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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Celtics are back in town today with an off day and in a slight bit of a surprise (not really) are not practicing before their Sunday evening tilt with the Milwaukee Bucks tomorrow at the TD Garden at 6 pm. Perhaps Doc Rivers, sensing his starters were a bit burnt out with all these extra minutes following the injuries and trades, figured the guys are better off with more rest at this point than the additional practice time.
Nonetheless, with five new faces on the roster along with Avery Bradley, you would think that crew needs as much time as they can get right now to get acclimated with the Boston system on both ends of the floor. In a way, it’s almost an impossible scenario for Doc to try to balance right now, but then again, it would probably be just as challenging with Nate Robinson, Luke Harangody and Semih Erden on the roster.
We’ll start things with Glen Davis, who walked through with the second unit down in Philadelphia before last night’s game. Doc had referred to Baby practicing with the team earlier in the week during today’s practice session, but since that’s not happening, we’ll assume that he’ll also go through tomorrow’s walkthrough at the TD Garden before the game. Here’s Doc on how he looked yesterday. (ESPNBoston.com)
“He looked better,” said Rivers. “He didn’t do enough, just skeleton. You can’t tell from that. It’s just skeleton offense, nothing strenuous. But I do think he’ll play Sunday, we just don’t know for sure.”
With the starters swooning (outside of Nenad Krstic) and Doc (rightfully) unwilling to let Troy Murphy see the floor more than five minutes a game at this juncture, I’d say it’s a safe bet we see Baby on the floor tomorrow night to give this team a much needed energy boost. Davis worked wonders in the first half of the season in this department, now it’s time to see whether some extra rest for his sore knee will allow him to get back to that form.
The good news for the C’s is the Bucks play tonight against Philly in Milwaukee, so they will be losing an hour (two actually) when you factor in daylight’s savings heading into tonight’s early evening tilt. So if there was ever a time when an opponent might be incredibly gassed on the second half of a back-to-back, tomorrow might be it.
With that said, Milwaukee is still a very young team and will be much healthy (Andrew Bogut’s back) than they were when Boston beat them last Sunday. The Bucks are fighting tooth and nail for that elusive 8 spot in the East, so their focus will there, despite any issues of fatigue for Scott Skiles’ squad.
More Reasons To Like Carlos Arroyo
“I give him a lot of credit, at shootaround this morning, [the second unit] knew every play and they ran through it like they’ve been doing it all year,” said Allen. “The second unit that we have now, a lot of them have a high basketball IQ.” (ESPNBoston)
Give this guy 20-25 minutes already until Rajon Rondo snaps out of his funk/gets healthy and Delonte West returns (who is doubtful for Sunday).
Excuses, Excuses
Ryan covered the starters’ problems in his recap last night, but it’s still interesting to hear what a few of them have to say on their issues and whether it ties into the moves that were bad: (Boston Herald
KG: “Myself, I know I have to be more consistent and do a lot more,” Garnett said. “Doc Rivers just says, ‘Be aggressive, be aggressive.’ We’re trying to figure it all out on the go, but still we have to get it done.
“I’m not the one to make excuses,” he said. “The transformation is not an easy thing, but we have to fix it, and I’m sure we will.”
Rondo: “It’s on the starters, the new guys aren’t starting the game. Now, it’s on us.”
The fact that the starters can second guess themselves and trying to “figure it out on the go” is a bit bothersome in my mind, and one of the many risks of this trade. There’s always going to be that voice in the back of their heads when the playoffs roll around wondering, man what if Perk was here.
I think this team is mentally tough enough to get over that, and the current issues will obviously be eased when more experienced big bodies return, but I don’t like to hear KG talk like that, since it’s clear he shares the same worries than we do.
Finally the latest edition of the CelticsHub podcast featuring yours truly and a frequent CelticsHub contributor Jro or John Rodier. Enjoy!
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