Man, I have a big=time problem with the over-simplification of this team's wing depth.
Almost everybody on this thread is acting like there is only one type of SF that is mandatory in order to adequately cover the minutes needed at SF, which is not the case.
Assuming Pierce should be playing 35 mpg on average, the team needs 13 minutes of SF time covered in order to get him his rest.
Ray Allen has played about 12 mpg at SF this year and his offensive and defensive numbers have been very strong. Up until the injuries it was the depth at SG that allowed for Pierce to rest because Ray was playing LESS minutes at SG and serving at Pierce's backup at the 3.
So, up until TA got injured, this was a complete non-issue for a number of reasons. TA was giving the team 19 mpg on average and Eddie House was also contributing around 17 mpg to the guard rotation - the problem was never the 3, but the PG spot for the bulk of this year.
When TA went down, the team lost its reliable depth at the wing because Eddie is only semi-competent defending the PG spot and cannot be more than a off/def defensive flip/flop with a bigger PG...hence Marbury's value at a big PG capable of defending 2's.
As far as situational subs go, while Scalabrine certainly cannot stay with ALL SF's, he can and HAS played quality perimeter defense against SOME SF's...drum roll...mostly the BIGGER, STRONGER 3's that rely on size over quickness - exactly what many here have been lamenting as the team's need - not the case.
Listen, most teams don't have an answer for every single match up imaginable - every team has some type of weakness that can be exploited. However, the Celtics had their primary 3 man in Pierce, their main backup in Ray Allen, their primary backup 2 guard in Tony Allen, and their situational backups to each position in Scal and Eddie House.
The NEED positions were back up PG and floor spacing big man - one was worked on internally with Davis working on his jumper, the other was initially a combined effort of grooming Pruitt and having Cassell as playoff insurance.
Both these needs were addressed with the waiver acquisitions of Moore and Marbury, the latter being easily the greatest acquisition of any the of title contenders with the upside to completely throw the balance of power in Boston's favor against its two chief rivals.
Yet, all I see on this board is revisionist Edited. Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ing about not waiting for Smith and Gooden to be bought out, which happened at literally the LAST hour possible. Conveniently enough most of the loudest complainers are the same people who were berating him for not playing the conservative hand and signing vets 4 months ago before the season started.
So now we're going to pile on about not giving this team depth at the wing? This team has had all types of depth at the wing all season. It wasn't until the losses of Scal and TA did this team lose the depth it needed to keep Pierce and Ray below the 36 mpg threshold...this is an injury caused situation, not a lack of foresight.
If Scal or TA had not performed well when healthy this team may very well have looked for other wing options with experience, that was not the case.
Marbury getting up to speed will go a ways toward helping this situation as Marbury can play man 2 guards in this league - putting a 6'8 Walter Hermann at the 2 was a novel idea, but you can count on one hand the amount of minutes he's seen at that position. He also got all his points on difficult jumpers against some pretty solid man defense, forcing him to shoot a tough turn-around and a learning motion baseliner.
This thread sounds a lot more like sky-is-falling grousing and agenda-driven skewing of facts...maybe a pinch of simple lack of attention to the performance histories of the players on this roster at best.
Simply put, depth at the wings was never a problem coming into this year, but now that injuries have made it an issue - Walker and Giddens are a far superior choice to grinding Pierce and Ray into oblivion..
...the good news? Pierce and Ainge have both mentioned this now, so given the level of communication on this team, i'd say it'll be addressed quickly...
Topic: Pierce saying what we all have been saying: (Read 26994 times)