Archive for the ‘Notebook’ Category

Rajon Rondo is either appropriately confident or the guy standing outside his burning house telling anyone who will listen that the house isn’t actually on fire. Because he had this exchange with HoopsTV (hat tip: Kevin Arnovitz at TrueHoop):

HTV: The East is very tough this year with talented teams like the Cavs and Magic front runners for a trip to the Finals. The Celtics have kind of been left out of conversation regarding who may make the NBA Finals this year. What are your thoughts on that subject?

RONDO: Nothing. (It means) we beat ourselves if we don’t win it. I don’t think anybody can beat us. Atlanta swept us already, Cleveland is up two to one (now 3 to 1), Orlando is up two to one, but at the end of the day I think that we can beat any of those teams (in a playoff series).

The best part about this is how Rondo lists—accurately!—Boston’s horrid record against the East’s other three elite teams and then says, basically, Who cares?

What would Rajon say if he were on the Nets?

And no Wilson Chandler, either, according to Newsday’s Alan Hahn (via NBC Sports). Eddie is dealing with an Achilles problem I hadn’t heard about, and I wonder how close we are to having the Achilles tendon renamed the Beckham tendon.

In any case, that’s a downer. I’d have liked to have seen Eddie play. Chandler is obviously a bigger cog in New York’s offense and has served as Mike D’Antoni’s preferred power forward for long stretches. The C’s enjoyed posting up KG in that match-up. What do the Knicks do now? The obvious move would be to slide Al Harrington into Chandler’s spot in the starting line-up. Harrington has hurt the C’s this season.

Still: This marks a second straight came against a bad team even further depleted by injuries. Good thing—the schedule is about to get brutal.

Reporting live from the TD Garden, we had a very quiet Celtics locker room in the pregame, where there were no sighting of any of the starting five during media availability.

Instead, we had an extended interview with Doc Rivers in the pregame, who was pretty candid about how much of a “challenge” it has been to coach this team, this year. A few quotes from the session:

On Marquis Daniels’ recent struggles

“He has to play better, point blank. He has to play better and harder….and better. The new guys may have thrown him off but he has to play better. Marquis has it in him, he knows that and I expect that of him. He’s a role player and we need his energy every single night. He can’t afford to ease his way into games, he’s too talented to do that. He’s only going to play 20 minutes a night so he needs to be a factor when he’s in the game.”

On Rasheed Wallace after being asked if he has to play better:

“Yes, absolutely.”

Nice and blunt Doc. I think Doc’s patience is wearing thin on the overpriced center. I wonder if we will see a little more of Shelden tonight against the terrific offensive rebounding Pistons, if Sheed reverts back to his lazy habits.

On the challenges of coaching this team:

” In some ways, it’s very enjoyable, I know that sounds crazy, but it’s a group that you had to get your hands dirty. Push buttons, get on different guys you never thought you would have to, in some ways it’s been very difficult but in some ways It’s a joyous challenge. I’m excited by it in a crazy way, if we can get this right, it’s an unbelievable challenge. If you get it right, it will be an unbelievable feeling at the end.”

More on these quotes after the game, but I think, behind the scenes everyone is having a tough time trying to keep this squad together. More live updates to come, throughout the night from the Garden on press row.

As of 11:30 a.m., it appears to have stopped raining in New York City after about 55 hours of consecutive rain, approximately 14,000 destroyed umbrellas and, somehow, no loss of power. Score one for Con-Ed, which I believe marks the first time a New Yorker has said anything positive about Con-Ed since the 1960s. 

Onto the notebook: 

• Doc Rivers feels a win today against Cleveland, according to Dan Duggan at the Herald:

“I think we will (win); I really do,” Doc Rivers said. “I think we’ll come in and play terrific. But we just got to play hard. There’s no guarantees.”

I’m glad Brendan wrote the preview of this game, which is right below this post. Because the entirety of my preview would have been: Show me something.  Be in this game down the stretch. The last meeting, a 108-88 Cavs win on Feb. 25, appeared at halftime to be a competitive showdown between two elite teams. Then the Cavs started playing better and the Celtics fell apart. 

Let’s hope the team fulfills Doc’s predictions for today. 

• We noted yesterday that Perk called out the big Aristotle by claiming the Cavs are better without Shaq. The Beast wasn’t done. » More: Sunday Notebook: Doc Feels a Win, Finley on the Playbook, Perk is Mouthy