Preseason: C's vs. Nets, Part II

[DERRENMATTS]

We killed the Kidd-less Nets, 90 - 69 last Saturday. But they weren't playing with a full deck of cards. Missing were Kidd and Nenad Krystic, and both Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter didn't play in the second half.

Will we show a continuation of good play? or will we come out with a bloated head after giving them a shellshock?

Will Justin Reed know what jersey to wear?

Will Al Jefferson continue his game by game improvement?

Will Orien Greene peak our excitement even more?

Will Gomes beat his career high of 15 pts he had last time vs. the Nets?

Will Dickau show some life out there?

[Celtic17]

Reed wears his jersy and plays 15+ mins with 10/5/2stls...

Greene will be a dream, again. West and DD find their shots.

PP and Buckets run the show. 17 points each.

[DERRENMATTS]

Seems like Doc is narrowing down the rotation. Neither Perkins, nor Dickau got any run in the first half. Justin Reed only got one minute (compared to Gomes' 11 minutes).

Delonte and Orien split time down the middle. Orien made things happen driving to the hoop.

Turnovers are killing us again. And we foul way too much.

We are a much improved rebounding team. No longer are we on the losing end of the rebounding battle.

Blount having another solid offensive game.

Big Al came in of

[DERRENMATTS]

Since Doc is still debating whether Ricky should be starting or on the bench, he may opt to try playing Orien and Delonte in the backcourt, and have Ricky be our 6th man again. Can you imagine how incredible it'll be when Jefferson and Ricky come into the game together?

[DERRENMATTS]

We hold an 16 - 8 assist advantage over the Nets, but that has more to do with us fouling New Jersey so much and not so much us shutting them down (we've sent them to the line 32 times, while only taking 8 FT attempts ourselves).

[DERRENMATTS]

Ricky Davis is in one of his hot streaks. He was missing a lot of his shots in the first half, but has come alive in the 3rd quarter. He now has 23 pts, after having only like 7 in the 1st half.

Orien seems to be aggressively going to the hoop cuz he's getting fouled pretty frequently now. He's 4 - 5 from the line.

[DERRENMATTS]

Wow, I don't know if this is actually how it looks, but from the boxscores, it seems that we are really a much stronger team when we don't have 15 players getting playing time. Now that Doc has narrowed it down to a 9 man rotation, players are in the game longer, allowing them to find their rhythm. We are killing the Nets now, on our way to ending the 3rd quarter with an 18 pt lead.

Gomes, Jefferson, and Greene are providing us with some scoring (24 pts between the 3 of them). Jefferson has also contributed 4 blocks in his 14 minutes. Gomes has given us 5 boards in only 13 minutes (along with 8 pts).

[Roadrunner]

Green, 7 assists. Perhaps our future point guard is now. Gomes, another solid game. And both were 2nd round picks. Danny, for GM of the Year.

[Celtic17]

Was I seeing double?
Greene 38 mins to lead the team...

He might be starting at the start of the season.

[Lakerhater8]

Game thoughts:

And starting at Point Guard for your Boston Celtics: Number 0...Orien Greene.

Get used to hearing that. I can't see Doc starting the year that way, but REAL soon, Orien WILL be the starting PG.

Jason Kidd was abusing Delonte, when Orien was on him, his size and athleticism was a welcomed sight for me.

Agaisnt the Marburys' and Kidds of the world, we need a big PG.

Orien hit a 20 footer and rimmed out two others. His stroke looked fine. He knocked down 4 of 5 FTs. His stroke looks fluid, in time(and coaching) he will develop a consistant jumper (I hope) and if he does, we have our future PG.

THis was his best game of the pre season. He gets better as the games go by. ANd imagine, he was injured all summer.

As for the game, we looked REAL GOOD. Never mind the final score of this one.

The best C's were...Ricky, OG, Veal and Big Al.

Al absolutely owned Marc JAckson down low. He must have blocked 3 or 4 of his turnaround jumpers or hooks.

Veal was clutch in the fourth for us. He was hitting jumper after jumper, very nice to see.

I almost forgot, sorry Derren, BLUNT looked REAL good too. His jumper is money right now.

Someone tell the C's that Zoran can shoot. He was kiiling us in the 4th.

THis was the best pre season game to watch by far.

For what it is worth, our starters KILLED the.

For people saying that they are better than us, think about this..their top 3 of Vince, RJ and the wife beater are not really better than ours and our bottom 9 are alot better than them too.

I would take Ricky and Paul over RJ and Vince any day.

I almost forgot, Ryan GOmes was a beast on the glass, he has earned the nod over Reed right now. Reed did play very well when he came in too.

Again I say, this is the deepest C's team I have EVER seen. (30 years)

[mev17]

A lot of positives out of this game. Had Doc coached to win, we probably win going away. Good experience for our young guys.

I have to wonder, for the second game in a row, why so few minutes for Perkins? He seemed to rebound and defend well while he was in there.

[Ossric]

looking at the box score:

*Dickau is in the dogg house
*West proved again that he's not a part of the Celtic future, he's a average bench player like there are so many in the nba
*OG had another solid game. As did Al, Gomes & Reed.
*Scala is starting to fit in
*Blonut had the game that we can expect all season. A couple of jumpers & low rebound numbers
*Ricky & Paul were their usual selves
*Raef is quietly having a solid pre-season

I hope the Celtics are thinking about putting GG in the D-league once Tony Allen is fully recovered. He needs the playing time, not sure if he's going to get that with this roster.

[DERRENMATTS]

Gee, I left work after the 3rd quarter when we had a 15 pt lead, and I thought that we were going to have a feel good win tonight. I come back home and I see that we not only went into overtime, but we lost the game at the buzzer. Can't say that I'm upset, but a bit disappointed we couldn't hold onto such a big lead. Mev, you mentioned that if Doc was playing to win, we may have won this one--was that the case?

I'll tell you exactly where we lost the game--it was at the free throw line. We sent the Nets to the line a ridiculous 53 times!!! And they shot 77% there. We shot better than 50%, we had 30 assists, we kept our TO's under 20, we shot 55% from beyond the arc, we had 11 blocked shots, we scored 116 pts, and we still lost, and its all because we couldn't keep our fouls in control.

But boy oh boy am I excited to see Orien Greene in today's game against Cleveland. This will be my very first opportunity to see him play, and I will make sure I post my scouting report on him. I just hope he's not tired from playing 38 minutes against the Nets last night. I know he said his back was sore a few days ago, and I hope it doesn't keep him out of today's game (and I hope it won't affect his play).

Anyways, lots of positives from last night's game. Our rotation seems to be rounding out and it looks like Orien Greene, Brian Scalabrine, Ryan Gomes, and Al Jefferson will be our main bench players. Don't know what's happening to Perkins, but he's not playing much at all anymore. Could this be because Ainge is trying to protect him from GM's who may ask for him if we are looking to do a trade?

[esco33]

Here are my thoughts on the game:

Our starters outplayed their starters, plain and simple. In the third quarter we blew them out. The only reason we lost was because we pulled all our starters in the 4th quarter and OT. If this were a regular season game, it probably would have been at least a 10 pt win. It was a great experience for our bench players and they almost pulled it out. Great move by Doc.

Here’s how the players looked:

Blount - Solid again. I think Tommy said he was shooting like 66% from the field for the entire preseason! That is sick. His 15 footer was all day last night. If that makes sense. His jumper has been extremely consistent. They are starting to feed him the ball right away in the first quarter to get him involved early in the game. The last few games he has taken most of the team's first shots of the games. He HAS to be the starting center opening night. No question.

LaFrentz – old reliable was “reliable”. He didn’t shoot that many times but he hit a three pointer or two...don’t remember, and did hit most of his open shots. Towards the end of the game, he missed a few fall away and turn around jumpers. That is not his game. He played good D, and had a block or two. Solid once again.

Pierce – Solid game again. He didn’t force anything. Made a lot of shots and just played within the system like he has been all preseason. I think he has finally bought into “the system”.

Davis – this was Ricky’s best offensive game by far of the preseason. 24 points I think. His shot was falling, and he came alive in the third quarter, (14 points) He had the defenders fouling him with up fakes and little jukes. He was causing a big problem for the nets with his offense. He scored the ball well, taking it to the hoop strong on several occasions. He had a nice dunk where he blew by Carter and left him behind, and then reversed it and threw it down from underneath the basket.

Delonte – looked for his shot more. I like this. He took some good shots. He hit a few of them, but they were mostly all good shots. Late in the game (4th quarter) with less than 20 seconds on the clock he tied the score with a driving layup. That was good to see.

O Greene – Greene’s best game offensively. Got to the line. Drove hard to the basket. He even had a couple of "coast to coasts". One play he rebounded the basketball, drove the distance of the floor. Everyone expected him to pass exposing the lane and he just drove right down the middle and got fouled. This guy has to have the all-time record for “out of bounds dives” in the preseason in the history of the NBA. Last night alone, I think he dove into the crowd like 4 times. Passed the ball extremely well. (7 assists) Rebounded well. Defended Kidd extremely well. This kid has a future. He may be starting sooner rather than later.

Gomes – has great hands. Him and Scal were attacking the boards together on several plays. Had a few offensive rebounds and put backs. Good game. Solid contributor off the bench. He is ahead of the depth chart in front of Reed right now.

Big Al – another good game. Nets had no answer for him. He shot well, rebounded, and had a couple blocks. I think he should stay on the bench for now. He can anchor the second unit while Ricky starts. I really don’t think there is a second unit in the league that can stop Big Al right now down low. Had a nifty pass to Gomes for an easy dunk through the double team.

Scal – his best game by far. Shot the ball well. Was hustling all over the place. Was attacking the basket. Passed the ball well. He had a nice outlet pass to somebody...I forgot who. Rebounded well especially on the offensive end. Him and Gomes attack the boards very well together especially on the offensive end.

Dickau – only played at the end. His defense was exposed. He is definitely third on the depth chart at point guard.

Perkins – came in at the end. He seems to be far behind on the depth chart as well. Did have an exciting block in crunch time (with 5 seconds left) though that forced overtime. Rebounded well also when he was in there.

Reed – behind Gomes on the depth chart. Scored a few baskets toward the end of the game. He does run the break very well. Tommy had said that he runs the break the best out of all of the “bigs”. Don’t know about that. But he does run the break well though.

Overall, great game for the starters and the key bench players. A very winnable game if our starters were in the game at the end. Good experience for the bench. This game had a regular season feel to it. Our starters outplayed their starters, and we lost in the end. Still a good game, and good experience for the youngens.

[DERRENMATTS]

Thank you very much, Esco. I like reading your player review because you give the meat of what they did in the game.

Its impressive what Blount has been doing, but I will continue to play the role of Doubting Derren. Its only been 7 preseason games.