Saturday Notebook: The Appropriateness of Booing, Lingering Optimism, Nate’s Weird Role
Posted by Zach Lowe on Apr 10, 2010
The Wizards were 3-18 in their last 21 games before coming into Boston and beating the C’s in what was basically a blowout that could cost Boston the 3rd seed. The reaction from the C’s? A curious mixture of worry, optimism, lack of concern and some discomfort with the notion that the fans would ever boo the home team. Some snippets:
• KG on the booing, via ESPN.com:
“We’re at home. We look for our fans to give us energy, to give us a spark when times are tough,” forward Kevin Garnett said. “It doesn’t help when the boos happen, but we are a veteran team. When that occurs we all just get together and say, ‘We just have to grind this out.”
The Herald’s Mark Murphy overheard KG mumble the following about the boos as the C’s headed to the locker room at halftime:
“Then don’t come to the (expletive) games,” said Kevin Garnett in a relatively low tone as he headed from the court.
Whoa.
Really, KG? Maybe Sheed says this. Or even Glen Davis or a feisty Rajon Rondo. But the veteran leader of the team? The guy who has been about accountability and hard work for his entire career? The guy making $20 million per season through 2012 when he clearly deserves half that much? The guy who talks trash at anyone and everyone on the opposing team all game long?
The boos don’t help. I don’t think they are meant as constructive criticism, KG. Look, I don’t ever boo my teams when I go to games. I might make comments about particular plays (“Oh, that’s a dumb shot, Nate!”), but I don’t boo. But anyone is within their rights to do so, particularly when a supposedly elite team fighting for post-season position is getting hammered by a D-League team at home.
• Paul Pierce, the captain, had a different take on the booing. Perhaps this is why he’s the captain. (Via the same Herald story):
“So I think it’s all about the effort. Regardless if you win or lose, the fans want that effort. When you see the other team beating us to all the loose balls and we’re turning the ball over, I think that’s the things they see and they start to boo about. I don’t think it’s about missed shots and stuff like that.
“It definitely wasn’t our best effort.”
For the record, that is the captain of the team admitting the C’s did not give their best effort.
I’m not going to get on the C’s for not playing with balls to the wall Game 7-level intensity in the 79th game of the season when they clearly don’t care about playoff seeding. But the trade-off for coasting—if the C’s were coasting—is to accept the unfavorable reaction from fans who paid a lot of money to watch the game and arrived to see a hapless team blowing the doors off of Boston. Pierce gets that, or at least he said the right thing to the media.
• Is Doc concerned? Well, sort of. Here’s one quote from the Globe’s game story:
“We have to be a better defensive team. That’s clear.’’
No kidding. The C’s have dropped from 1st in defensive efficiency to 4th in the span of about three weeks, and their overall points allowed/100 possessions mark has jumped from about 101.5 to 103.5 in that stretch. That is an awful trend. This team makes its bones on defense. If the D falters, we may as well pack it in.
• But how concerned is Doc with losses to the Wiz and Knicks, really? Here he is in another Globe story talking about the last few games:
“If we make a run in the playoffs will you forget all this?’’ he said. “That’s my point. And if we don’t then it was probably who we were all year. We were an inconsistent team — in the second half at least — and we’ll find that out.’’
And, finally, some muted optimism:
“That’s been frustrating, that we have not gotten back to the form that we started the season with,’’ said Rivers. “But I think we’re closer now than we were a month ago.’’
Let’s be clear on one thing: The C’s are 2-5 in their last 7 games, and the defense has not once looked anything like the defense that started this season. Here are the point totals from those games: 94, 109, 119, 113, 104, 104, 106. One went to overtime (the game in which they allowed 119 against the Rockets), but none have been fast-paced.
The last time the C’s resembled the team that opened the season 23-5 was during their back-to-back wins at Houston and Dallas and their home win against the Nuggets in mid-March. Since then? Much less resemblance.
• Nate Robinson’s scoring outburst near the end of the game last night hasn’t changed his status on the team: He’s out of the rotation but is still expected to provide a spark off the bench. Wait, what? Here’s Doc, via NESN.com:
“Nate is not in our rotation right now, but he’ll win a playoff game for us,” Rivers said. “There will be a game where we’re flat, and we’re going to need somebody to come in and make something happen, and Nate will do that. And I told him that yesterday. I told him there will be a game that he’s going to win us. He’s going to win us a playoff game.”
I’m guessing this means that Nate won’t see the floor during a post-season game unless it’s clear for whatever reason that nothing else is working, the team is stagnant and Doc feels desperate. I don’t know how else to read this statement.
The danger in that strategy seems to be that Nate will feel like he’s got a blank check to play crazy basketball when he gets into a game. “Holy crap, coach is putting me in and he has said he wants me to make something happen! I better start jacking crazy transition threes!”
Here’s the thing: Nate makes a lot of defensive mistakes when he plays crazy. His offense works in crazy mode—to a degree—but when he gets amped up, he tends to over-help on defense away from the ball, gamble for steals and press his man far from the hoop. These are vain attempts to “make something happen,” and they usually result in good looks for the other team.
And this is why Nate Robinson has been a failure here so far: He still plays as if nothing is at stake, as if stupid mistakes don’t matter. It’s not a coincidence that Doc yanked Robinson from the rotation after last week’s Houston game, when Nate ended the 1st quarter by leaving his man (Kyle Lowry) wide open for a three and then, after the C’s got the ball back with 24 seconds left and a chance to hold for the last shot, inexplicably jacked a horrid transition three with about 19 seconds left. Houston got the rebound and converted an And-1 on the other end.
When Nate plays like this, he’s like a selfish version of Tony Allen.
When the C’s dealt a solid rotation player for Nate, the thinking was the team’s veterans plus the the suddenly meaningful stakes would shake the hot dog/not-smart player out of him. That hasn’t happened, and the deal as a result must be judged a failure—for now.
• The team is not concerned about losing the 3rd seed to the Hawks, according to the Providence Journal’s Robert Lee, who asked whether the team cares about seeding and playoff match-ups:
“It doesn’t matter,” Rivers said. “It doesn’t matter who we face in the second round, or the third, or the finals.”
And:
“I think we’re healthy and the guys are in better shape,” Rivers said. “Their conditioning is rising so I think a lot of things are pointing in a favorable direction for us. … I do like what we’re working on and I think we’re going to be OK.”
• Chris Forsberg at ESPNBoston.com gets us caught up on the current playoff scenarios this morning. The Bucks have a one-game lead on the Heat (plus the tie-breaker) for the 5th seed, meaning they are once again Boston’s most likely opponent. The C’s, of course, are now a game behind Atlanta in the race for the 3rd seed. The C’s own the tie-breaker with the Hawks, but Atlanta’s last three games are a road game against a miserable Wiz team, a roadie at Milwaukee and a home date against what will almost certainly be Cleveland’s bench.
My bet: The Hawks win out, the C’s finish 4th and play the Bucks in the first round.
• Also in the ProJo, Doc gives his assessment of Rasheed Wallace’s season:
“Up-and-down. He’s had some good games and some bad games. The bottom line is he’ll be judged and our team will be judged in how well we play in the playoffs. If he has a great playoff run, I don’t think anyone is going to say ‘This is a disappointing Rasheed Wallace.’”
And:
“You still always get back to the kind of guy he is when emotions aren’t around. When emotions aren’t around, he’s a good guy.”
This seems sort of like saying Antoine Walker was a really effective offensive player when he wasn’t shooting too many threes.
That’s it for this morning. We’ll be back to preview tonight’s game against those same Milwaukee Bucks.
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