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8 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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8 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
9 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
10 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
13 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
13 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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Grading The C’s Off The Backboard Dunks

So last night, after Nate Robinson’s off the backboard throwdown, (spare me the ethics lecture, Mike Breen), I couldn’t help but experience a flashback, to what was, in all seriousness, one of the highlights of the 05-06 Celtic season: An off the backboard, tomahawk dunk by the immortal Gerald Green.

Let’s compare that to last night’s throwdown:

Now, a couple things stand out about Gerald’s and Nate’s dunks.

1) TA is really good at throwing dunks off the backboard. Doc needs to find a way to incorporate this more into the offense.

2) As I said earlier, this play was one of the highlights of that 05-06 season. Think about that for a second when everyone, myself included, starts whining about this team, who though they may be floundering, is still 18 games over .500.

A word on the “controversy” surrounding the Robinson dunk and some final thoughts, after the jump

3) Re: The Celtics piling on with the Robinson dunk. I don’t buy it. Was it unnecessary? Yes. In my book though, if you are ever going to pull a maneuver like that, this was the perfect situation, up 25 with under a minute left against a bad team. The Pistons had long since quit at that point, so if they are going to give you the opportunity, I’m not going to admonish TA and Nate in going for it. It’s not like Detroit is going to hold any bad blood over it or be motivated by it, the C’s aren’t going to see them again this year.

So everyone who was worked up by this play….relax. It was a nice little show to reward the fans that stayed until the end in this blowout. Everything I said should be taken with a grain of salt, given I was one of those people in attendance, but if I was at Piston fan, I’d be more upset with my team for letting it happen, rather than Robinson and TA for showboating.

As for which one was better…..Green gets the nod in my book, for now. Curious to hear everyone’s take on which was more impressive, as well as whether either were “classless” moves. Maybe they were 20 years ago, but not in today’s NBA.

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