We often wonder what opposing teams, their beat reporters and bloggers are saying about the Celtics after playing the Celtics. Here’s a dose of ‘enemy chatter’ from Miami.
Playing in the first conference game of his career, Shane Battier recorded his first postseason double-double. He had 10 points and 10 rebounds and shut out Brandon Bass from three-point range. Bass didn’t attempt a three-pointer and finished with eight points.
Congratulations to Shane Battier for holding Brandon Bass to no three point attempts. And while we’re at it, congratulations to every other defender since December 27, 2010… which is the last time Brandon Bass took a 3-pointer.
In fact, defenses have been keying on Brandon’s 3 point shooting for his entire career, because over his 7-year NBA career, he’s been held to just 13 3-point attempts.
I mean, that HAS TO BE the reason Bass is averaging less than two 3-point attempts a year. It certainly can’t be the fact that he’s not a 3-point shooter, and his game is made entirely of shots from about 18 feet and in. There’s no way a writer for the Miami Herald, a major newspaper, credentialed to cover NBA games and tasked with telling fans the story of the game, would get this most basic of details wrong.
[/sarcasm]Look… I get things wrong from time to time. We all do. But I at least know the basic scouting report of the teams the Celtics play. It’s not asking too much of the people who cover the game to know who the starters are and what they’re capable of on the court. I mean… c’mon.
(h/t Skeets)
On Page 2: There was little sign of the Celtics’ characteristic fighting spirit
There are a few prevailing theories about this Heat-Celtics Eastern Conference finals. One is that the Heat are the favorites. The other is that the Celtics are going to scrap and fight to the death, their deficiencies in health and depth be damned. Because that is what they have always done; it’s their character.
Maybe that is coming but in Game 1 there was little sign of it. The Heat, and James especially, plowed through them without a care in the world. The Celtics don’t have anywhere near the margin of error they had facing James two years ago; they don’t even have the wiggle room they had last year when this matchup ended in five games. They know it, too. But they didn’t play like it in their first crack at the upset.
Wake up call, Boston. The Celtics have to play damn near perfect basketball, and they have to do it with a mean streak to get the job done. If they don’t have either of those two things… well… you get LeBron laughing in your face.
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