On the back of a horrific game six performance, Gary Washburn of the Globe piled on with more bad news: Avery Bradley is almost certainly done for the season. Washburn: A source close to Bradley told the Globe that it’s in the “high 90s” percentile that Bradley will be shut down and will perhaps need [...]
After the Thunder finished up their series by routinely dismantling the Lakers last night to send them packing in five games, a time has been announced for the C’s-Sixers Game 6 on Wednesday night. It will tipoff shortly after 8pm on ESPN. Looking ahead in the postseason, if the C’s do win Game 6, and [...]
I love this decision-making from Rajon Rondo. While leading the break, you can see him eyeballing Ray Allen, who runs the wing and spots up on the arc. The Sixers have a 1-2 disadvantage but are mostly concerned about Allen’s three balls, which allows Mickael Pietrus to make an unmolested baseline cut behind the defense. [...]
A note to all you local C’s fans out there that may be attending the game tonight at TD Garden. The game will start just after 7pm and will be broadcast nationally on TNT. However, unlike most TNT regular season games during the season, the tip will not come 15-20 minutes after the scheduled start [...]
Rajon Rondo is a tremendous player, but he tends to have a little bit of an issue scoring the ball late in games. I won’t go as far as saying he is scared, but he does pass up shots and defer to teammates in crunch-time….well a lot. Last night though may have been his coming [...]
Garnett followed up his season-best effort against Atlanta in Game 6 with a new season-high in points and another sensational double-double, as well 60 percent shooting (12-of-20) from the field. Over his past two contests, Garnett is averaging 28.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, two steals and four blocks a game. After the game, KG was candid [...]
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
