Back… again!
I haven’t neglected the blog! I was away in Iceland, but I’m back now. It sucks that I missed the end of the road trip, because from what I gather, they played great. The last game that I saw was against the Bobcats, and everybody likes a blowout win.
I thought the Celtics would come out of San Antonio with a win, because it doesn’t seem like the Spurs have found a rhythm yet… Gotta love Timmy though. I was curious as to how they would play the next night against the Thunder, since it was the second night of a back to back and the Thunder are a young, super athletic and talented team. Seems like it wasn’t too much of a problem, and that’s a relief. KG even pissed off Kevin Durant. Success! Speaking of KG- he’s the Eastern Conference player of the week. I’m pretty sure he could care less- but I care! Well okay, so the title of player of the week doesn’t mean anything, but I’m just happy to see him with some umph back on the defensive end and with his jump shot turned on.
A lot of people have been talking about Ray’s shooting woes. I don’t really think it’s that big of a deal. He’s scored more than 15 points in 9 of the 20 total games the Celtics have played and has hit more than one three in only four games. Are the Celtics suffering on the offensive end as a result of this? Not really. I, for one, am fine with him taking less threes. I like seeing him take it to the basket. It’s an easier way to score. Plus, Paul has been draining them and you know that when Sheed and Eddie are in the game, they’re going to be chucking them up. It’s also good to go with the hot hand- Paul, KG and Perk have been hot as of late- why not keep going to them? This is a team on a 7 game winning streak. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Ray hasn’t been hot, but when he puts it up, I still feel like it’s going in. And I know this much: it will start to fall more, because he’s Ray Allen.
Here’s something that I think could be a big deal, and not in a good way: Marquis Daniels. During the off season, while surveying the free agent market, I jumped on the Marquis Daniels boat right away. I remembered the Celtics losing to the Pacers and Marquis Daniels being a huge factor behind the Pacers victories. When I looked at his numbers, I saw that he had never played a complete season. The closest he’d come to it was 74 games and that was last year with Indiana. He missed those 8 games because of a wrist injury, but I read that he could have played but didn’t, because Pacers weren’t in the playoff race so he wanted to steal in on the healing process. So I pushed my qualms to the side. I felt good about him coming aboard. I thought he was on the up and up, because it makes sense, why risk further injury if the team isn’t going anywhere? Then, this season, when he started taping up the wrist and I said uh oh! Not good. He’s not playing tonight against the Bucks, but I think it’s going to turn out to be more than that. I have no idea what the problem is, but I learned a lesson last year with KG. If someone has a nagging, reoccurring injury, beyond the usual scrapes and bruises you get from playing in a game of basketball- and it seems like that’s what this is because it goes back through multiple seasons- then sitting down for a little bit isn’t going to make it go away. We saw it when KG tried to come back last season. Some injuries go away by themselves, others do not. All I know is that the season is only 20 games old, so if sitting out for awhile and not playing, like one does over the summer, didn’t make it go away, I don’t know why sitting out this game against the Bucks will help. Everyone was excited about the addition of Rasheed Wallace- but I was more excited about Marquis. I thought he was going to be much more dependable and a more consistent contributor. Hmph. I don’t dig it. The media has been all abuzz that he’s not a strong finisher and yadda yadda yadda- they can all say what they want, but I think Marquis is an innumerably valuable to this team. He doesn’t come in and score 20 plus points, but he’s a slasher, reliable ball handler and an able passer. He also plays great defense and has shown us that he can play with the starters and the second unit seamlessly. He brings size and creates match up problems for opponents. He lets Paul and Ray rest and that is so, so, so important. I have no interest in seeing him in a suit on the sideline. Even in the groove of playing and in basketball shape, TA would not fill Marquis’ shoes- and that’s not an insult to him at all. I like TA, but he’s not the subtly effective presence that Marquis is. So hopefully I’m overreacting and this is a brief glitch.
