After every game, we’ll take stock of how each individual performance affects the player’s overall value.
Starters
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Offense:
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I bet when you see 3 green arrows come up for Courtney Lee, you expect a siren to go off and coins to come pouring out of your monitor somehow. I’m going to look past a few of the misses because as we’ve been saying for a while here, at some point those shots will fall. He’s working to get good shots. He was aggressive, he rebounded, he passed, he defended. Big step for Lee in this game.
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Offense:
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He didn’t have to do much in this one. He shot 5 of 8 in just 22 minutes of play. Every time he got the ball, especially against JJ Hickson, he had a good look at the basket. Eventually, he turned into a passer and collected 4 assists as well.
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Offense:
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He had 2 assists right away and it looked like he was going to pull off the same kind of “I’ll just get 10 assists since Rondo’s not here” kind of game. He only finished with 5, but he also had 5 turnovers and suddenly there are grumblings about whether Pierce is playing through some kind of injury, if he’s on the decline, or if he’s simply coasting every chance he can get early in the season. Pierce played a fine overall game, so maybe he tailed off because of the score and he didn’t have to be “on.”
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Offense:
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Just 16 minutes for Bass last night. He still shot 3 of 6, which is nice. Doc saw a chance to get Sullinger some work, so he took it.
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Offense:
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JET actually took off for a dunk in this one. Nice shooting night for Terry who hit on 7 of 11, including a couple of 3’s, and spread the shots out nicely. It wasn’t just a bombs-away night for Terry.
Bench
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Offense:
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It’s a pretty good bet that once Jeff Green rips off a monster dunk on someone, the rest of his game is going to join him for the night. 19 points, 4 steals, and a blocked shot for Green in a performance that will probably just make us say “why can’t he play like this every game?” Maybe we should just save him for Western Conference teams… he’s to 3 scoring outbursts came last night against Portland, against OKC (17 pts) and against Utah (16 pts).
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Offense:
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Wilcox is playing through an illness. He played about 14 largely ineffective minutes last night.
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Offense:
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Some of the fouls he’s getting are iffy, but he’ll learn. He IS getting the respect of officials who are realizing he can, in fact, get into position to take a charge. 3 of his 4 makes came at the rim, but he also nailed a straight-away jumper… which is money for him.
It even looks like a green arrow when he’s shooting facing the basket.
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Offense:
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He played the passing lanes very well, picking off a couple of pretty terrible passes by the Blazers while also ripping the rookie Damian Lillard once. He also hit a 3 in the 4th quarter with the Celtics up 15 that was huge. Instead of the Blazers with the ball and a chance to cut the lead to 13 or even 12 with more than 9 minute left in the game, he pushed the lead to 18. A stop and a Jeff Green 3 later and the lead was back to 21, crushing any hopes of the Blazers making the game interesting. It was a killer momentum swing that essentially ended the game.
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Offense:
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The Blazers were so bad, even Collins managed to get a couple of steals over 11 minutes. He was still a -7, though.
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Offense:
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He made a couple of nice moves, even though they were a little out of control, and the one jumper he shot was long… which just tells me the kid was a little hyped up to get into an actual NBA game. But he got himself to the line and scored his first NBA points… and for that he gets the green arrow.
Do yourselves a favor and get to Portland (or wherever Portland is playing) and watch Joseph get some good run. I like him. I think he’s going to be a solid NBA player.
Coaching
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Play Calling:
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The Celtics kept it simple without Rondo in the game. Doc had his team ready to go and I love that he let Sullinger play a lot of minutes. The kid was effective, and it let him minimize his use of Bass and Wilcox. Bass is a young guy, but it’s nice to get even him a little bit of a break over a long season (and in a way that doesn’t cost the Celtics a quarter-million dollars)
Overall
Isn’t it great to watch the Celtics go wire-to-wire and beat a team easily? Then we get to see KG watch Gino on the big screen. And nothing… I mean NOTHING… makes Kevin Garnett as happy as Gino on the big screen.
I love Jason Terry’s face in this picture. He just looks so confused.
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