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6 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

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6 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
7 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

93
8 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
11 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

42
11 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

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Collateral Damage: Pierce’s Minutes

After last night’s overtime marathon, The Truth is now averaging a team-high 37.8 minutes per game, about two more minutes per game than last season and his highest total since ’05-06 (which, I realize, isn’t that long ago). 

Here are his minutes for the last 10 games:

45, 37, 47, 45, 45, 40, 32, 38, 38, 47.

I realize that Doc has little choice but to play him heavy minutes right now. But the injuries have gotten so bad that they are causing some collateral damage–forcing the C’s best-time crunch time scorer to play more minutes than he or anyone else would probably like him to be playing in regular season games against Miami. 

The two minute difference between last year and this year may not seem like much, and maybe it isn’t. It adds up to about 3.5 extra games over the course of a full season, and I have idea when an extra 100 or 200 minutes starts to make a difference to a 31-year-old star with more than 30,000 career minutes. Can’t help, though. Pierce played 38 minutes per game in the playoffs last season, so he’s matching that number so far in the current regular season.

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