You seem to suggest wanting to see things run a little different, well, try being a little more open minded about our rookies.

Rambone you got a real problem with reading and understanding.

I never said they can not help us on offense I just said that they cannot be expected to help us because they were not elite level draft picks.  I actually like the way Hunter has been playing.  Rozier is trying but you can see that he has a long way to go.  Please refrain from your strawman arguments.

I said what I said and it is as clear as day so stop making stuff up which you have a really bad habit of doing.  

Go spend some time posting more +/- stats and leave the real analysis to grown folks.

dboss

Thanks Worcester.

Hunter is the caliber of shooter where it makes sense to yell "SHOOT IT!!!" every time he touches the ball.

But that punishment is only reserved for Olynyk, as if his 33-34% career 3pt % means he's a total failure if he doesn't pretend he's Kyle Korver.

This forum is a lot easier on Olynyk than other Celtics forums. On real GM they're acting like he cost the Celtics the game and should be shipped out with a Nets pick because the Celtics were minus 3 with him on the court.

Please, no more Donald Trump impersonations on this board!

If Hunter can't be expected to help us, then why is he already helping us?

Somebody needs to tell Hunter that he wasn't an elite pick.

Silly RJ told his dad on draft night that he was going to make the All Rookie Team, and hit the gym.

For the season the Celtics are +18 with Hunter on the court.

That's fourth best on the team.

Who is fifth?
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?ls=iref:nba:gnav#!/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Totals&TeamID=1610612738&sort=PLUS_MINUS&dir=1

Somebody needs to tell somebody that somebody actually likes Hunter even though he was not an elite pick.

If somebody had to rate somebody's post we would be looking at a -18

dboss

D Trump cherishes women. He just has really low expectations.

rambone wrote:For the season the Celtics are +18 with Hunter on the court.

That's fourth best on the team.

Who is fifth?
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?ls=iref:nba:gnav#!/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Totals&TeamID=1610612738&sort=PLUS_MINUS&dir=1

rambone,


After telling us that +/- is not a reliable statistic unless it covers a long time period and many, many data points, and that is why Kelly's +/- is a reliable indicator, because it is over the period of years and with a myriad of teammates, now you are talking about +/- for RJ Hunter after a grand total of only 58 minutes played in his career. In doing so, you just kneecapped your own credibility on this.

Time to forget about +/- and let the players play, the coaches coach, Danny trade and let the chips fall and then see if statistics, be they +/- or any other interpretive stat, support what we are seeing. If they do then it will be obvious, and if they don't then continuing to tell skeptics they are wrong convinces nobody since the stats are not intuitively, obviously correct.

Last night I watched GSW beat Minny fairly handily (it wasn't as close as the final 13 point difference for most of it). Curry had 46 on just insane shooting. 4 GSW players played 35 minutes or more and Andre Iguodala played 30 minutes. So, those 5 players were on the floor together a lot since they represent 175 out of the total 240 player minutes (73%). Curry was a +21 while Iggy was a -5. Harrison Barnes, who played 35 minutes, was a -3. Bogut was a +/- 0 despite playing 21 minutes and getting 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. Karl-Anthony Towns played 30 minutes and had 17 points on 7-15 and 11 rebounds and yet he was a Minny team worse -24. I watched the game, like I said, and I can tell you Towns was a powerhouse. The +/- for that game doesn't make sense. Players' +/- for the season are nothing more than the accumulation of individual games. If the numbers going in are garbage then the numbers coming out will be garbage.

You've made your point. Very few, if any, agree with it but you've made it. Repeating it again and again is neither helpful nor productive, if you know what I mean. Time to move on and let actual events lead the discussions. I know you watch the games religiously, you have a lot to say about actual play without relying on interpretive stats. At the end of the season when we've all seen which players are getting the job done, and which ones aren't, we can reconsider which stats are worth something and which are not.


bob


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