Lee all I am saying is, win it or not, it will not depend on Amir playing or not playing. I understand that`s your opinion, however, I don`t understand it at all. Tell me when a 20 year old with limited NBA experience played a major role in a team winning a championship. I am not saying he couldn`t help, but saying it all depends on a raw 20 year old is puzzling to me.
I agree with you here that Amir won't make much of an impact on if we win or lose the title unless he of course gets the key block in game 7 of the finals or ECF ala what Tay did in the 04 ECF vs the Pacers. But I think Magic had not reached his 21st birthday yet when he led the Lakers to the title in the deciding game of the 79-80 series vs the sixers
My main concern this year is lack of depth in the front court. I understand how we needed to stock up on perimeter guys to counter Lebran, Ray Allen, etc.. Say something happends like Dyess is injured and Sheed gets into foul trouble. Going into a playoff game with only Maxiel,Primo and an out of practice Amir is not going to cut it. In this case I do agree that we need to develope Amir or go out and find someone else who can play.
besides the far diffence of talent.... Magic had a full year of college.... something about a national championship game? drafted far far ahead of where AJ was. don't have to look at the stats to know that Magic was playing serious mins from the start of the season and can only asume he was starting very early in the season. I think a much better comparison is to ONeil from Ind... from my memory he didn't get much burn at all the first couple years just got to beat against wallace in practice.... i'll take his output down the line from AJ with what i think is 100 percent better attitude.
Since Hunter is inactive for the Raptor's game. Will he be activated for this game? Remember, he played a vital role in helping the Pistons win at Boston. We may need him again here.
Pistons better be ready for a Billups trap. I think Boston will do what Cleveland did in the playoffs last season as far as trying to slow down Chauncey. They would be stupid not to do it.
If they do, hopefully Flip has a plan to counter that. If he did improve, that should be a huge indicator of it.
If they try and trap Billups we will kill them with our other options. IMO, if they attempt to trap Billups look for someone else to have a big night. Or, they will give up the trap real quick and try option B, if they have one. I am looking for a win by a larger point margin than our previous victory in Boston.
I think their game plan will be: Don't let Billups beat us. Make the other guys beat us. Hopefully, the others will be up to the challenge, specifically Prince. He needs to make Pierce work hard on D. And I agree with 356, Amir needs to be part of the equation. Time for Flip to think outside the box on this one.
I agree with your statement about Prince. IMO, I don`t see AJ cracking the rotation for serious minutes unless there is an injury. I, like everyone else wants to see this kid get some real meaningful PT, however, I just don`t see it happening this year.
i think we havn't had a trap played on bill yet..... but we have worked on how were going to counter it, remember the comments about the point guard being it bill or stuckey not bringing the ball up and prince or rip bringing it up? I think thats somewhat of how we plan on dealing with that trap.
Celtics got the win at home over Memphis in a game that was surprisingly competitive in the first half. Boston got 23 each from Pierce and Garnett, with 20 from Allen...oh, wait a minute, that was TONY Allen scoring 20...WTF?! He had 18 in the first half! The "other" Allen almost had his first scoreless game in 11 years, before he hit 2 FTs in the last 10 seconds. Ray was 0-9 from the floor in 35 minutes. He had a big game in the first Pistons-Celtics matchup a few weeks ago, so maybe he got a bad one out of his system tonight?
Maybe Celts were looking past Memphis? I know it's NBA, but it shouldn't have been that close of a game.
These Celts need to be punished. Where do they get off jumping out to 27 wins with 3 loses. It's almost like they've spit in the face of time honored traditions of developing chemistry and winning methods steeped in hard earned and learned years of losing. Nevermind they already did that. I hope their GM doesn't think he's better than JD.
