The Herald got it right from Rondo’s agent. According to his agent, Bill Duffy, the Celtics point guard has been named to the Eastern Conference All-star roster, presumably to replace Joe Johnson, the injured Atlanta Hawks guard. This would be Rondo’s third all-star appearance. Nice birthday present for RR, who probably should have been selected [...]
We apologize if your comments are being deleted (provided that they are not offensive). We are looking into why this is happening. We also want to apologize for the lack of a game thread for last night’s game. We had a premonition that the Celtics would play that poorly and thought if we pretended the [...]
I talked with Detroit star forward Greg Monroe prior to the Celtics-Pistons game on Wednesday night. Here is what the 2nd year big man out of Georgetown, who is averaging 16.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists per game had to say. 1. Just your 2nd year in the league, but playing so well, were you disappointed [...]
Readers! Last week’s responses to the 5-on-5 questions were really, really great. We had way more qualified answers than we were able to use. So we’re going to keep doing it! FOREVER. Here are this week’s questions: 1. Are you concerned about Rondo’s media boycott this week? 2. The trade deadline is less than a [...]
I talked with Chicago starting guard Ronnie Brewer prior to the Celtics-Bulls game on Sunday. Here is what the 6th year man out of Arkansas who is averaging 7.6 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.1 assists had to say. 1. You guys have a lot of the same players back from last year’s team which was [...]
I talked to Los Angeles back up big man Josh McRoberts prior to the Celtics-Lakers game Thursday night at the Garden. Here is what the former Duke Blue Devil, who is averaging 2.9 points and 3.8 rebounds in his first year in LA, had to say. 1. How have you guys been able to deal [...]
The C’s get a potential break for their first of four SEGABABAs this month with a team that is perhaps slightly better than their record, but not by as much as you’ve been told. The Timber-Ws are victims of the common professional sports phenomenon of being so underrated they’re overrated. Yes, they’re substantially better than last year. Yes, they’ve got one of the league’s best young players. Yes, they’re coming off a substantial win over the Nets and took three of their last four. They’re still a better story than a basketball team.
The Celtics can beat this team shorthanded, and probably should, meaning they could let Rondo rest his ankle. We also owe it to the Timberwolves to keep this game competitive in return for that championship they gave us. On to this evening’s basketballetry.
WHAT THE TIMBERWOLVES DO WELL
Possess Kevin Love. Dude is the best. Everyone loves him. I live near UCLA, and sometimes I walk around Westwood Village and think “Kevin Love probably went to that bubble tea place at some point.” For comparison, I once saw Brook Lopez at a Subway in Westwood Village and I hardly ever think about that.
It’s a distant memory now, but Minnesota fans famously had to deal with Kurt Rambis benching Love in crunch time early in the season, when what Rambis really should have been doing is forcing Love to do this every possession:
Is that crazier than letting Corey Brewer shoot two threes per game? It’s equally crazy at worst. But Rambis has been acting a little weird ever since he ran into Kevin McHale’s arm.
In addition to being the big-man shooter Andrea Bargnani wishes he could be, Love is also the league’s best rebounder, offensive and defensive. There are a few guys with higher ORRs than Love, but they don’t play enough minutes for anyone to care, or they’re short so a lot of those boards are the product of their stuff being sent back. Love has almost singlehandedly lugged his team to the top of the league’s ORR differential standings, and that’s one of Dean Oliver’s Four Factors of Success y’all.
Love and Beasley, who’s been very good, have been getting some media shine this season. For a while some people were saying they could be the league’s best frontcourt duo, shortly after some other people offered that title to Chris Kaman and Blake Griffin. Let this be a lesson to all teams: do not have the league’s best frontcourt duo.
But it’s true about the Timbo bigs: the team’s best three-point shooters are 6’10”, 6’9”, and 6’10”. Beasley, Tolliver, Love. Because the brothers O’Neal are not exactly known for their perimeter defense, you can see how this might cause problems.
WHAT THE TIMBERWOLVES DO POORLY
The other three Four Factors. Meaning their differentials in Effective Field Goal Percentage, Free Throw Rate, and Turnover Rate. They’re 25th in EFG differential because they can’t protect the rim (Love’s fatal flaw) or the three-ball. They’re 29th in FTR because their big guys shoot threes rather than draw fouls underneath, but mostly because Beez and Darko commit way too many fouls. And they’re 27th in TOR because they have two of the league’s most TO-prone PGs in Jonny Flynn and Sebastian Telfair.
This is how to completely neutralize the possessions you get from offensive rebounds: give them back with excessive turnovers, and do nothing with the ones you keep.
PLAYERS WHO MAKE ME WORRY
Wesley Johnson. Juuust kidding. It’s Kevin Love. The league’s best rebounder can keep his team in any game with the sheer mass of extra possessions he offers them. Combine that with gravity having increased its pull on Shaq and Glen Davis’s inch deficiency and you’ve got a potential trouble zone. Shaq’s butt, on the other hand, is capable of bulldozing Kevin Love many feet from the basket, even though he’s not jumping. So let’s look for a solid performance from Shaq’s butt tonight.
I could also be convinced to worry about Michael Beasley, because when he does the right things he does them very well. But I think the Celtics are defensively capable of forcing him into the wrong things.
PLAYERS WHO DO NOT MAKE ME WORRY
Darko Milicic. You wouldn’t be crazy if you thought Darko was having an awesome year, based on the coverage he got early in the season. But you would be wrong. Far from the double-double machine he plays behind, Darko’s not even averaging a single-double, and he pulls in a totally pedestrian Total Rebound Rate of 12.1 (that results in only 5.3 rebounds per game). He also commits more turnovers than anyone else in heavy Minnesota rotation, and he averages less than two assist per game. I guess that’s why people stopped talking about his court vision six years ago. Darko started the season out pretty strong, but that start only underscores how ghoulish he’s been over the last month-plus.
This seems like a good time to watch him completely flip out. DO NOT PLAY THIS VIDEO IF YOU ARE UNDER 25 YEARS OLD.
WHAT WE WANT TO SEE FROM THE CELTICS TONIGHT
Potentially not Rajon Rondo? They didn’t seem to need him yesterday against a better team than this. Other than that, it would be great if they could minimize Love and Beasley’s damage, because nobody else on the roster has demonstrated the potential to inflict any. Overall, we should just hope they win the game to avoid being sucked back into the confidence morass of a few days ago.
The Ticker
