Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here…
highlighting the big storyline. Because there's nothing quite as
satisfying as a good morning dump.
Doc
Rivers stopped Michael Finley as he was leaving the Garden late
Friday night.
“Remember,” he said, “you’re giving the scouting report tomorrow. . .
. I’m serious.”
The Celtics acquired Finley for his shooting, but they will
gladly take advantage of any insights he might have into this evening’s
opponent, the Spurs. However, after yesterday’s practice, Paul Pierce
wasn’t so sure how much the Celtics got from Finley regarding his
former club.
“He gave us some little pointers,” Pierce said with a smile. “It
didn’t seem like he knew too many of the plays though. I don’t know.”
“If he doesn’t know it, we’re screwed,” Rivers said. “He should know
it as much as anybody.
“He’ll be more (help today). We just went over one San Antonio thing
today. He has to be our best scout (today). He has to be better than
Jamie (Young, the Celts’ advance scout), for sure.”
Herald: Doc Rivers relies on Finley's advice
A lot of teams are playing really well as they jockey for playoff position. All but 2 of the Eastern Conference playoff teams have a 7-3 record or better in their last 10 games. While I fully expect to beat the Spurs, we need to make sure of that to maintain our slight edge over the Atlanta Hawks.
So this guidance from Finley will come in handy.
The Spurs, meanwhile, are tied with Portland for the 7th seed. There's very little danger of them missing the playoffs… but I wouldn't mind them facing LA in the first round. I don't know… I just get this feeling that they could knock 'em out.
Coming up, Page 2… Where the Celtics have made strides
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
"The thing I do like about that," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said of
Friday's early shooting woes, "is that a month ago we would have been
down 10 or 15. Now our team is starting to get that old feeling that
we're a defensive team, and if we have a bad stretch offensively we can
let our defense do the talking. I think that stretch did it for us."
It's comforting to those worried this team was ripe for a first-round
playoff knockout that all the reassurances about "getting it" when it
absolutely must have not been false promises.
"We're pretty far from where we were at game 17," said Rondo, who
declared two weeks ago the team had 17 regular-season games left to get
this right. "We've made a lot of huge strides. We've just got to
continue to play better. We're still humble. We're still trying to get
better. We're putting together longer stretches of (positive) quarters
and games now. Other than the Utah game, we've been putting teams away.
That's what we need to be doing going into the playoffs."
MWDN: Courtside View: C's turning into repairmen
Doc's right… a month ago we'd all have been crying over a ridiculous Friday night home loss to a bad team. How many of those have we had this season?
I'm sure as hell not applauding that second half effort against the Kings… I'm just saying it things like that used to come back and but the Celtics in the ass and this time it didn't. That means something. Maybe not much… but something.
The rest of the links:
Herald: Scouting report: Spurs at Celtics | Globe: Knee problem may force Perkins to sit | Robinson probable for Spurs | ESPN Boston: Rondo leftovers | CSNNE: Injury bug still biting Celtics
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