I still can't believe all the Tony hate around here. If you had Pose in that second unit and not Tony we wouldn't score. We'd have 3 guys sitting on the perimeter magically hoping to get open, BBD taking contested midrange jumpers and Powe trying to work in the post with heavy pressure on him. The fact of the matter is that Tony is one of the only players on our second unit that other teams defenses have to adjust to. Even though he isn't the worlds greatest kickout passer, he can do it (and has developed some nice chemistry with Eddie recently) and defenses have to collapse on him as he drives. Everyone also seems to forget about his defense, it is spot on. I hate to bang on about this point about him not being clutch, but Celtics fans seem to remember the bad and forget the good with the utmost ease sometimes. Yeah, he screwed up on TMac who got the classic bailout call. Remember that game in San Antonio? Where Manu basically jumped into him to try and draw the foul and ended up easily missing what would have been a pretty uncontested 3? Speaking of which. Turnover Tony? Is that what we call a guy who has 2 steals and 1 turnover nowadays? Out of control Tony who takes all these bad shots just happened to get 4 points on 1-1 shooting. The consistent hate for some players around here amazes me. That being said, it's probably brought on by the consistent love for Tony shown by some. The way we see him is pretty similar to the way he plays, the guy you love to hate or hate to love.
Just finally, on his jumpshot. His huge injury around 21 months ago still has been plaguing his lift all the way until the end of last season. Then in the short offseason, instead of expecting him to keep doing core strength work to improve the knee and so on we're expecting him to spend what would be all of a very short offseason to "fix" his jumper? I'd say that people are sleeping on his jumper though, it's been much improved this season just with consistent hops. Also, with the slashing threat he has defenders can't play so heavily which gives him more room to go up uncontested.
I apologise if I come off at all harsh, it's 8.30 in the morning and I have an exam this arvo