Channel Surfing

My day was spent flipping between Adrian Peterson, Boston's big three, the Wolves, and Colts/Pats. The Celtics had a playoff type game with the Raptors in Toronto and won in overtime on Ray Allen's last second shot. Our Wolves lost another in NY, mostly due to another huge disparity in free throws--only 6 out of 10 for our club, 30-39 for the Knicks. As I mentioned earlier today, if the first two games are any indication, it's going to be a long year, especially with the referees in this league.

The positives: no turnovers for Sebastian Telfair, and a decent performance from Greg Buckner. Once Randy Foye returns, this duo has the potential to be a good second unit backcourt. It seemed as if Big Al and Sebastian were woofing at each other from time to time, so all this chemistry talk may be just that...talk. Since we are told at the opening of every year how well the guys are getting along with each other, I would not believe a word coming from any Taylor.org employee. It's like someone has developed the Midwestern sports marketing template: whatever you do, make sure loyalty and chemistry are always two key talking points. Very Republican.

The negatives: Is this truly McHale's idea of smashmouth basketball? Way too many jump shots, players trying to do too much, (see Theo Ratliff), and Coach Wittman. His substitutions, especially bringing Antoine Walker to jack up a three at the end of the game, was suspect. Our second unit needs work, especially when Marko is on the court. Whatever veteran leadership we do have may need to show up to prevent the drop off in scoring and intensity. Wittman needs to work the refs more, and get a few technicals to get their attention.

As for Boston, it was the big three and a half, as James Posey was a key player for the Celtics. One huge issue for that club around playoff time will be Rondo's ability to guard super quick PG's (see Tony Parker). TJ Ford ripped him a new one. One interesting KG note was the Raptors choice of not double teaming him in the fourth quarter. Chris Bosh could not play him straight up, which lead KG to hit some big shots in overtime. The effect of being able to spread the floor with three All-Stars and KG isolating on a single defender may improve his reputation of not being a scorer in the clutch.

Finally, even though I've been hard on our Jim Petersen, there's no bigger homer commentator than Tommy Heinsohn. Jim Pete pales in comparison to Tommy, and is a better in game observer than the former Celtic coach. With Heinsohn at the mic, it's going to be a long season trying to watch the Celtics progress toward the post season. Would somebody please ask Bill Russell to come back for just one year and provide commentary?