mmmm now you celtic guys now the sweet taste of big shot billups. maybe that bench will hurt you guys after all; who knows.
BA-BA-BA-Billups Good game by the Pistons, Rondo got off to a great start. Love Maxiell's defence on KG. Prince also did a nice job gaurding Pierce, even though he struggled on the offensive side of the court. Etc, Etc, Etc.
The bench didn't have anything to do with the loss IMO. Pierce had the ball and could have won the game, it was up to him. (with 5 seconds left)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (David_Ortiz @ Dec 19 2007, 10:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thrilla @ Dec 19 2007, 10:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Give it a rest, Ortiz. We get the point...you dislike Tony Allen.</div> So I take it you think that stupid play at the end of the game was justifiable? </div> Nah, of course it was dumb. But it's a December game against a good team. Now we know not to put him in that situation ever again.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hustler @ Dec 19 2007, 10:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>BA-BA-BA-Billups Good game by the Pistons, Rondo got off to a great start. Love Maxiell's defence on KG. Prince also did a nice job gaurding Pierce, even though he struggled on the offensive side of the court. Etc, Etc, Etc.</div> TA-TA-TA- fuck it, he sucks...
It wasn't that stupid of a play, at least not as stupid as a lot of other plays that have happened (see Ruffin, Michael). He just got caught being over-anxious.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing @ Dec 19 2007, 10:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>The bench didn't have anything to do with the loss IMO.</div> I think Eddie House had 5 points and he was the only bench player to score. So yeah, I disagree.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thrilla @ Dec 19 2007, 10:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (David_Ortiz @ Dec 19 2007, 10:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thrilla @ Dec 19 2007, 10:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Give it a rest, Ortiz. We get the point...you dislike Tony Allen.</div> So I take it you think that stupid play at the end of the game was justifiable? </div> Nah, of course it was dumb. But it's a December game against a good team. Now we know not to put him in that situation ever again. </div> Well he shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. Goes back to Doc and how he trusts players way too much and works too hard to make them happy. Like how he ALWAYS calls the play for Pierce in crunch time when it should be going to Ray Allen, he has 2 game winners to Pierce's 0 (for 2) this year. I want to hear his excuse for Tony. It should be great TV to laugh at a terrible coach embarrassing himself once again, by putting in an embarrassing player who looking back, you knew he'd fuck it up somehow. That's just what Tony Allen does. He slaps players' arms, he dribbles off his ankle, he talks like Jean Girard, can't fucking stand him. OK I'm about done.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (David_Ortiz @ Dec 19 2007, 10:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Well he shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. Goes back to Doc and how he trusts players way too much and works too hard to make them happy. Like how he ALWAYS calls the play for Pierce in crunch time when it should be going to Ray Allen, he has 2 game winners to Pierce's 0 (for 2) this year. I want to hear his excuse for Tony. It should be great TV to laugh at a terrible coach embarrassing himself once again, by putting in an embarrassing player who looking back, you knew he'd fuck it up somehow. That's just what Tony Allen does. He slaps players' arms, he dribbles off his ankle, he talks like Jean Girard, can't fucking stand him. OK I'm about done.</div>Ok, but why was he in the game? Because Rondo and House were getting owned by Billups. It's not like Doc decided out of nowhere that he was going to bring Allen in for no reason. He is an above average perimeter defender in everybody's mind but yours. I do agree that Ray should have gotten the last shot, though. Pierce was off all game for the most part while Ray was on fire.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thrilla @ Dec 19 2007, 10:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing @ Dec 19 2007, 10:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>The bench didn't have anything to do with the loss IMO.</div> I think Eddie House had 5 points and he was the only bench player to score. So yeah, I disagree. </div> The bench took 9 shots, and House made 2 of them (with 1 being a 3 pointer) and he had 5 points like you said. Pierce on the other hand missed 11 shots (4 threes), KG missed 9 shots. So if they're taking the shots, there are none left for the bench, so you can't really blame them. Also remember that it was House's 3 that brought them back and then Allen tied it with another 3. Pierce needs to remember that if he's not hot and not feeling it, just give the damn ball to one of the "better shooters" on the team, like Allen, House, or Posey and I'm sure they'll make them. (like they have in the past 22 games) Lastly KG and Pierce had 9 turnovers combined.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (David_Ortiz @ Dec 19 2007, 10:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Well he shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. Goes back to Doc and how he trusts players way too much and works too hard to make them happy. Like how he ALWAYS calls the play for Pierce in crunch time when it should be going to Ray Allen, he has 2 game winners to Pierce's 0 (for 2) this year. I want to hear his excuse for Tony. It should be great TV to laugh at a terrible coach embarrassing himself once again, by putting in an embarrassing player who looking back, you knew he'd fuck it up somehow. That's just what Tony Allen does. He slaps players' arms, he dribbles off his ankle, he talks like Jean Girard, can't fucking stand him. OK I'm about done.</div> Exactly, I wouldn't care if it was last year when we only had 1 star in our team and a bunch of scrubs and Pierce really needed the last shot but to give him the ball when he misses 11 shots and is not hot and at the same time you have House and Ray Allen who just in the last few seconds made back to back threes, its absurd and its Docs' fault.
You guys can get my thoughts on tonight's loss by checking out my recap. I also made 2 changes to my recaps. I now just post a link to the box score rather than wasting time typing out all the stats, and I also strictly do a "player of the game" now. Not "Celtics player of the game" like before. Tough loss. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing @ Dec 19 2007, 10:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>The bench didn't have anything to do with the loss IMO.</div> Are you kidding me? Sorry CKing, but I strongly disagree with you there. Lindsey Hunter completely turned this game around for the simple fact that nobody but Rondo on this team can handle full-court ball pressure. He forced House into 2 straight turnovers and forced Ray Allen into last second dish-offs for a forced shot before the shot clock buzzer. This team desperately needs a backup point guard by playoff time, and Detroit exposed that weakness tonight. Then, off the bench, Tony Allen completely made a boneheaded play on that last possession. The bench had a LOT to do with tonight's loss. Nobody stepped up off the bench, it was all negative except for that 3-minute stretch where Scot Pollard played pretty well inside defensively.
CB32, all I know is that we were tied with 5 seconds to go and we had the ball and we were at home. There is no way I'm blaming the bench for losing this game. We had the chance and it was our game. Too bad Doc and Pierce decided differently.
Savvy Pistons lure Celtics into a foul finish <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>BOSTON -- Kevin Garnett wasn't afraid to come out afterward and state exactly what this game was: A measuring stick. And one measure of how good the new and improved Boston Celtics are was gleaned by listening to Chauncey Billups afterward. "That is an elite team," Billups said. Elite, maybe, but not elite enough to measure up to the franchise that has been the class of the Eastern Conference for the better part of the decade. Elite, maybe, but not smart enough to avoid a boneheaded play at the end. Elite, maybe, but not wise enough to get the ball into the hands of Ray Allen or Garnett, the two guys who had been putting their heart and soul into every second of this playoff-like game, instead of giving it to Paul Pierce on their final possession, entrusting the biggest shot of the game to a player who had been looking tentative all night. There are at least a dozen different reasons why the Detroit Pistons were able to eke out an 87-85 victory over Boston on Wednesday night in what was easily one of the most competitive, riveting and intense games we've ever seen played in mid-December, but all those reasons begin to boil down to the same common denominators: Experience, savvy and depth. When did the Pistons begin to seize control of the game? Not until the early part of the fourth quarter when Celtics coach Doc Rivers gave Rajon Rondo a rest and handed over the ballhandling chores to Eddie House, who could barely get the ball over the halfcourt line against the suffocating defense of Lindsey Hunter, still regarded as perhaps the top on-the-ball defender in the league. A 9-2 run put the Pistons ahead 70-67 before Rondo returned, and Detroit never trailed again. When did the Pistons deliver the knockout punch? Well, the play-by-play and the replays will tell you it came when Billups faked Tony Allen off his feet and drew a foul with 0.1 seconds left that sent him to the line for the tie-breaking and game-deciding free throws. But a big assist came moments earlier when the Pistons were exiting their timeout and Tayshaun Prince noticed that Tony Allen had checked back in as a defender. "Tay told Chauncey to give Tony Allen a pump fake because Tony was just coming in off the bench cold," Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. Billups confirmed the story, saying Prince gave the same message to Richard Hamilton knowing that one of the two was going to end up with the ball in his hands for the final shot. "Anybody could have went for that (fake)," Garnett said afterward, cautioning everyone not to single out Tony Allen for blame. "This was a good game for us to learn from and dissect. We wanted to measure where we were, and like Paul said, I'd rather deal with (a loss) now than later. No one said this was going to be easy, and we just have to go through this type of process and learn from it." The loss was only the third if the season (and the first at home) for the Celtics, who will continue to measure themselves over the rest of this month as they play Chicago and then Orlando before embarking on a four-games-in-five-nights West Coast trip to close out December. They'll have a 29-game body of evidence to sort through by the time January rolls around, and we'll all have a better measure of whether this Celtics team is truly as elite as Billups was calling them, or whether they're merely a very good team with some very real flaws that'll need to be addressed before the playoffs come around. "No one's going to remember this game next week," Saunders said. "The statement right now is you have two teams that are pretty evenly matched." We'll go ahead and partially agree with Saunders' opinion that no one is going to remember this game a week from now, but we'll qualify that agreement by limiting it to the Pistons. They will find it easy to put this one in their rear-view mirror, but the same cannot be automatically said for the Celtics. This game will stick with them because this game humbled them, and truth be told, they were a team in need of some humility after breaking out of the gate with a 20-2 record that was among the greatest starts in NBA history. Pierce was kicking himself afterward for not letting a little more time come of the clock before he attempted his 15-foot fadeaway from the corner that everyone in the arena could tell was going to be two feet short from the moment it left his hand. Tony Allen was beating himself up for falling for Billups' pump fake, and Rivers was no doubt second-guessing his own late-game substitutions when he turned first to House and then to Tony Allen instead of going with his starter, Rajon Rondo, who had played one of the better games of his career (14 points on 7-for-10 shooting with seven assists and three steals). The Celtics will get another chance Jan. 6 to measure themselves against the Pistons, only next time it'll be on Detroit's home court. And since it is still very, very early in a long, long season, the Celtics' hurt from this loss will have faded by then. But what the Celtics will hang on to is their memories of how electric the building felt, how intense the game was played and how close they already are to being equals with the Pistons. "I think losing games levels you out. As much as you don't like it, it always humbles you and makes you put in that hard work," Ray Allen said. The Celtics are very good, but this loss might be exactly the thing they needed to get a better understanding of where they stand. Because even though they stand alone atop the overall NBA standings, no one can rightfully say -- especially after this loss -- that the Celtics are the class of the league. They may be by the time mid-June rolls around, but they aren't yet. And in order for them to make it to mid-June, they're eventually going to have to get past a Pistons team that they couldn't quite measure up to in mid-December.</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing @ Dec 20 2007, 12:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>CB32, all I know is that we were tied with 5 seconds to go and we had the ball and we were at home. There is no way I'm blaming the bench for losing this game. We had the chance and it was our game. Too bad Doc and Pierce decided differently.</div> You can't just evaluate the whole game based on the last offensive possession. Leading up to that play, the bench put us in the position of desperation because nobody stepped up off of it and nobody could get the ball across halfcourt without falling into the lap of Lindsey Hunter. We scored 5 points off the bench tonight. Scot Pollard was the only one who gave us serviceable minutes, honestly.
I did not read through this whole thread...so maybe this has been said. But the last to plays I have to put on Doc. Why have Pierce take that last shot? Ray Allen clearly had the hot hand, no question he should have the ball in his hands for that play. And as good as a defender as Tony Allen is, you don't take a young guy like that - off the bench - and put him on a guy like Billups. Game over. Anyway - can't win them all - good game. Too many TO's.
I really don't blame Doc for putting Tony Allen on Billups, I think it was the right move, honestly. Tony just made a mistake. TA also forced that turnover on the defensive possession before, which got us the ball with 5.1 seconds left. If Pierce were to hit that jumper, we'd all be talking about how Tony saved the day. Rondo was getting eaten alive by Billups, you can't put him back on him. Eddie House is the worst defensive guard on the roster. Ray Allen needs to stick with Rip. We needed a bigger player to put on Billups. It just so happens Tony made a mistake. It was a costly mistake, of course, but hey - it's December 20. Tony can and will bounce back. The fact that the coaching staff had enough confidence to put Tony in the game in a situation like that tells us a lot about his physical and mental progression. The only other guy Doc could have put on Billups is James Posey. Maybe that would have been the better decision, with him being a veteran, but TA made the big play before hand and deserved that second shot to get it done. He didn't, but it's not the end of the world. January 5, fellas. January 5...
Funny, I was just watching NBA Daily on YES. And Kamla said something about how he was watching the pregame with Doc Rivers. And Doc was actually saying to everyone "Be careful about Chauncey Billups. He likes to pump fake." He actually specifically warned his team about Chauncey's pump fake. I wonder if Tony was listening.
