khandor’s sports blog

Craig Kwasniewski [The Association], a die-hard LA Lakers fan and season-ticket holder, smacks one a clear country mile, when reviewing the precise reasons why the Boston Celtics SHOULD simply “stay the course” with their latter-day version of the Big Three:

Celtics Should Keep Ray Allen for One Last Ride with The Big Three

I think it’s insane to break up The Big Three so soon after hanging banner 17.  Shouldn’t they be allowed to give it one last shot together?  Shouldn’t we consider that this might be a rough patch in a long season?  Why break up a good thing so quickly, did you not forget the 22-year championship drought?

Anyway, here are a few reasons why the C’s should keep Ray Allen and give The Big Three one last chance at a title:

The long regular season. Relax Boston… I know it’s cold and miserable back east and the long winter is getting to you but you really need to be reminded how The Association works.  The NBA regular season is a very long 82-games over six months. Mix in preseason and hopefully a long postseason and you’re looking at a 8 or 9 month season. Veteran teams always seem to hit a lull somewhere between Christmas and Easter. It’s impossible to bring playoff efforts when your key players are in their 30’s… it’s just not possible (and the ones that did, like the Pat Riley Heat teams in the late 90’s collapsed in a heap by playoff time).  Just ride out this rough patch, usually teams find their second wind around March Madness.

Don’t be so quick to blow up the Big Three.  Counting playoffs The Big Three era has lasted about 2 1/2 seasons for a total of 253 games.  Actually that sounds like a good number of games… a good run at legitimate title contention, right?  Not really when you consider that the C’s were last legit contenders when Bird retired in 1992.  That’s 15 seasons with 6 brief postseason appearances (and only one conference championship appearance in 2001-02 with the Jim O’Brien chuck-and-duck era) for a grand total of 1,275 games.  Suddenly 253 games doesn’t sound like a lot does it?  Maybe you might want to remember the long drought before sending off a future hall-of-fame guard for a quick fix.

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In the judgment of yours truly, Craig’s take is 100% on the money.

Although Ubuntu! may not have enough left in the tank this season to be able to actually win-it-all, again … with the Lakers, Magic and Cavaliers being as strong as they are right now … it sure as heck DESERVES THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRY, at least, ONE MORE TIME, even bloodied and battered.

Simple put … that’s THE RIGHT STUFF of which True Champions are made, whether or not they, in fact, succeed on the court together.

For the benefit of those who happen to think Orlando’s $110.0 Million Dollar Man cannot succeed while playing at the #3/Small Forward position against the other elite level teams in the NBA:

Box Score, Play-By-Play & Recap

Perhaps, you need to think again!

Related:

Fixing what is actually wrong with the Orlando Magic [Jan 20, 2010]

Want to have some faith restored in the goodness of an NBA player?

Here you go …

When tragedy strikes: Pierce on Hait and more

Tragedies happen to even the most innocent. You don’t have to be a thug, you don’t have to be a criminal, you don’t have to be a bad guy. Stray bullets hit kids all the time. You see kids playing with guns, and by accident, they shoot their father or the mother or their sister or their brother. Or themselves. And you never think it could happen.

But if a tragedy does happen to you and you live to talk about it, your life changes. I hope it changes you. I hope so.

For me, everything changed. My life changed.

After I was stabbed, I was in the hospital laying there, I had a whole different outlook on life. I had to be more careful about who I hung around with, about the places I went. I thought about my family. My friends. I value them a lot more because it’s like at any moment, it could have been over for me.

I was 22-years old and I hadn’t even accomplished many of the things I wanted to accomplish in life. With a blink of an eye, my life could have ended.

I was just thankful that I was able to live through it. You see how people get stabbed or shot one time and die from it. I was stabbed NINE TIMES and was able to talk about it.

It changes you. You’re aware of your surroundings and everything. You grow up so much faster when you go through something tragic. It definitely changes you as a person. You look at life differently.

You never think something tragic can happen to you. You always see it and you think it could never happen to you. You think that’s stuff that happened on the news or happened on the movies, but it could never happen to you. But that’s life.

It was traumatizing for me for a while. I woke up in cold sweats. I had nightmares about it. Some people, it takes a while to get over. Some people move on.

It took me a couple years. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to talk to people too much. I tried to isolate myself. It was like I was scared to go places. Especially in Boston. I used to have security at my house 24 hours a day. It was traumatizing for me. I used to jump in my sleep, wake up in the middle of the night. It was a lot of that. Just picturing the whole moment. Having nightmares about it. There was a lot of that.

I had to grow and learn.

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Ubuntu, Mr. Pierce.

Ubuntu!

Raptors’ inconsistency a cause for concern
One telling play in Friday’s loss was a dunk by Boston’s Paul Pierce over Chris Bosh that ended with Pierce being hit with a taunting technical for flexing over the falling Raptor. That brought coach Jay Triano and his staff off the bench to scream at Pierce, but elicited no response from the other players.

“I was pretty focused on what was going on in front of me. I didn’t realize until I watched it on tape that we had backed off as much as we did,” Triano said. “I think if I was Chris I would confront my teammates.

“Any time one of your guys goes down – and you don’t have to go out there and start fighting – just go over and help your teammate and we didn’t even do that. He laid there on the floor without anybody going over to see how he was.”

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PART I

A Top Notch NBA head coach does NOT talk in this way, concerning what happens to one of HIS players in a game:

“I was pretty focused on what was going on in front of me. I didn’t realize … ”

A Top Notch NBA head coach is aware of EVERY SINGLE THING that happens on the floor, and on the bench, with regard to HIS team.

A Top Notch NBA head coach … misses NOTHING.

Ever.

Because he is just THAT aware of:

1. What’s happened in the game, to that point;

2. What’s happening in the game, at that exact moment; and,

3. What’s most likely ABOUT to happen in the game, in the immediate future.

This is one of the personal attributes which separates a Top Notch NBA head coach from everyone else. 

PART II

A Top Notch NBA head coach does NOT talk in this way, either:

A. To;

or,

B. About;

the players on HIS own team.

He does NOT use the phrase:

“I think if I was ____ ____, I would ________ __ _________.”

He does NOT talk in public … either to, or about, HIS players … in terms of hypothetical directives.

A Top Notch NBA head coach is, either:

A. Purposely obtuse/indirect; or,

B. Purposely acute/direct;

in his dealings with reporters, scribes, bloggers, etc., concerning goings-on with HIS players, in order to convey a highly specific message that either:

i. Relieves the pressure of a situation from the entire team; or,

ii. Narrows the focus to a certain thing/individual within the entire group.

Of all the goings-on which have occurred in Raptorville, to this point, this season … these specific words spoken by their head coach, Jay Triano, are the most disconcerting.   

FACTS FROM FRIDAY NIGHT’S INCIDENT VS BOSTON

1. The first Raptors’ coach to get up from his seat, in response to what was done to Chris Bosh [by Paul Pierce] … was ALEX ENGLISH.

2. The most demonstrative Raptors’ coach who actually went after the Celtics’ bench contingent [i.e. Doc Rivers, Tom Thibodeau, Rasheed Wallace, etc.], in response to what was done to Chris Bosh [by Paul Pierce] … was MARC IAVARONI.

The Raptors have assembled a team in the image of Bryan Colangelo … and, it’s going to be most interesting, indeed, to see where they’ll go from here. 

Toronto Raptors 103
BOSTON CELTICS 116
Fri Nov 27 2009 - Game Summary

Feschuk: Raptors bow down meekly to Celtics 103-116
[excerpt #1]
“There’s no other way to say it – we just got punked,” said Antoine Wright, Toronto’s veteran swingman, a rare voice of outrage on a ho-hum club.

“We’ve got guys standing over our best player, flexing, and it’s not something we can stand for. I was pretty frustrated sitting on the bench watching their whole team run out there on the floor and we only had our coaches up shouting and screaming at their players. I don’t like that.”

Said Bosh: “Yeah, I’d like to see the team more passionate. I look at their bench and they’re all up standing at half-court, and nobody from their team was down on the floor. I think we would react better to just be out there for one another and just stay together.”

Wright and Bosh were on something of an island, it seemed. Jay Triano, the Toronto coach, didn’t register a qualm with his team’s reaction to Pierce’s technical; he said he “liked the way we fought back after that” – although the Raptors, down 17 points at the time, never got the Boston advantage below nine points. Jarrett Jack, who bent down to check on Bosh, pointed out that the play was clean, and that the Raptors had come to Bosh’s aid when Bosh tangled with Dwight Howard in a game against the Magic earlier this season.

Nobody was suggesting the Raptors should have brawled. But there’s no denying that Pierce’s dunk-and-pose was symbolic of Boston’s second-half manhandling of the soft visitors.

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When you look at the Full Play-By-Play of the 3rd Quarter … from the 8:00 mark until the end of the stanza … you should be able to see that Antoine Wright was on the court when this game changed for the worst, from the Raptors’ perspective, and did nothing to stem the tide with his own play.

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Q1. How does a team which is soft Defensively, and in terms of Rebounding, increase its overall Toughness Quotient?

A1. Not by adding 9 new players to its roster that play the game like this:

with an existing group that looks like this:

High end teams in the NBA have a player roster which is filled with QUALITY DEPTH and several individuals that come ready-made with PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS.

In the immediate aftermath of Paul Pierce’s drive and dunk, in which he planted his knee directly into Chris Bosh’s groin area … it’s NO COINCIDENCE that the first two members of the Raptors’ contingent to forcibly express their displeasure were:

#1. Alex English [former NBA player, Hall of Fame Inductee]; and,

#2. Marc Iavaroni [former NBA player, 1981 World Champion, Philadelphia 76ers].

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[excerpt #2]
Wright, speaking to reporters before the game, criticized unnamed teammates for lax preparation in the wake of Wednesday’s 35-point loss in Charlotte: “You’ve got guys in here eating popcorn, joking around before the game. And we go out there and lose by 40. It’s a direct result of what’s going on before the game. Guys not coming in with the right mind frame.”

Those words appeared to resonate. Said Sonny Weems, the 23-year-old wing: “We do fool around a lot. And it tends to carry over into the game, and that’s something that needs to change.”

You’ll excuse Bosh, the seventh-year Raptor who has heard similar vows of vigilance before, if he exhaled through the post-game questions.

Said Wright: “We’ve got a lot of good players on this team but we’re going to have to come together or teams are just going to continue to run us over like this.”

Sighed Bosh: “I’m tired of talking about toughness. We talk about it too much. We talk about everything too much. We’ve got to stop talking about it and just do it.”

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Until the current Raptors’ Management Team understands the TRUE VALUE of Defense, Rebounding and PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS … for the High End teams in the NBA … Toronto will continue to be an also-ran.

Memo to Bryan Colangelo.

The time for Tough[ness] Talk has long since passed … if you want to re-sign Chris Bosh this summer and construct a championship calibre organization for the Toronto Raptors.

The ball is in YOUR court, once again.

For the benefit of those who may not have read it yet …

Can Toronto Build a Winner Around Bosh
When we put the entire picture together, it doesn’t look too good for fans of Toronto.  The Raptors will still employ the services of Calderon and Bosh, and these players produced about 21 wins last year.  And it’s possible that Turkoglu, Jack, Evans, and Johnson can contribute another 15 wins.  After these players, though, who else is going to produce significant quantity of wins?  And if no one else produces much, how will Bosh believe that the Raptors are building a contender?

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is a first-rate take by David Berri on the Raptors’ current situation.

Since his arrival in the NBA, 6 seasons ago, Chris Bosh has firmly established himself as one of the very best Big Men in the League … with an individual game that’s unique, as an under-sized Center, and in need of support from a group of talented teammates. Unfortunately, what has also happened during this same time-frame, repeatedly, is that the team’s ownership group [i.e. MLSE] and upper management have demonstrated an inability to make sound basketball-related decisions around him, based on an over-riding Plan of Attack geared toward the building of a championship-winning calibre team in Toronto, through the proper acquisition and retention of Top Notch NBA talent, which includes executives, coaches, support staff and players.

Understanding exactly what the Boston Celtics actually did 3 summers ago to transform their team into a legitimate title contender:

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1. Retain the services of a very good and already-proven NBA head coach;
2. Hold onto their already-established franchise player [i.e. Paul Pierce];
3. Trade an upcoming top draft pick for a 2nd established franchise player [i.e. Ray Allen];
4. Include their younger burgeoning talent [i.e. i. Al Jefferson, ii. Ryan Gomes, and iii. Sebastien Telfair] in a major trade for a 3rd “stud” player [i.e. The Big Ticket];
5. Keep a bedrock player like Kendrick Perkins [C], as a building block for their future team;
6. Draft another young stud at the PG position [i.e. Rajon Rondo], who other teams over-looked/under-valued; and, then,
7. Filled out the remainder of its roster with very serviceable players with great attitudes who were committed to winning a championship above all else.

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means that all is NOT lost for the Raptors, as long as they begin to identify accurately what their actual strengths and weaknesses are, relative to their competition.

What “regular Raptors fans” need to do is spend some more time figuring out who on their team fits properly into the corresponding roles of Wyc Grousbeck [i.e. MLSE?], Danny Ainge [i.e. Bryan Colangelo?], Doc Rivers [i.e. Jay Triano?], Paul Pierce [i.e. Chris Bosh!] and Ray Allen [?], Kevin Garnett [?], and Al Jefferson [i.e. Andrea Bargnani!!!], etc., and less time putting down the 5th best player in the brief history of the team [i.e. CB4] and his designated running mate [i.e. El Matador].

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PS. Those who think that Danny Ainge [GM] was operating without an over-riding Plan of Attack, based on his Basketball Acumen, simply do not know how the NBA actually works, or how a team needs to go about building a championship-winning organization, at the highest level of competition.

re: How an astute NBA observer might expect the first part of the schedule to unfold for the Raptors this year

Game 17 – at Boston [Fri Nov 27]

When healthy, this group of Celtics is too much for the Raptors to handle, with the only match-up advantage, in Toronto’s favour, deep on the bench.

Since the baseline 2005-2006 season …

these two teams have, in fact, gone in opposite directions in the Atlantic Division, with the Celtics re-asserting themselves as the dominant organization in the EC, on the whole, and the Raptors sinking back towards the bottom of the standings.

In sharp contrast to a large percentage of other Raptors fans, unfortunately, yours truly does not see this situation changing in the immediate future, given the different ways in which these two organizations operate.

Raptors expected W-L Record: L, 6-11

In what should go down as one of the great playoff performances of all-time for the Celtics …

* Minus Kevin Garnett [injured]
* Minus Leon Powe [injured]
* Down by 11 points … at the the 9:27 mark of the 4th quarter
* Minus Ray Allen … who fouled out at the 5:26 mark of the 4th [with the Celtics trailing, 80-83] 

Boston got a series of fantastic performances from the other players on their team which enabled them to out-last the Chicago Bulls, in OT, in Game 4.

In particular, when you look at the Full Play-By-Play what you should see is that Paul Pierce, after starting 6-17 [FGM-FGA], made his last 5 shots:

Q4, 01:13 … Driving Layup
Q4, 00:10 … 15ft Jump-shot [isolation]
———————–
OT, 01:16 … 16ft Jump-shot [isolation]
OT, 00:36 … 18ft Jump-shot [isolation]
OT, 00:03 … 20ft Jump-shot [isolation]

when the game was on the line;

while each of:

Kendrick Perkins, +35 *
Rajon Rondo, +29 *
Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis, +23 *

[complete Box Score]

put forth a monster individual effort for Boston.

* k-PER = [FGM - FGA] + [FTM - FTA] + TRB + AST + ST + BS - TO - PF + PTS

Q1. Do the Celtics have enough left in the tank to get past the Cavaliers and then the Lakers this season?

A1. No, they do not.

What was on display last night, however, was THE WILL it takes to become a NBA champion.

Great Stuff, all around!

Yesterday’s action finished with the following results:

W-L: 2-2/.500
Units: -1.08

which are slightly better than Day 1 but not where they need to be … just yet. 

Overall, after Day 2:

W-L: 3-4/.429
Units: -3.37

Hopefully, the news will continue to get better today. :-) 

================================================

Mon Apr 20 2009

Game 1 - 2/Celtics vs 7/Bulls

As was said here two days ago … the strength of Derrick Rose’s individual game is a giant neutralizer of one Rajon Rondo for the defending champs. How Doc Rivers copes with this reality will be a key in this evening’s Game 2 of this series. It’s one thing knowing that your emotional center-piece is not going to be you your line-up in the playoffs and another thing altogether, lacing them up and taking the court without him, at the front of the line, wearing #5. The Celtics should be much better prepared for this evening’s tilt, from this standpoint alone. There is no Superman coming in from the Wings to save them. If they’re going to get to Round 2, they will a far better performance from both Jesus Shuttlesworth and Da Truth. Keep your eyes peeled, as well, for Bill Walker, as he presents one of the few options on the Celtics’ bench that can increase their size and athleticism at the Wings when Pierce and/or Allen-R need to rest. Can the Baby Bulls [i.e. Rose, Noah & Thomas-Ty] possibly perform as they did on Saturday afternoon, for a second consecutive game in the playoffs? 41-41/.500 suggests that it’s a stretch to think it likely. Expect the C’s to start much better this evening; then, ride the emotion of their home crowd through the balance of the 2nd half. The Bulls are young at key positions, and it will be difficult for them to maintain their concentration for 96 consecutive minutes, in enemy territory, with the champs at the ready and staring at 0-2.

Chicago +8.5/-102
BOSTON -8.5/-106
Call: BOSTON [1 unit]

Game 2 - 3/SPURS vs 6/Mavericks

Everything about the San Antonio organization says that they will find a way to square this series, somehow, this evening. But, 6.5 points is a lot to give up … without Manu Ginobili, completely, and Tim Duncan being far from 100%. Can Coach Popovich pull another rabbit from his hat? You bet, he can … especially if he goes retro with the deployment of his troops in this series, i.e. MAIN PLAYERS: Parker + Finley + Bowen + Oberto + Duncan; KEY SUBS: Mason, Hill, Udoka, Gooden & Thomas. Matt Bonner has had a good season, and has provided the Spurs with solid points production from the #4/PF spot beside the Big Fundamental … but, that will do them no good in this series when what they NEED is to DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE THEIR REBOUNDING, at positions #2/OG, #3/SF, and most importantly #4/PF. The Mavericks are a veteran outfit that many have a tendency to forget were good enough to put up 67 wins just two seasons ago and lost in the NBA Finals, to D-Wade & Co., the year before that. Dallas matches up exceptionally well with their opponent in this series [especially, given the absence of Ginobili, and Pops' questionable decisions to start Mason and give only reduced minutes to the Karate Kid]. Even if they go down to defeat this evening, Dallas should have the know-how to keep it close until the final minute of the 4th period.

Dallas +6/-105
SAN ANTONIO -6/-105
Call: Dallas [2 unit]

Right on the heels of this afternoon’s announcement, re: the possibility that Kevin Garnett will need to miss the playoffs entirely, comes this shocking news straight out of left field:

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Celtic GM Danny Ainge has mild heart attack
Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge was hospitalized Thursday after suffering what the team described as a minor heart attack.

The team issued a brief statement saying that Ainge, 50, was taken to a Boston hospital but provided few other details.

“Danny Ainge is recovering at Massachusetts General Hospital after having a minor heart attack. He is recovering nicely,” the team said. “Mr. Ainge is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days.”

A spokeswoman for Massachusetts General Hospital referred comment to the team.

The news was first reported by WCVB, a Boston TV station.

“All of Celtics Nation is thankful that Danny got incredible medical care so quickly and so effectively,” Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck said. “We wish him, Michelle and the kids all the best and know he will be back with us very soon.”

A member of two Celtics championship teams in the 1980s with the original Big Three of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, Ainge was an NBA All-Star in 1988.

As general manager, Ainge helped the franchise raise its record 17th NBA championship last season by assembling a new Big Three, acquiring Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to join Celtics veteran Paul Pierce. Ainge was named 2007-08 NBA executive of the year and in October was rewarded with a contract extension and the title of president of basketball operations.

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Best wishes go out to Danny Ainge on what is, hopefully, a speedy recovery.