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7 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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7 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
8 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
9 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
12 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
12 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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How Deep is the Lake?

While combing through through the minutiae leading up to tomorrow night’s showdown, one seemingly innocuous element is the Laker’s depth.  Especially, on the front-line.

The word out of Lakers camp this morning is that the knee drainage procedure Andrew Bynum under-went produced neutral results. For argument’s sake, let’s assume this to be true and not- you know- a Phil Jackson mind-game.  This leaves the Lakers with Paul Gasol and Lamar Odom as the team’s only usable big men.  Is foul trouble a viable topic of discussion?  After comparing the numbers from both the Celtics and Lakers’ playoff runs, I would say a definitive YES.

The Celtics Bigs just played a six game series where they used their fouls liberally- executing the “Hack-A-Howard” strategy to a T.  The previous series against the Cavaliers also saw it’s fair share of fouls as the Celtics Bigs proved to be the last line of defense against the run-away freight train that is LeBron James.  Still, after those two very physical series Kendrick Perkins led the team with 63 personal fouls, Rasheed Wallace followed him up with 56, Kevin Garnett committed 46, and Glen Davis has committed a surprisingly low 37 fouls.

Comparatively, Pau Gasol (42), Andrew Bynum (44), and Lamar Odom (61) all collected enough fouls to give Lakers’ fans pause.  It’s hard enough to be down a big man in your rotation naturally, but if Bynum is not 100%, the Lakers are going to have to give Josh Powell some court time.  This, is yet another factor that should give Lakers’ fans pause given the fact that Powell has played less minutes in the playoffs than Shelden Williams (32 to Williams’ 39).

Obviously, depth has not been an issue for the Lakers yet.  If it were, would they really be in the Finals right now?  Probably not.  Still, the Lakers have not faced a team in the playoffs with the kind of front-line depth the Celtics possess.

I am not saying foul trouble and the disparity in front-line players will play a role in this series, I just believe it is something we should all keep in mind as the series unfolds.

What do you think?

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