Saturday Notebook: High School Mistakes, The Rise of TA, Black Market Scal
Posted by Zach Lowe on Apr 3, 2010
• As you might expect, the C’s are pretty upset about last night’s loss against an injury-riddled Houston team. Doc gave the quote of the night after being asked about Chase Budinger’s 24 points and 6-of-8 shooting from deep—including a killer with about 2:00 left in overtime. In Doc’s view, Budinger got an open look there because the C’s, having forced an initial Houston miss, were already running out on offense (via the Globe’s recap):
“You don’t go back down until you secure the basketball,’’ Rivers said. “We played like a high school team at times, as far as the way our thought process was.’’
Ouch.
• Paul Pierce says the C’s gave up too much dribble penetration, and he’s careful (and correct) to spread the blame beyond Rajon Rondo (via the same Globe story):
“I think we have to do a better job of perimeter players not allowing dribble penetration. I think that’s the start of it. It starts from the wing players. We allow so much dribble penetration. That’s what you saw tonight, a lot of dribble penetration from their guards. Big men help and they kick out for their threes that they really hit.’’
Pierce is absolutely right.
I have to watch some of the game again, but one thing I noticed: The Rockets initiated a lot of their dribble penetration with off-the-ball action on the sides of the court, especially early in the game, and it was killing Boston. They’d run Budinger and Lowry up from the baseline and around a screen or two with the intent of having Brooks pass them the ball when they reached the perimeter/three-point line. As Budinger (or Lowry, or even Brooks) received the ball with their man trailing behind them, they’d be curling back toward the paint at the start of a dribble drive.
This play killed the C’s early in the game.
Other than that, the Rockets ran a lot of screen/rolls for Brooks on the side of the court an in delayed transition. It was a more creative game plan than Houston brought two weeks ago, and it caught the C’s either unprepared, tired, lazy or some combination of all three.
• Well, Doc threw down the gauntlet to Marquis Daniels and Nate Robinson last night in making it ultra-clear that Tony Allen has passed them in the rotation (via ESPNBoston.com):
“When a guy does a job better than someone else, the other guy will play. It’s not a conspiracy, that’s life. Right now, Tony is playing well. Shoot, I thought he single-handedly got us back into the game with his effort and defense. He was sensational.
“[Tony Allen is] going to play. Whether Marquis plays or Nate [Robinson] doesn’t play, one of them isn’t playing, but, right now, Tony plays because he plays hard.”
“Because he plays hard.” I think that’s pretty clear, right? Has any player been declared dead more times than Tony Allen? And yet here we are, a half-dozen games from the post-season, and Tony Allen has passed the guy essentially signed to replace him and the guy for whom the C’s traded Eddie House.
This isn’t permanent or set in stone. Rotations change, even during the playoffs. We saw it in 2008, when Doc favored Sam Cassell at the start of the playoffs before he realized Cassell was playing horribly, at which point he plucked House off the bench again. None of these guys—Daniels, TA, Nate—is good enough to be “the permanent guy” among them. For all the big talk about rotations and final decisions, Doc in the playoffs is going to play the subs who are playing well at that moment. Do you really think TA is going to have a long leash just because he’s a nose ahead of Daniels and Nate right now?
Remember: Playing TA and Rondo can create real spacing problems in a half-court offensive game.
• Speaking of Nate: Watch the last minute of the 1st quarter for a helpful primer on Nate Robinson’s entire career. With 59 seconds to go, Nate commits the sin over over-helping and yet not really helping. He drifts off of Kyle Lowry on the left wing to “help” in the paint as the Rockets run some off-the-ball action on the right (opposite) side that results in Jordan Hill moving half-heartedly into the paint. Nate’s “help” accomplishes nothing; the C’s already have the play covered.
Lowry hangs out behind the three-point line, and by the time Houston swings him the ball, Robinson is 15 feet away in the paint. Bang.
But 17 seconds later, Nate hits a three of his own. We’re square.
The C’s get the ball back with 24 seconds left—a chance for the last shot. But Nate decides to jack a semi-heat check three in transition, with just 5 seconds elapsed off the clock and nobody in position for the rebound. It misses badly.
Aaron Brooks hits and And-1 on the other end with 4 seconds left in the quarter.
• Doc Rivers thinks Rajon Rondo is playing the best basketball of his life, in part because the Celtics have their full rotation healthy (via Julian Benbow in the Globe):
“I think he’s become a better distributor in the last month really since Paul and KG have gotten back and started to get their rhythm. He really understands when to have the ball in his hands and when to move the ball. I think his improvement on that, his understanding on that is light years from last year. It really is.’’
• Ray Allen—with a smile on his face, no doubt—echoes what a lot of the point guards in the league probably say in private about Rajon Rondo (via the Herald’s Mark Murphy):
“Sam (Cassell) and I have laughed about this, and Tyronn Lue and I have talked about it too,” Allen said. “This team is set up perfectly for (Rondo). With his speed and athleticism, in every spot he has someone who can get the ball in the hole, including Perk. I imagine there’s a lot of point guards in this league who look at him with envy.”
You probably remember that some Hornets sources—some angry Hornets sources—said that Rajon was more the product of his surroundings after Rondo and Chris Paul got into a little spat at the beginning of the season. Ray’s joking, but it will be fascinating to watch Rajon evolve as his teammates continue to age and then get replaced with new guys. I think this season has shown Rajon will be able to thrive independent of his team’s roster, but how he thrives will obviously change.
Via Scott Souza: Perk admits his two-game break to rest his aching knee (tendinitis) was “a forced rest,” and Doc thinks that forced rest will pay off.
• Brian Scalabrine has noticed the T-Shirts with his likeness on them, according to the Herald:
“My black market T-shirt sales are over the top,” said the Celtics forward, who does not benefit one cent from the various unlicensed shirts that have emerged with a cult-like fervor.
The most recent T-shirt features a play on the famous Barack Obama “Hope” etching, except with the face of Scalabrine on there in place of the president.
But others have been on the Web longer, most notably The Italian Scallion, Token White Guy and Scal Doggy Dog.
I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand it, public figures have what’s known as a right to publicity—a right to profit off of their personal images. Scal doesn’t seem to care that he’s basically being robbed of that right. I’m torn about this. It’s cool that Scal, who may have a legal right to quash these items, would rather allow people to have their fun. After all, he’s at the end of a fairly lucrative contract paying him $3.4 million this season to sit on the bench.
On the other hand, the thought of Scal hiring a high-powered legal team and sitting in court, stone-faced, during super-technical testimony about intellectual property law is sort of funny.
That’s it for now. We’ve got the “showdown” against the Cavs tomorrow. If you care about the 3rd seed, a win would be big.
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