Posts tagged ‘Rajon Rondo’

All October and November we heard about the problems the Celtics would have: they don’t have a point guard, they’re thin inside, they don’t have experience playing together, no bench…

All regular season, the Celts proved all those unbelievers wrong. Rondo was learning, improving and becoming one of the best young PG in the East, if not the game. Cassell added some depth and House was there for threes…Perkins was a serviceable Center and rarely dominated…the team played like old friends and rarely had jitters while passing the ball with eyes behind their heads and intensity in every regular season game…the bench ruled many games as Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Posey, House and others contributed every game.

So here we are after game four and let’s look:

Point Guard: Rondo was pretty good, not great…shooting 6-16 with 12 dimes and just two turnovers. On offense no complaints at all but defense lacked a bit as his intensity in guarding Mike Bibby stepped down a notch as did his success. In the first half, Cassell was not only not good but made the team worse. Several times he took the ball up the court, didn’t pass and then threw up a brick or turnover. In fact, Doc didn’t even give him much of a chance in the second half instead going with House who, like Sam, didn’t score.

Center: Perkins had his typical 24 minutes on the floor and also was OK, but didn’t control the inside against Al Horford - this was more of an issue in game three. The C’s had plenty of 2nd chances and just couldn’t finish too many times in game four.

Bench: OK so the C’s bench outscored Atlanta’s 13-4. But it was only 13 points…Where’s Tony Allen? Eddie House only 6 minutes and 0 points…Leon Powe just three and Posey had the other ten. There was no boost when these guys came in. In fact the biggest chances were early in quarter one and quarter three when the starters were in.  It’s actually really surprised me we haven’t seen much of TA (about 12 mins in the series) and the way Doc managed this team for like the last 30 games this different rotation may be tough to adjust to.

Jitters: The Celtics did not look like themselves today, especially in the second quarter. One of the Hawks assistants said they had lost their composure. Wow. I think the home crowd should get them going again but this certainly hasn’t been as easy as first thought (and I still think should have been). Once this was close down the stretch, Joe Johnson took over and in a LeBron type of a way wouldn’t be stopped…the key was keeping the ten point lead and that didn’t happen…One loss is OK, two is a concern.

In today’s episode of Celticscast…

The Starting 5: Five Keys to playoff success

• *Health - everybody’s gotta be ready to go
• *Team Defense - again everybody’s gotta be ready to go
• *The Bench, who can contribute?
• *Rajon Rondo, he’s the Point Guard in the playoffs
• *The X-factor

Plus…

• *Send us your emails to hosts@celticscast.com.
• *We look ahead to see what’s ahead for the Celtics which leads us to talk about…
• *Isiah Thomas and his disastrous disaster of a season with the Knicks

And…

• *Lots of playoff previewing with a bunch of seeding still yet to be decided.

All this and more just a click away on Celticscast! Remember to give us a call at 617-934-0268 and be a part of the show.

Apparently episode #41 has been held up somewhere on the internet and despite being uploaded to our website - it’s still not there. We apologize for the delay, it’s frustrating because there was a lot of punch to that show headed into the weekend - but hopefully things are up and working again for our next show to recap the pair of games.

Speaking of game 2 of the weekend pair (since we won’t focus on that worst deficit of the season right now), this was what the Celtics needed headed into a murderous week of opponents - an easy victory. Ray Allen didn’t play, but if it was a playoff game, methinks he would have. Yet, the Bucks showed very little fight after the first quarter and the C’s did what they do best - put them away. A maximum of 27 minutes for any of the starters (Posey’s 29 mins were the most of any player). Also, Sam Cassell was the first off the bench today replacing Rondo and immediately had an impact - a good sign against a bad team, now let’s see if he can do it later this trip. San Antonio up next Monday, then the Rockets, then Mavs, then Hornets - should be exciting. Many are making a big deal about Rondo’s matchups (Tony Parker, Rafer Alston, JKidd and then CP3 Chris Paul), but this shows just how important Cassell will be this week to give Rondo a break and keep the intensity up.

Also, anybody hoping that if somehow Illinois and Georgia both make the tourney that they both get thrown into the playoff game? It would only be fair I think…

Cheers!

6 PM - that’s when Cassell should clear waivers and sign soonafter with the Celtics - maybe even in time to get him in town for the matchup with Detroit on Wednesday…Here’s a Globe recap of the affair. Interesting (and good) to see Rondo’s not holding any grudges for the slap he got from Cassell earlier in the year that got Sam kicked out of the game. What’s funny on youtube - the top video you get when you search for Cassell is a huge mistake in the ‘06 playoffs - the popular 8 second violation!

The Atlanta game last night just didn’t do it for me - maybe it was the 7 basketball games I had already watched that weekend with the crowd intensity of March (as Gus Johnson realized in the last seconds of the Georgetown/Marquette game “it’s the first day of March!”) or maybe it was that awkward 6 PM start time or maybe that the Celtics seemingly had control for most of the game but just couldn’t pull away…For me, March is definitely college hoops time - I just wish I could root for my teams (Syracuse, Holy Cross) once it started instead of hoping for some kind of crazy run just to make it.