By Mike

During the marathon NBA season it is dangerous to assign too much meaning to the third week of games. But with the Celtics having won three games in a row for the first time since the 2004-05 season, it probably makes sense to look around and see how the team is taking the first baby steps toward a competitive identity.

Last Saturday night the Celtics built a 25 point third quarter lead in Cleveland, only to see the advantage slip away as the team hit a mammoth fourth quarter scoring drought and made all of the plays that you would expect from a young team eager to kick a game away. The club looked to Paul Pierce to steady the ship down the stretch, but PP could not generate scoring opportunities within (or without) the halfcourt offense and the team was left with desperate drives from the point guards and forced jumpers with the shot clock running down.

When the final buzzer sounded that night the viewer was left with the overwhelming sense that Cleveland could have won that game by 15 if it wanted to clamp down sooner. But amidst the disheartening outcome was an interesting development: both Sebastian Telfair and Rajon Rondo had dictated the offense at different times by getting to the rim in transition and out of the set offense. While anyone could be expected to have offensive success against future talk show host Damon Jones and some of the other subpar defenders the Cavs assigned to the PGs, it was a nice switch from the “walk it up and run the offense” role Telfair and Rondo had settled into previously.

On Monday the team hosted Orlando and lost again as yet another team made the plays it needed to edge past the Celtics down the stretch. The PGs again showed some ability to attack, but Jameer Nelson continued his stellar play against the Cs from last year and seemingly could not miss a shot. Familiar pick and roll and rebounding breakdowns down the stretch had the team’s fans shaking their heads while they wondered if things would ever be different.

At that point the team was 1-6 and there did not seem to be much drama left in the season aside from finding out whether the team would lose by squandering leads or falling behind early and never catching up. Over the next two days Celtics observers began to research lottery odds and draft positioning while debating which of the brain trust should be canned first and which should be kept on the payroll to chart the course to failure.

After the loss to the Magic the venerable Bob Ryan came back to his bread and butter, the NBA, and wrote a column on the Cs’ plight. Surprisingly he pushed his chips into the center of the table Jim Fassel-style and said he believed in the team and its beleaguered coach. His reasoning behind his support for the team had more of a basis than his vote of confidence for Doc Rivers, which seemed to be predicated on the coach’s well-documented “good guy” status. But all in all the column was an interesting counterpoint to the growing feeling of desperation among the fans of the team whose preference was to delay the focus on Greg Oden as long as possible.

The following day Bill Simmons posted his second “Fire Doc” column of 2006, which must have thrilled his legion of non-Boston readers. He took Ryan’s column to task explicitly, while making his own arguments for Doc’s ineptitude that included something about Rivers “not being able to get through to Pierce.” At the end of the column Simmons also identified himself as leaning toward blowing the team up. The column included a number of Simmons’ paternalistic nuggets of wisdom but in something of an upset did not include any suggestion that Dave Roberts and Adam Vinatieri be hired as the new coach/GM combo to help the team retain its fan goodwill during the tanked season.

So after seven games of a once promising season the skies were darkening and people were taking sides. The skies grew even darker when later that day it was learned that Michael Olowokandi had strained an abdominal muscle and would be out for several games, leaving the Celtics without 3 of their top 6 big men due to injury. But instead of this news driving the team further down its spiral a light bulb seemed to click on that night. The team’s defensive rotations became crisper, its offense more fluid, and suddenly the Celtics were on a roll. They beat Indiana going away and blew out Portland on Friday, setting up a matchup in New York with the Isiah Thomas Project. The Cs built a 20 point lead and then watched it all dissolve away like it had one week earlier in Cleveland. But this time instead of imploding the Celtics dug in their heels and clawed the game back from the Knicks.

Detractors will no doubt point out several of the team’s flaws that remain evident through the recent spate of wins. And there is some truth to the notion that victories over an Indiana team with some chemistry issues, a Portland team missing two of its highest paid players, and the Knicks with…ahem…Isiah at the helm should be taken with a few shakers of salt. But winning certainly beats the alternative, and makes this team more interesting to watch as we wait for the return of Al Jefferson.

Four things we learned this week:

1. The PGs are on the rise. No, they aren’t yet a consistent positive for the Celtics, but Telfair and Rondo have been getting to the hoop with an ease not seen in Boston in years. Telfair in particular seems to have begun seeing the floor and his role better, posting solid numbers for each of the three wins. They’re still young and they do some young things, but these two players project the feeling that the question for them is “when”, not “if”.

2. Paul Pierce is, uh, important. I am stating the obvious, but if Pierce doesn’t play efficient basketball, this team has very little chance of winning. When PP turns the ball over or takes bad shots and interrupts the flow of the offense (like he did down the stretch in Cleveland) this team becomes painful to watch. On the other hand when he’s clearing the glass and shooting a high percentage everything seems to click.

3. A rotation is coming into focus. It unfortunately required several injuries to help pare down the roster but it seems like Doc has been forced into a manageable 10 man rotation. He’s actually playing Tony Allen as an 11th man but he’s only using TA as the fourth wing player when the team plays smallball down the stretch. While I would prefer to see an even shorter bench, at least this does seem to provide some needed structure for the players’ roles while keeping a large number of players involved. I definitely don’t want to see Tony Allen take any of Gerald Green’s minutes at this point, for example, but if and when the team makes a trade it will be better for the team if the guy who stays has played more than garbage time minutes for the team.

4. Ryan Gomes is fun to watch. His lack of height may keep him from being a centerpiece power forward for a contending team, but it is a joy to watch all of the things that Gomes does for the Cs when he is on the floor. He was dominant on the glass for large stretches of Saturday’s game, which was even more notable as it came against two second year Knick power forwards (Channing Frye and David Lee) who were drafted ahead of him. As Gomes starts to better understand how to combine the jump shot he honed over the summer with his nose for rebounding his game will only get more productive.

By Mike

Give the Celtics credit. It usually takes a basketball team a few weeks to squander the optimism of a new season. The Celtics found a way to get booed on an opening night that was dedicated to Red Auerbach’s memory, and things have only gone downhill from there.

Anyone who has been paying even a little attention to the Celtics (and really, they probably only deserve a little at this point) knows that they have begun their season with a commemoration of the life of the greatest winner in the franchise’s history and three losing efforts that would have left that man cursing the team to anyone who would listen.

It is hard to decide where to start in listing the team’s deficiencies. As with the two prior Celtics teams coached by Doc Rivers, a decided lack of will at the defensive end is matched by a mind-numbing carelessness with the ball. Young players ticketed for greatness (or, depending on the flavor of your Kool-Aid, usefulness) have shown little more than their youth. Shooters have missed makeable shots and free throws. You name the category, the team has underachieved.

In hindsight it’s probably not all that surprising that the Celtics had a rough first few outings. With Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak and Paul Pierce all missing significant time in the preseason, the team’s primary offensive threats from the wing had little opportunity to work at fitting their games together. Combine that with several players still growing into their roles and the team had a preseason experience that was less about defining the team’s identity and more about getting a handle on just who was on this club.

The Cs’ continued emphasis on transition offense probably resulted in some of the recent ugliness as well. While the two new point guards represent a major talent upgrade at the position, both Sebastian Telfair and Rajon Rondo are still beset by their own inexperience. An up-tempo team relies on its point guards to make good decisions on when to run and when to keep the pressure on with the secondary break. Instead the Celtics’ sub-22 year old PGs are learning on the job, with the critical commands of the coach in one ear and the marquee player’s demand for the ball in the other.

But all is not lost. At least, not yet. While the team has been as bleak and rudderless at times as it was in the depths of the John Carroll era, there is some hope.

The point guards ARE talented. That’s not to say they will be stars, but their talent could easily be missed among the glaring shortcomings of the team so far. You see flashes of what they could grow into in each game: a pretty drive by Telfair off of a pick in transition here, a nice pass by Rondo to a trailing Wally for an open three pointer there. The team has speed, and eventually when the team in general and the point guards in particular understand what they need to do to take advantage of that speed good things will start to happen.

The return of Theo Ratliff from injury will help as well. It would be unfair (not to mention delusional) to expect him to come in and play 35 minutes a night or change games all by himself, because that’s not the player he is at this point in his career. But if he can give them some solid minutes inside it will make a tremendous difference for this team.

Having a big man who instinctively knows where he needs to be and can anticipate when his teammates need help will keep smaller defensive breakdowns from becoming the open invitation to the basket that seemed to happen several times a quarter over the first three games. But more importantly the presence of Ratliff will allow Rivers to play the other big men in more appropriate roles. This will be most noticeable with Al Jefferson’s minutes. Al has acquitted himself well in his minutes at center, but he can take advantage of more favorable matchups at his natural power forward slot. Big Al fans everywhere can take some solace from his encouraging play amongst the ugliness of the first three games.

As for Doc’s allocation of minutes to the other players, his public statements have exhibited a staunch opposition to a standard rotation. While the wisdom of that approach is debatable, the reasoning behind it is fairly straightforward: the only way to learn about which combinations work is to try different ones. But one thing Rivers seems settled on without experimentation is starting Wally Szczerbiak alongside Paul Pierce. While Wally’s shooting may indeed be a good complement to PP’s ability to break defenses down, the team would benefit in many ways from splitting those two stars up.

With Wally and Pierce starting together, the team begins games with excellent veteran know-how but subpar speed and defensive ability at the wing positions. That mix makes some sense at the end of the game, but at the beginning of the game it is an odd recipe for success. It is hard to set an up-tempo tone with two walk-it-up wing players who strike fear into no one on the defensive end. The best case scenario is a shootout between the first units that inevitably will turn pretty ugly when Pierce and Wally start to tire.

Which brings us to the next problem: the natural outcome of starting those two players is to bring some combination of Rondo, West, Allen and Green off the bench at the perimeter positions. While I love West’s game as a complementary scorer, we have all come to the painful realization that none of these players can be a centerpiece to the offense for long stretches. So after the first unit keeps pace using perimeter offense to offset its matador defense, the second unit comes on the floor and has to turn up the defensive intensity while scraping together a couple of baskets of its own. Needless to say, it’s a tall order.

If Rivers brought Wally off the bench it would allow a number of things to fall into place. It would provide scoring for the second unit when Doc inevitably leaves five subs on the floor. It would allow the insertion of Allen or West in the starting lineup to increase energy and playmaking ability in the early going. And if managed correctly it would allow Rivers to still play Wally with Pierce during the middle of halves (which seem to be a problem spot now) and at the end of games.

It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll see Wally as the Sixth Man anytime soon, but if Doc is truly as open minded about rotations as he claims to be it should at least be a possibility. In the meantime we’ll keep watching and hoping for signs of promise beyond the underwhelming results thus far.

Moderated by Dylan

Will it be the year of LeBron?

Or will Dwyane Wade lead Miami to another championship?

With the NBA season tipping off this week, this edition of Full Court Press will answer these questions and more as we take an expanded look at the whole league.

Looking to build off the momentum of last year’s exciting playoffs, the 2006-07 NBA season promises to be an entertaining one. A combination of more teams pushing the ball and a cast of young talented players coming into their own, the NBA is starting to emerge from its post Jordan funk. With no dominant team(s), the regular season will feature plenty of jockeying for the all important home court advantage. All this will lead to a lot of storylines so let’s move now to the rest of the story…

Has Don Nelson finally gone off the deep end?

Dylan: Yes. Although, I have to admit when I first heard about the idea of playing Mike Dunleavy at the 4 and Troy Murphy at the 5, I thought it was a potential stroke of genius. Now, not so much. This team will give up 125 points a game. At the very least, it will be fun to have the bizarro Jeff Van Gundy back in the league though. So if are a fan of “all O and no D” basketball, this is the team for you.

Rich: Personally I think the opposite. The team he took over is a perfect “Nelson” type team. Good guard play with an uptempo vibe. The Warriors were screaming for a coach like Nelson to come in and give them credibility. They should compete for a playoff spot as long as Davis stays healthy and doesn’t dominate the ball too much. Diogu should build on a fairly successful rookie season barring no more injuries. Troy Murphy is an exceptional rebounder. Heck, with Nelson in the fold I wouldn’t be surprised to see Andres Biedrins turn out to be a capable NBA player with some floor time.

Mike: Don Nelson is an absolute genius. Not in a basketball sense, in a life sense. The guy is 65 years old and his true love is goofy point forward-style offensive basketball. So somehow as he enters his retirement years he finds a way to get hired by Golden State, a team with a few of the pieces he likes to have on his teams and a ridiculously loyal fan base for the paltry amount of success the team has had over the past two decades. On top of that the owner who is now signing his checks is the same owner who fired him (and he sued) in his first time around with the club, so it’s not like he’s worried about burning his bridges. It’s as though he rubbed the magic lamp and for some reason the genie allowed him to use the “my last wish is 5 more wishes” gambit.

There is zero downside here for him. If they suck, it’s just more of what they had under Mike Montgomery. If they’re good, which I think is not outside the realm of possibility, the guy will be hailed as the perfect strategist for the “new” smallball NBA. While there may be a certain insanity to playing Junior Dunleavy at PF and Troy Murphy at C, it’s not like there are any teams in the West that will focus on overpowering those two spots. It’s just crazy enough to work.

Who is the first name player to be traded?

Rich: Well I guess I can scratch off Jalen Rose from the list. Talk about a silly move by Isiah AGAIN. You have an expiring max contract and you just dissolve it? Anyway…on to who I now think will be the first to be traded:
Really the only choices to me are Steve Francis or Stephon Marbury. As much as Isiah wants to play them both they both need to dominate the ball to be most effective. Couple that with the roster as constituted in New York and something has got to give. I could see Crawford moving also but the amount of salary he makes with his abilities (scoring is about it) make that a dubious bet. The problem the Knicks will have is their inability to send any more draft picks to entice a team to take Francis or Marbury.

Mike: Jermaine O’Neal (crosses fingers).

Actually, I think this will be wide open this year. There are a lot of buyers out there, and I think more teams than usual will be willing to shuffle their decks. If forced to pick one name I’d say Carlos Boozer may be sent on his way by the Jazz pretty soon.

Dylan: If Nene comes back healthy for Denver, look for the Nuggets to move Kenyon Martin for shooting help. Another name that could pop up is Vince Carter if the Nets stumble out of the gate. With his ability to opt out of his contract at the end of the year, GM Rod Thorn might look to salvage some value from Carter. A final name that could be in the daily Hoopshype rumors is Seattle’s Rashard Lewis.

OK, I guess I should mention Allen Iverson too.

I see Rich already got a jump on this one, but what the heck is going on down in New York? Will it work?

Mike: I think the Knicks will be better than last year. Not playoffs better, but approaching respectability. Unlike his GM resume which has very few successes, Isiah has coached the Pacers to the playoffs in the past. I have had as much fun as anybody making fun of what the guy has done in New York, but this is a team that will benefit from a “roll out the balls and let them play” coaching style. There are some decent players there. They just cost way too much and don’t really appear to fit together very well.

Dylan: To be honest, I am not sure what to make of the Knicks, but color me intrigued. For starters, the team is very deep and as John Hollinger pointed out in a chat a couple weeks ago, depth is an underrated factor over the course of 82 games. Also, from what coach Isaiah Thomas has said along with early preseason returns, this team along with the Raptors will try to become Phoenix East. And really that is the best way to approach this situation. Last year, Larry Brown sucked the life out of the team and all the players were miserable. This year’s edition should get up and down the court and get plenty of shots for everybody. And the fact remains, the Knicks have a plethora of talent. But ultimately, it is going to come down to Coach Thomas. Will he learn from his mistakes as the Pacers coach? Methinks he will and the Knicks will make playoffs.

Rich: All I can hope for is the Knicks winning 30-something games and appear to have a future so Dolan keeps Isiah there. Isiah is easily the worst front office man in the history of the NBA and that INCLUDES Babcock. The Knicks would literally have to run 4 PGs and Curry/Frye to get a return on their investment and hope they can set the pace in all games. If they can produce any semblance of defense (not gonna happen!) they could be a frisky team but seriously. They have a better chance in leading the league in points but who runs the point? Who plays the 2 or 3? Crawford at the 3? Francis is a good rebounder for a PG but what happens when he is forced to guard the Pierces or Szczerbiaks of the world? Again, I pray for 30 wins and Isiah coming back. He is easily one of the most entertaining GM’s ever to grace the NBA.

Can the Suns get over the hump with a healthy Amare?

Rich: No I don’t think they will get over the hump. If they do it has to be this year as Nash is starting to get to that “What happened to Gary Payton” stage of his career. Good one year and a borderline joke the next. I say Phoenix doesn’t get over the hump based purely on Amare not being 100% this season. The pieces are there if this were 2 years ago and Amare was at full strength. I like the way the roster is built but another player reaching that mid-30s sharp decline is Kurt Thomas, which we witnessed last season prior to him getting hurt.

Mike: I couldn’t disagree more with my friend Rich. Kurt Thomas was a good player for them last year prior to getting hurt, and I don’t see Nash slowing down at all yet. The Suns snuck into the Western Conference finals last year by playing the starters for huge playoff minutes getting some out of this world play from the reincarnated Tim Thomas. That experience will help them this season, but it’s going to be a different kind of team out there. I see them assimilating Thomas back into the starting lineup for some defensive presence and bringing Amare Stoudemire along slowly. If Amare gets his speed back I don’t think there’s a second unit in the league, or even a first unit for that matter, that can run with him, Leandro Barbosa and our old pal Marcus Banks off their bench. That’s a big “if” there though. I think the Suns hang around the 4 or 5 seed and then Mike D’Antoni glues the pieces together for a deep run into the playoffs.

Dylan: I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality, but my man love for Mike D’Antoni is over the top. After turning around Boris Diaw’s career last year, D’Antoni added another playmaking weapon to compliment Steve Nash. Now this team is even more loaded offensively and we haven’t even brought up Amare. Most people seem to forget what Stoudemire did to the Spurs in the 2005 Western Conference Finals. Amare absolutely abused Tim Duncan and the Spurs like no one else has since San Antonio started their title runs. When you factor in the improved defense (Kurt Thomas, Raja Bell, Marcus Banks) with a healthy Amare, I believe this will be the year the Suns get over the hump.

Will the Heat be able to repeat?

Mike: I would be completely shocked. Completely. I was surprised that they won last year, but it wasn’t so hard to figure it when they got such strong efforts from a number of veterans playing with something to prove (O’Neal, Mourning, Payton, Walker) and of course the dazzling leadership of Dwyane Wade. But this year that motivation is gone and all that’s left are PGs who can’t move, SFs who like to shoot more than they should, and a center who is fond of calling himself the “Most Dominant Ever” but apparently doesn’t include his performance in the first 60 games every season in making that determination. Wait ‘til last year, guys.

Dylan: I am working on this paragraph while I am watching the Bulls-Heat game and from the early returns, I say no. While it is true Dwyane Wade will only continue to get better, the rest of the team is a year older. This is not only Shaq, but Alonzo Mourning, Gary Payton, Jason Williams (who has battled knee problems) and Antonie Walker (who has logged way too many minutes over his career). This team has an ’84 Sixers feel to me. They will slug their way through regular season then get upset in the first round of the playoffs.

Rich: This is a bone of contention for me. The Heat weren’t the best team in the league last year and it sickens me to revisit those NBA Finals. Sure, if the referees decide to award free throws to Wade whenever someone gets even close to him the Heat can certainly repeat.

Who is your “dark horse” contender pick?

Dylan: I am going with the “contender for the playoffs” pick. Something about the Charlotte Bobcats intrigues me. They will have solid point guard play (Knight, Felton), athletic swingman (Wallace), solid shooter (Morrison), inside scoring (May), and a defensive presence (Okafor). While I am not saying they will make the Eastern Conference Finals, this team will compete for a playoff spot. And from where they have been over the past two years, that is a big improvement.

Rich: Our very own Boston Celtics! I won’t go so far as saying they will contend for the title but they have a legitimate shot at the playoffs and the Atlantic Division. The likelihood of Carter or Kidd going down with an injury is there based on history and there just isn’t another team in the Atlantic that could or should be the division winner. A team that should contend for the Title though is the Chicago Bulls. They put that team together well and have the right focus–defense first.

Mike: I think the Rockets have put together the pieces to be a tough team to handle in the playoffs. The question for them obviously comes down to Tracy McGrady’s health, but if he’s there at the end you have to think that Jeff Van Gundy will find a way to grind out some wins against the softer Western teams and give themselves a shot against the perceived big boys of the conference.

Which player is the most valuable addition to his new club?

Mike: Not only is Bonzi Wells the most important addition, but with the bargain basement contract he agreed to after his agent proved to be a graduate of the George Costanza School of Negotiation he is ridiculously cheap as well. He’ll be motivated to earn his next contract, and the Spurs know exactly how much he can change a playoff series all on his own even with higher profile stars around him. Bonzi is not exactly a candidate for the NBA’s Lady Byng trophy, but I have to think that the Rockets surrounding his locker with Shane Battier’s inner serenity on one side and Yao Ming’s looming foreignness on the other he’s going to have a hard time finding partners in crime for his mischief.

Dylan: Charlie Villanueva. His versatility will be a huge addition to an intriguing Bucks team. The addition will allow Andrew Bogut to play more at his natural center position. The addition solves their problems at the four spot. The addition will allow the Bucks to throw a multitude of lineups out which will allow them to match up with any team in the league. The addition will allow Mo Williams to take over the point guard spot. In short, the addition will make the Bucks a better team.

Rich: It pains me to say this but Peja Stojakovic. The one thing New Orleans was missing last year was a long range gunner for Paul to find after breaking down the defense. Peja brings that to the table for sure. Depth issues will ultimately be the death knell for the Hornets but they will be frisky to watch early in the season. Peja should go a long way in erasing the last couple of seasons in Sacramento with Paul feeding him the ball where and when he wants it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Peja back up to the mid-20s in scoring.