We said the same thing with JJ Redick and he was pretty good against Ray.
Bibby is closer to Mo Williams than Redick with his defense. Redick has his issues, but he still has his legs. Bibby just can't move anymore.
I'm just not comfortable with declaring the X player is defending Y player, so we'll expose and destroy them. It almost never happens with us, unless it's a favorable match-up for Pierce or we go often to KG.
It happens all the time.
Against Miami when Wade wasn't running through screens we kept feeding Ray and he scored a ton. Against Cleveland in the playoffs last year we were running everything for whomever Mo Williams was guarding for long stretches.
The C's are pretty good about running plays to attack specific defenders.
Yet Rondo failed to expose Fisher. Rondo failed to expose the Magic, etc. Ray didn't expose Redick, Wally, etc. And these against players when going into the series we saw as a huge critical advantage and we failed.
So that we might expose someone on the floor a given night? Sure. But what the paper tells us is just not happening as consistently as it should, particularly with these two and their match-up.
Whenver Rondo has been guarded by Fisher he's torched him. Kobe is the guy who checks Rondo.
Ray has also torched him for stretches, though not consistently after Game 2 (thigh bruise being the excuse people use but all that matters is results)
Even if that's the case, it makes zero sense to prognosticate that Rondo for example would torch the Lakers just because they have Fisher as the PG.
Can you honestly tell me, in our playoff history with the Big 3 that we have exposed our match-ups consistently with Rondo and Ray in particularly? I honestly can't for either of them. And I focus on these two because they almost always have been the ones with favorable match-ups. Not only favorable, but considered huge critical advantages.
Rondo's won almost every pg matchup in the playoffs he's been in. The main exception would be Billups in 08 and probably tossups with Cleveland in 08 and Orlando this year. Ray's been pretty up and down in the playoffs but injuries probably figure into that.
If you're content with merely winning the matchup then what can I say?
If I go into a series with the key advantage being that Rondo can completely dominate a matchup, but he merely wins it, it's not enough for me.
In some regard it has been consistency issues, injuries, fatigue, and inexperience. It's hard to see how he can just flat out dominate games, particularly through the playoffs, just to let an inferior PG later on dominate in a way that he shouldn't have. Not a series, but some key games.
I'm quite confident that we're going to see a very good Rondo this playoffs, a more consistent one particularly in the defensive side. But in truth, I don't know if I can just say it's a given that he'll dominate a matchup in the way we need him to, or at least want him to.
