Doc on Rondo’s Offense, Stiemsma, and J.O.

Posted by Brian Robb on Dec 22, 2011 233030 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2011%2F12%2F22%2Fdoc-on-rondos-offense-steimsma-and-j-o%2FDoc+on+Rondo%27s+Offense%2C+Stiemsma%2C+and+J.O.2011-12-22+15%3A50%3A09Brian+Robbhttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D23303

Doc is generally pretty forthcoming in his postgame press conferences, so here’s a collection of some of his most telling lines from last night’s contest, courtesy of the C’s:

On Greg Stiemsma: “Oh gosh. He’s great. I mean, he played great, which is good. It’s good to see. It was nice because we played him with some of the starters, which we were trying to do, and you know he blocked shots, he could run the floor, he can make the shot from the elbow – that was great when he just jacked it, that was what we wanted him to do. So it was a good showing by him.”

On Why Jermaine O’Neal’s minutes were limited: “No, he was great. I told Jermaine before the game that we were going to play Greg (Stiemsma) a lot. We’re going to try to get (Chris) Wilcox in that one little stretch in the second half. So I told him he wasn’t going to play a lot. But he’s been great.”

On the starters’ performance: “The starting lineup looked great today: their speed, their – offensively they had it rolling. Defensively they were terrific. We turned the ball over too much, even with our starters. When you score 47 points and you shoot 53% but you have 10 turnovers or 9 turnovers, you’ve taken away the chance to have a 60-point half. Because of your turnovers. So that was the only thing that we didn’t like. Defensively I used two timeouts in the second quarter because I think a guy twice in a row – a guy drove from the free-throw line, actually from the three-point line one time, and then from the top of the key all the way to the basket with no help. The defense on the ball was bad, but we’ve got to have secondary help and we didn’t have that. And that was the second unit. But overall I liked it. Not sure about Sasha (Pavlovic) or Marquis (Daniels) yet. I mean, if Paul (Pierce) can’t go the first game or second game, we’re going to have to make that decision.”

On Rondo’s offense: “Yeah, yeah. We want him to just shoot it; I don’t care how many times he shoots. What I did like more than his jump shot was that he got to the foul line, I think six times in the first half. That’s – we need that.”

On Kevin Garnett’s offense: “Well he looks good. He looked – the first couple of days he was out of synch a little bit, but now he looks great. His jumper looks good again, he’s aggressive. I like the fact that he looks more aggressive offensively, which we need him to be. He needs to be – he needs to score more this year for us. And I don’t care where it’s from. The purists are saying on the post. I don’t care if the ball goes in, it still counts as the same. Where he gets it from – he just has to be more aggressive offensively for us.”

Has he figured out the rotation?: “You pretty much – I got a good feel. The good news is we’ve had a lot of practices. You would’ve hoped a couple of guys, honestly, separated themselves, and they didn’t. But hey, listen, we’re going to just throw them out there and hopefully someone separates themselves when the game –season starts. We may have to do a couple of positions by committee.”

Any particular reason why there are fewer threes being taken?: “No. That’s just a function of Paul Pierce not being on the floor, really. Really, that’s what it is – when you have Paul and Ray (Allen) the floor is spread. And the spacing is different. When you have Marquis and Sasha and Avery (Bradley) those guys are more slashers. So it’s a function of that.”