That's Amare: Stoudemire Scores 42, Suns Outlast Pacers
Amare Stoudemire scored 42 points and Steve Nash dished out 17 assists as the Phoenix Suns built a 15 point lead, fell behind by five points in the fourth quarter and then rallied to pull out a 121-117 road win against the Pacers. "We had two or three games out there," Suns Coach Mike D'Antoni said with a chuckle after the game. "We played well, they played well and we played well. It ended on a good note." Stoudemire's points and Nash's assists are both season-highs for any Suns player in those categories. Stoudemire shot 15-24 from the field and 12-13 from the free throw line. He also had 13 rebounds and four assists and managed to play the last 6:14 of the game despite having five fouls. Nash scored 17 points on 6-9 shooting, though he surprisingly missed two free throws (5-7). Nash also contributed six rebounds and his +17 plus/minus number was a game-high, just ahead of Stoudemire's +15. Grant Hill had a nice all-around game (16 points on 7-9 shooting, five rebounds, six assists), while Raja Bell (17 points, 6-15 shooting) and Shawn Marion (14 points, 5-15 field goal shooting, 12 rebounds) also scored in double figures. Leandro Barbosa (four points on 1-8 shooting) and Boris Diaw (two points on 1-3 shooting) struggled and Brian Skinner (eight points, six rebounds) was the only productive reserve for the Suns. Jermaine O'Neal (30 points on 14-20 shooting, 11 rebounds) had his best game of the season by far, Jamaal Tinsley used his size in the post to overpower Nash on more than a few occasions (19 points, 12 assists) and Mike Dunleavy added 22 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Early in the game it looked like the Suns would run the Pacers right out of the gym; Phoenix led 24-14 at the 5:57 mark of the first quarter, which roughly projects to a 192-112 final score. Obviously, nothing that extreme is likely to happen in an NBA game but the Suns did lead by as much as 38-24 before a couple late baskets pulled the Pacers to within 38-29. Stoudemire had 10 points and six rebounds in the first quarter, while Nash had six points and five assists. Tinsley helped keep the Pacers in contention with his nine points and four assists; he often bulled his way to the hoop, muscling Nash and then either scoring over him or passing to an open teammate if a help defender came over.
In the second quarter the Suns once again built a double digit lead and when Stoudemire's two free throws with 2:38 left made the score 66-51 it looked like Phoenix might be ahead by more than 20 by halftime. Instead, the Pacers outscored the Suns 13-3 down the stretch to remain very much in the ballgame. Stoudemire led both teams with 23 points and seven rebounds at intermission, while Nash had eight points and nine assists. O'Neal and Tinsley each scored 14 points for the Pacers. The Pacers enjoyed advantages in both rebounding (26-22) and points in the paint (36-26) and they held the Suns to 0-8 shooting from three point range (the Pacers finished the game with a 50-45 rebounding edge and a 58-46 points in the paint edge, with the 58 points being a season-high for Indiana). The difference was that the Suns shot 19-19 from the free throw line in the first half while the Pacers shot 8-11.
Let's see if this story sounds familiar: the Suns built a double digit lead in the third quarter (84-72) but the Pacers rallied to get within two points (88-86). A mini-run by Phoenix gave the Suns a 96-90 lead heading into the final 12 minutes. Brian Skinner's dunk off of a feed by Nash put Phoenix up 98-90 but the Pacers answered with 10 straight points to take their first lead of the second half. The teams traded baskets for a few minutes before Tinsley and Dunleavy hit back to back three pointers to put Indiana up 112-107. Two Stoudemire free throws and a Hill jumper narrowed the margin to one but then Dunleavy once again hit a three pointer. It is important to note that Dunleavy kept getting wide open looks because the Suns were forced to trap both O'Neal and Tinsley because they did not have anyone who could guard either player one on one; problems guarding a team that has a good power forward and a penetrating point guard could prove fatal if/when the Spurs or Jazz come calling at playoff time: while the Spurs and most other championship teams rely on the ability to get key stops down the stretch, the Suns hang their hats on being able to convert at the offensive end of the court--and on this night, against this team, that would prove to be good enough. A Stoudemire jump hook and two Nash free throws left the Pacers clinging to a 117-115 lead with 1:11 remaining. The next possession went very strangely and after a few passes Dunleavy caught the ball and did a lot of aimless dribbling before launching a fadeaway shot that barely beat the shot clock and did not draw iron. Hill plucked the ball out of the air and passed ahead to Nash, whose cold blooded three pointer put the Suns ahead for good.
The last time the Suns came to Indiana, they beat the Pacers 103-92. After that contest, Coach D'Antoni said, "Nothing great on our part. But we did the job. We are lucky to get this one." His comments after Tuesday's victory were very similar: "We just struggle to play for 48 minutes right now...but to get a win on their home floor is good no matter how we do it." Later he added, "We just weren't real sharp the whole game. Our pace and their pace together kind of set it up that a 15 point lead is not real safe but we'll take it and go on to the next game."
Toward the end of his postgame standup, I asked him, "You mentioned a lack of focus a couple times. Was that mainly at the defensive end in the second half?"
Coach D'Antoni replied, "It's hard to figure it out all the time. It's a long year and we are just up and down with it a little bit. We'll figure it out. I don't know; if I knew the answer I'd tell you."
Stoudemire offered this telling insight into his team's mindset: "We're a confident team. Sometimes we're a little too confident because teams fight back but we know that we can get the win. That hurts us sometimes but we have to do a better job when we're up 15 of closing teams out. We have to find that killer instinct. We have a nice group of guys but sometimes we have to get hard core."
I asked Stoudemire, "What specifically broke down defensively to let them come back?"
He answered, "They shot well and we missed shots; that's all that was. We could have stepped up our intensity level in the last three minutes of the first half but they made tough shots and we missed some shots. That is the way the game is played sometimes but there are no excuses. We have to put teams away."
Nash is keenly aware of his team's tendency to wander mentally and he is not at all happy about it: "We had a lot of letdowns, whether it was missing layups or having mental lapses defensively. It is frustrating because we had a game that we could have possibly put to rest at halftime and all of a sudden (in the fourth quarter) we're losing. It is just a relief because we made the plays down the stretch and got the stops when it counted but this was not a very gratifying win."
I asked Nash, "Could you pinpoint one or two specific things that went wrong defensively?"
He answered, "I think that it was just mental lapses and just not being alert, forgetting the game plan and falling asleep. I think that sometimes we score easily and we take for granted that if we let up for a minute that teams can come back on you. In this league, everyone is talented."
Later, Nash said, "It is a win and it is a road win. We have a lot to be thankful for but we have to keep working and trying to stop some of the mental lapses...We don't live up to the standards of discipline and energy and cohesion that we set for ourselves." Nash seemed so glum and morose that I said to him, "It sounds like you are frustrated. Is this something that you talk about as a team or do you plan to talk to certain players about it?"
He answered, "Yeah, I mean, we know; we come into the locker room and it is silent, like a loss. Everyone knows that we have to do better and that we set higher standards for ourselves. It is more relieving (to win this game) than gratifying." In response to someone else's question, he went so far as to say that it almost would have been better to play hard the whole game and lose then to be so inconsistent and blow so many opportunities.
I asked Nash, "Does this concern you from the standpoint that if something like this happened in the postseason that it could possibly cost you a game that could swing the outcome of a series?"
As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, he immediately responded with great conviction, "Absolutely. Absolutely. That's happened to us in the past and I think that's why we're not excited to win, because we know better. We know that we have to continue to live by higher standards."
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Notes From Courtside:
In a recent post (and the comments that followed it),
I talked about "talent" and "athleticism" and said, "I think that the way many people define athletic ability is very narrow." Specifically, I think that Steve Nash is an excellent athlete even though he is not a high flyer and does not possess blazing straight line speed. I had an opportunity to discuss this subject with Coach D'Antoni, Coach O'Brien, former player/current broadcaster Dan Majerle, Suns President of Basketball Operations/General Manager Steve Kerr and Nash himself. I gathered so much material from them that I will save most of their comments and insights for a separate post devoted entirely to that subject. However, to whet your appetite, I will share Coach O'Brien's thoughts about Nash and what makes him a special point guard. I asked Coach O'Brien, "A lot of times fans will make an arbitrary distinction about which players are 'athletic' and which players are 'skilled.' Wouldn't you say that Nash's shooting ability and his passing ability are athletic skills, also?"
O'Brien replied, "He's very athletic. Sometimes people confuse quickness, Allen Iverson-type quickness, with athletic ability. They look at Steve Nash (and try) to figure out why is he so good. He's very athletic, he's in phenomenal condition, he never stops and he has a whole arsenal of shots--he can score inside, he can hit deep shots. He never gives up his dribble until he has something positive to do with the ball, either to get an open shot for himself or create something for somebody else. Otherwise, he keeps on going and keeps on probing; that is really, I would say, a very, very unique skill that he that a lot of us coaches around the NBA would like to see more people on our teams have."
I asked O'Brien, "Is that a skill that you can really coach or develop in a point guard or is that something that you either have or you don't?"
He replied, "I think that you can develop it but it takes a while. In his case, it's fairly innate. I don't think that anybody took him into a gym and taught it to him over a weekend."
I then followed up by asking, "If you are trying to develop that skill in a player who does not innately have it, how would you do it? Would you show him film?"
O'Brien answered, "We show film--for instance, to (Pacer reserve guards) Andre (Owens) and Travis (Diener), as an example. We want them to, in practice or one on one on the court, to go and drive the ball to the charge circle. If you don't get anything, dribble it back out. Dribble it back in, dribble it back out, look for your shot, look for the pass, maintain your dribble. That's the ideal point guard. Some point guards get in the paint and leave their feet, which is the worst thing that you can do. Some get in there and predetermine what they are going to do with the basketball--this time I'm going to get my shot, this time I'm going to pass. Nash reacts to the defense and he always maintains his dribble and as a result he's always an MVP candidate."
***
In addition to talking with Coach D'Antoni about Nash during my one on one pregame interview with him, I also asked him to make an early evaluation of the team's offseason moves that resulted in the acquisition of Grant Hill and the loss of Kurt Thomas and to single out an area in which his team may be stronger this year and an area in which his team may be weaker. He replied, "I don't think that there is any area in which we are not as strong. With the emergence of Brian Skinner, he gives us the strength and defensive presence that Kurt gave us last year. With Grant Hill, we added a seven-time All-Star. That's hard to do; that's really hard to do at this stage of the game and he's healthy. He just gives you a player who can just take over a game and there aren't that many players out there in the league who can do that. I think that everybody else should be a little bit better, especially Leandro and Boris getting a little bit older and Amare learning different things. So, I don't see us being weaker in anything. We still have to get better--it doesn't mean that we are better than the best--but I think that we improved our team."
I followed up by asking him, "Outside observers might feel that with Skinner you don't have quite the post presence that you did with Kurt Thomas and Skinner might not have quite the ability to hit the outside shot that Thomas does."
D'Antoni replied, "Kurt only played about 17 minutes for us. He missed months of the season. So, I think we're good; I think we're better."
Two questions that I had before the season about the Hill acquisition were how he would fit in to the drive and kick scheme since he is not a great three point shooter and whether his body could hold up for an entire season at the fast pace that the Suns play. D'Antoni brushed aside both concerns: "First, he's a great driver and kicker. Now, if he's on the receiving end of the drive and kick, one, he makes enough threes to keep everybody honest; he's not a great three point shooter but he's not a bad three point shooter, either. He's about 30% now and he's learning when to pick his spots. Also, it's a little bit of a myth (that we only shoot threes)--he doesn't always have to shoot a three; he can take a dribble and shoot his midrange jumper. He's finding a blend there and he fits in perfectly with what we do; one more playmaker on the floor really helps us out. For him over the long haul, he's completely healthy. I mean, we should be saying that over months and months that Steve Nash can't handle this pace. Well, they're both about the same age. He is one year older than Steve. There is nothing wrong with him physically; he's completely well. Now, at age 35, might he break down? He might. We don't know that but his past problems were due to things not being right structurally. He's right, right now, so we don't see him breaking down or missing games but it could happen. It could happen to Steve or to any of our guys but our doctors and trainers are pretty secure that he's good. Anybody could break down during a long season but they don't think that he is at any more risk than anybody else."
***
Before the game, while discussing some of the things that have transpired in recent years in FIBA competition, Kerr relayed an interesting anecdote that D'Antoni--an assistant coach for Team USA--told him about Kobe Bryant. Prior to each game in last summer's FIBA Americas tournament, Bryant asked the coaching staff, "Who do you want me to take out?" In other words, Bryant wanted to know who was the toughest perimeter threat on each team so that he could study his tendencies on film and then completely neutralize him on the court. I said to Kerr, "That sounds like a sniper zeroing in on a target" and Kerr replied, "Yeah--and he was serious." Kerr went on to say that Bryant's "focus" and "bravado" added an essential missing element to the squad and elevated everyone else's play. Kerr noted that the previous Team USA squad had performed reasonably well other than the infamous loss to Greece but that it lacked a certain "swagger," as he termed it, and that Team USA did not have a "player who everyone feared." Kerr literally shook his head in wonderment as he described Bryant's impact on Team USA.
***
After the rest of the reporters were done talking to Stoudemire after the game, I asked him if he has been in contact yet with Gilbert Arenas, who recently underwent microfracture surgery. Stoudemire told me that he has not spoken with Arenas yet but that he plans to call him when the Suns go to Washington this Friday. He added that Arenas' microfracture surgery was on a non-weight bearing bone so it was not quite as serious but Stoudemire agreed with me that Arenas does have to be cautious about not coming back too soon.
Labels: Amare Stoudemire, Indiana Pacers, Jamaal Tinsley, Jermaine O'Neal, Jim O'Brien, Mike D'Antoni, Phoenix Suns, Steve Nash
posted by David Friedman @ 2:50 AM
Pierce Pounces Early, Allen Attacks Late as Celtics Beat Pacers, 101-86
Paul Pierce scored 17 of his season-high 31 points in the second quarter and Ray Allen had 15 of his 17 points in the third quarter of a 101-86 Boston victory at Indiana. Pierce shot 8-17 from the field and 14-14 from the free throw line as the Celtics improved to 6-0 and remained the only unbeaten NBA team; Pierce also had 11 rebounds and tied his season-high with six assists. Kevin Garnett added 18 points, 11 rebounds, two assists, three steals and two blocked shots. Brian Scalabrine provided a lift off of the bench with nine points in 13 minutes. Allen (+16), Garnett (+15), Pierce (+10) and Scalabrine (+12) were the only four players who posted double digit positive numbers in plus/minus in this game. Danny Granger led the Pacers with 24 points on 8-10 shooting. Granger tied his career-high with five three point field goals made and was just one three pointer short of matching Indiana's franchise record for most three pointers made in a game without a miss. Jamaal Tinsley added 14 points, eight assists and four rebounds. Jermaine O'Neal had a team-high nine rebounds but scored only 10 points on 4-13 shooting. Considering that Indiana has a new coach, Jim O'Brien, who employs a wide open offensive system and that Boston added two All-Stars in the offseason--Allen and Garnett--one would have expected this game to easily be a sellout but there were only 12,143 fans in attendance, well short of the 18,345 capacity at Conseco Fieldhouse.
Indiana quickly jumped out to a 10-4 lead and stayed in front for most of the first quarter until a Scalabrine three pointer with :15 remaining put the Celtics up 26-24. The score stayed close for most of the second quarter but a turning point seemed to happen after Tinsley delivered a hard foul to Pierce at the 3:06 mark with the score tied at 38. Tinsley whacked Pierce on the left arm and also hit him on the head. Pierce visibly took exception to the contact but calmed himself down by doing some pushups instead of confronting Tinsley. Pierce made both free throws and on the next Celtics possession he finished off a hard drive with an emphatic slam dunk. Pierce scored 13 points in the last 3:06 and Boston led 52-43 at halftime. After the game, Pierce said, "I was a little frustrated. I thought it was a flagrant foul...I tried to use it to fire up my teammates. We didn't need any fighting. When I did the push up, I was just blowing off steam." Boston Coach Doc Rivers added, "Clearly they lit a fire under Paul, because he thought the play was not a clean play. Got him upset and as a coach you've got to make a decision. We went to isos for Paul right away after that and my read was if he gets going because of that then we ride him. If he goes too quickly then you just go to something else. When we went to it the first time he scored and then you knew that he was in the right frame."
Boston kept the lead in double figures for most of the third quarter but never extended it past 16. Pierce had just two points on 1-2 shooting but Allen got loose for 15 points on 5-10 shooting. This is a good example of how a player's contributions don't always show up statistically; the Pacers had to pay added attention to Pierce and that left Allen open. One could argue that Pierce's contributions showed up in his second quarter statistics but the point is that he had an impact on what happened in the third quarter just by being on the court; the threat that he poses offensively means that in future games he can also have that kind of an impact even if he does not have a second quarter scoring outburst because if teams trap him from the start of the game to prevent a Pierce scoring run then Allen or someone else will be open. The only way to fully understand this kind of dynamic is to actually watch a team play and to really pay attention to what they are trying to do and how the other team is countering those things. Plus/minus can hint at some of these things, but Pierce's impact--and the impact of any other player who must be double-teamed--is no less real even on occasions when his teammates do not make the open shots that his presence creates. Only a handful of players have that kind of effect on a game, guys like Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, and a few others; sometimes their teammates take advantage of playing four on three and sometimes they don't but a player who commands that kind of coverage is more valuable than players who don't, regardless of what their respective statistics might indicate.
Boston led comfortably for most of the fourth quarter, although Indiana briefly got to within 89-82 at the 4:07 mark after a Tinsley layup. He missed a free throw that could have cut the lead to six and then Garnett hit a big jumper at the 3:44 mark. When people talk about clutch shots they usually mean buzzer beaters but Garnett's basket was huge because the Pacers had just trimmed the margin from 14 to seven in less than two minutes. If he had missed and the Pacers scored then all of a sudden it is a two possession game with plenty of time left. One of the knocks on Garnett during his career is that he has not made a lot of shots like that in the fourth quarter, so it is interesting both that Boston went to him in that situation and that he delivered. I'm still not sold on a 20 foot jumper being a go-to move for any seven footer not named Dirk Nowitzki but I give Garnett credit for making it at a crucial time. A couple possessions later, Garnett scored a layup on a feed from Pierce and the Pacers never seriously threatened again.
"It was a good win. I don't think it was a well played game by either team," Rivers said after the game. "But obviously we'll take the win. Defensively I thought that we were pretty solid all night." He is not completely satisfied with how the Celtics closed out the game: "That is the one thing that we are not doing yet. We had three or four times when the lead was 14 or 16 and we defensively gambled and gave up threes. I know that there were at least three of them and that just brings the game back. I love my team because they are trying to do stuff and they are trying so hard but I'm trying to tell them to sometimes just be solid. We're doing extra: Paul fouls a three point shooter when if he made that shot with Paul draped all over him, that's all you need but then we're trying to do extra instead of just being solid. We're going to learn that."
"We're busting our ass out here. We're working really hard," Garnett told the assembled media outside the Celtics' locker room during his postgame standup. "Every night we're working hard. Like I keep saying, we know our flaws and we're very much aware of them and we're just trying to continue to work. We have to take care of the ball and get better ball movement at times and be more patient at times. We're still a work in progress. We're just a team that's working hard." Garnett noticeably does not enjoy talking to the media, so the added attention and coverage that is part of being on a successful team will no doubt be one of his biggest challenges/frustrations this season. The funny thing is that after Garnett finished a somewhat brusque question and answer session and went back into the locker room, several members of the media agreed that he actually acted a bit better than he had in the past (all I know from firsthand experience is that on the one previous time that I spoke with Garnett he was reserved but polite). I think that Garnett is just a very intense player who does not particularly enjoy talking about his team with outsiders but what is interesting is that his disposition toward the media is not generally held against him but other players are criticized for similar or even lesser "offenses."
Road wins are hard to come by in the NBA even for good teams, so the fact that the Celtics won despite not playing at their peak level is impressive. One somewhat sloppy win in November is not enough to make me jump on the bandwagon that has Boston cruising to the NBA Finals but this is the first time that I've seen this Celtics team in person and I am impressed by how hard they played throughout the game, particularly on defense. It is obvious that on the nights when each member of the Big Three is clicking that Boston will be very hard to beat but this performance showed that Boston is capable of grinding out wins as well. People forget that even the greatest teams of all-time had to do that sometimes; the classic example of this that I like to cite is Chicago's win over Indiana
in game seven of the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, when the Bulls shot .382 from the field but scratched, clawed and battled their way to 22 offensive rebounds, proving that they were going to win the game no matter what: if they kept missing shots then they would fight to get the ball back and then shoot it again. Shooting guard Michael Jordan (9-25 from the field, 28 points) had five offensive rebounds and small forward Scottie Pippen (6-18 from the field, 17 points) had six, so it was not just about Dennis Rodman, who had three offensive rebounds. Call it tenacity, heart or will to win, the great teams have it and that is how they win even when they are not at their best. The Celtics provided a glimpse of this against Indiana and it will be interesting to see if they can replicate such efforts at playoff time against the very best teams.
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Notes From Courtside:
Prior to the game, I asked Coach O'Brien, "What have you noticed about the Celtics early in the year that has surprised you? They've put so many new players together and they're doing so well so quickly." He replied, "I think that Doc and Danny (Ainge) have done a great job of getting veteran bench people--getting Eddie House, who really keeps them in the flow from the three point line, and then stealing (James) Posey, who helps them do the same thing. When they go to the bench they have people who can continue to space the court and keep the lane open for (Rajon) Rondo and also for Kevin Garnett. So I think that getting a better than average bench put together and then utilizing it very effectively has been the thing that has probably surprised a lot of people."
Asked to list some keys to beating the Celtics, O'Brien said, "We're going to have to defend their three point shots. You never beat a really, really good team unless you are extremely aggressive both offensively and defensively." He added that the Pacers have shown the ability to push the tempo offensively in spurts but have yet to do so for four quarters. I followed up by asking, "Why is it difficult to stay aggressive offensively for four quarters? Is it a mental thing?" O'Brien answered, "You know what? We're working on that. I think the tendency on teams is to revert back to habits. The habit of most people in the NBA is that the fourth quarters are grind it out time. That's not my viewpoint. My viewpoint is that the thing that gets you your lead has to sustain the lead: (fast) tempo, moving the basketball, moving people, going inside out on drives or postups. Part of it is my ability to substitute intelligently to make sure that we always have fresh people on the court in the fourth quarter."
O'Brien disputed Denver Coach George Karl's recent statement that Danny Granger is the Pacers' number one option: "I don't even think that's relatively accurate. I don't view Danny as the number one option at all. I think that our offense has to run through Jermaine. That doesn't mean that Jermaine is going to be the guy who scores the most points; it means that Jermaine, for a guy his size, is going to be a big assists guy this year. He'll probably, in the long run, be our high scorer. The offense runs through Jermaine. The offense runs through Jamaal. I would say that Danny Granger is no more of a scoring option than Mike Dunleavy is or than Jermaine is. It doesn't look to me as if there is one guy who we go to--we need to play team basketball constantly. It never even has been a discussion for one moment in our coaching meetings that Danny Granger or this guy or that guy is our number one scoring option. You play basketball. I think that Danny Granger is going to be one of the great recipients of this style because it is perfectly suited for him. I'm not trying to say that he is not a key part of this; he is an extremely key part of this. When you talk about number one options you talk about who Paul Pierce was last year--the ball is going to go to him and he is going to touch the ball 20 times down the stretch. This is more of a team concept of offense...George Karl knows a lot about basketball and I know that it was a compliment to Danny and I'm not trying to take that compliment away but him being the number one option is inaccurate."
***
In the locker room before the game, Pierce offered his thoughts on playing alongside Kevin Garnett after each of them endured several losing seasons with Boston and Minnesota respectively: "You know how some people get stuck in marriages where they really don't want to be but they are so used to each other that they just hold on and find ways to work it out? That was kind of the situation that Kevin and I were in...I was kind of at the end of my rope. Going into the summer, I thought one of two things was going to happen: we'd either do what we did right now or I would be traded. I'm happy. The funny thing about is that when we played Minnesota last year one time on the free throw line I said to Kevin, 'Am I going to have to come to Minnesota or are you coming to Boston?' That's a true story."
I asked Pierce, "Why do you think that the Celtics have been able to jell so quickly defensively?" He answered, "It just has to do with our commitment, working at it every day and buying in to what the coaches want us to do. We practice it each and every day. Of course, the presence of Kevin--an All-Defensive player for the last decade--helps a lot."
***
During his pregame standup, Coach Rivers said, "There will be a time this season when something will happen and that will be the test for us. San Antonio and the other top teams have gone through tests. We've gone through nothing. That's why a lot of people have picked other teams (to do better than Boston) and rightly so."
I asked Rivers, "You have been very good defensively very early. What are the reasons that you have been able to make that adjustment so quickly despite adding a lot of new players and has it surprised you how quickly you have become a good defensive team?" He answered, "No, really, I mean we've focused on it. Give all the credit to the players. They've committed to it. Garnett makes a big difference. That's clear. James Posey coming off the bench makes a difference, having another veteran. We just have a different group of guys. We just have mature guys, older guys, who understand the urgency of defense. I think that makes you a better defensive team."
I followed up by asking, "Do you have a certain statistical target in terms of defensive field goal percentage or something else that you set as a goal for your team to say that this is how we know we are playing good defense?"
He replied, "At the end of the game, we look at the 'W' and the 'L.' Then you look at the stats and say that this was too high or too low."
Labels: Boston Celtics, Danny Granger, Indiana Pacers, Jamaal Tinsley, Jermaine O'Neal, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen
posted by David Friedman @ 1:52 AM
