| 18 December 2009
Will Eddie Jordan bench him again now?
Few minutes ago Elton Brand scored the decisive basket in Sixers' shocking 97-98 W at Boston, a game I had the priviledge to watch live.
It was a tip in over Paul Pierce, off a miss by Speights, with 7.7 seconds left. A veteran play from a guy that, for many reasons, got a lot of crap this year: some deserved, much not. I am happy for him and for the team.
It's 4 AM while I'm typing this and I can't be happier: I tweeted that last year I watched live another Celtics game and it ended with a three by Ray Allen with 0.5 seconds left.
This time Allen missed a jumper at the buzzer (uhm, after it, actually, the shot wasn't released on time), after Pierced had missed another shot, and we escaped with a well deserved victory (7-19, .269), to stop Boston's eleven game winning streak and Celtics' dominance in the series: they collected nine W in the previous ten games vs us, how annoying was that?
I'll keep this post short, editing it tomorrow, with the usual S4g sections. Right now I can only write down some random points.
* 23 points in only 26 minutes on 7/12, 90% from the line, 8 rebounds, including the decisive one, 2 blocks: what more can you ask from Elton Brand, coming off the bench again ?? But, as I tweeted before, he seems to be in a lose-lose situation. If he plays bad, he's benched, if he plays well off the bench, coach will think he's more effective starting from there...
* this is one of those games that can turn a season around. Sixers won on the road, against the hottest team in the NBA, playing without Iverson (knee) and Lou Williams, overcoming a 15 point deficit: 46-31 in the second, 59-44 early in the third, just when we started a 10-0 run. Of course you have to follow this with another W Saturday over the Clippers (that tonight wasted a 20 point lead to lose to NY in the final minute...), otherwise this would remain just an episode.
* I hope Jordan will take this chance to abandon the small ball crap. But of course he won't. Sixers' starting line up got ABUSED under the boards: I took note of a 20-7 Celtics edge in the first quarter, that ended 20-10, with Perkins grabbing 8 boards, two less than our entire team. This means Sixers outrebounded Boston 35-26 the rest of the game (25-15 in the second half), with Brand and Speights playing more minutes, often together. Any bell ringing ???
* Jrue Holiday played another good game, forget his stat line: he didn't shot well, especially in the first half (0/5) but led our comeback in the third, scoring 5 points and dishing out two fantastic assists in traffic, one to Iguodala for a three as the shot clock was expiring, one to Brand for a three point play. he always looks fearless, calm and focused, I'm liking him more and more.
* Iguodala was huge in the second half: he closed the first with 4 points on 1/8, meaning he had 14 on 5/7 in the second. Add to that a good defense on Pierce's last attempt and a great three point play to put us in front at 1.43 (93-94) - in the pic - , when we were struggling to get a good shot.
* I'll give Green his props tonight, he played a solid game, also at the point, and didn't force shots. Well done.
* refs missed a lot of calls tonight on both sides, Wallace was ejected in the second, with Celtis up eleven (42-31). The worst whisle came in Boston's favor though, when the officials pulled a Santa Klaus (btw: "boooooooo !!", LOL) and called a phantom foul on Speights, to put Garnett to the line as early Christmas gift. Garnett made both free throws with 23 seconds to go, and Celtics were up one, 97-96.
* We made a couple of unbelievable mistakes in the fourth, failing to box out twice and allowiing Celtics to grab two offensive rebounds off a missed free throw. On the second one, Garnett found Ray Allen at the top of the key for a costly three (91-89), a shot that switched momentum.
* Celtics shot 7/23 in the 4th: that helped, and we helped ourselves by shooting a good 9/20.
Again, great, emotional game and a lesson to be learned for the resident idiot on the bench. The scary thing is that due to this W he could will think he's a genius and stubbornly go on with his weird ideas. But right now let's enjoy this fantastic comeback. Wow. 5.15 AM, I can go to bed (but I added more ! After the jump).(What follows is the Sat morning edit of last night’s post. Here we go with our usual sections.
THEEE ANSWERS
1) Yes, Marreese Speights provides something unique for this team in terms of energy, variety of offensive solutions (jumpers, long jumpers, drives, hooks, follow up shots etc), so his addition is huge. True he’s not a great defensive rebounder and he struggles vs taller, bigger opponents (example: Garnett, very effective yesterday for Boston) but I think he more than makes up for those. Also, he’s not afraid of taking big shots down thre stretch, which is nice for a second year rookie.
2) No, I didn’t get what Rasheed exactly said to the ref. Surely the scene, with him aggressively going towards the official, with team mates and assistants “tackling” him, didn’t help much his cause. Officiating was pretty bad and he was called for a non existent offensive foul, but Celtics were in control of the game when he was ejected, so that was dumb anyway.
3) No, we didn’t miss Iverson much yesterday, to be honest. His critics will say we won because he was out, which would be unfair. But critics of the move (like myself) would conclude that the team is/was competitive even without him.
THREE QUESTIONS
1) Do you like the trimmed rotation? I don’t, and this big W won’t make me change idea. Carney, and Jason Smith got a DNP CD, while Kapono and Ivey played, but nearly no one noticed. And Iverson AND Williams were out. I sense a storm coming in 8-10 days…
2) Is he starting to get a clue? Jordan frequently substituted Brand with Sam, and viceversa, for defense/offense purposes in the final minutes. Basic NBA coach moves, but you can see he’s progressing… he didn’t do that before, so hey, let’s see the half full part of the glass.
3) How will players and coach respond tonight against the Clippers ? Second night of a back to back, after a tough, close game, facing a dangerous (to me) team that will be angry for last night’s close loss, in which a 20 point lead was wasted. One would think that coach will use his bench more, right? Interesting to see what Jordan will do, and if players can stay focused and play with the same attitude. Good test, against my 2nd favorite team.
REASONS
Why we won the game
The two bigs and Andre Iguodala delivered in crunch time. Good defense in the fourth and on the final play. Celtics turned the ball over a lot. Second unit did his job under the glasses, after the starters were killed.
To be optimistic.
Come-from-behind, one point victory against an excellent team, on the road, in a packed arena. First big W of the season (it took us unly 26 games, LOL). Huge game by guys we need, also in crunch time. Even with a mediocre coach, Sixers showed they have guys that can get the job done on the court. Playoffs spots are close, despite the horrible start.
To be worried
The W will probably convince even more Jordan that what he’s doing is right. With Iverson (and Lou) back, Sixers’ roster will be very tough to manage. I'll try to have a post up about this in the next days.
I’ll try also to go back-to.back and watch the Clippers game live tonight.
