Give Ryan Hollins some credit.

[Clovertown]

Outside of KG, none of the Celtics big men one on one defense was great.


But Hollins, unlike Greg, did a better job staying in front of Hortford and Smith. 



Going into the Philly series, I think we will see more Greg though.  Hawes and Brand are not the speed guys the Hawks have. 

Horford went by Greg 1 time in the game.  Holy cow! I'm pretty sure that the other team scores 80ish points per game.  Should we take out everyone that gets scored on?  No one shut down Horford.  He is an all star caliber player.  Why would you expect your back up Center making league minimum to not give up a few buckets to an all star center?  Hollins is bad.  Plain and simple.  When they took KG out it was easy to see.  The hawks made a run as soon as Garnett wasn't in there to cover his butt.  I just don't get Doc's fascination with him.

Greg on the other hand comes in for Garnett and holds his own.  He isn't an all star center.  He is a solid backup.  If he were able to completely shut down opposing centers he would probably be making more than league minimum don't you think?  He has outplayed Hollins all year and all playoff series.  Just becaus Hollins comes in and doesn't completely blow the game doesn't me he played well.  I for one believe that if Greg had played more we would've won and the game wouldn't even have been that close.  He protects the paint like no one else on the team.  He is a rookie that will make mistakes from time to time.  But, the Celtics are 20-4 when he plays 18 or more minutes per game.  He needs those minutes to get in the flow.  This is just my opinion anyway.  FWIW

[Senninsage]

Anybody that doesn't see how important Hollins was to this team's series victory, simply does not have a good eye for the very many vital ways that a player can impact a basketball game.

Sometimes one player hustling and managing to tip the basketball out of bounds, forcing the other team with very little time left on the shot clock to inbound and rush up a shot that is far from ideal, perhaps due to the fact that the defensive pressure is now more focused on every player on the inbound attempt.

A simple situation like I just described can be the difference between a won game, and a great game, but a close loss in the end. Do people realize, for example, that the Dallas Mavericks didn't play so badly against OKC in that series? They lost game 1, game 2, and then game 4 because of the little things people take for granted. If one player on the Mavericks makes the right player for the Mavs at the right time, who knows where that OKC vs Dallas series is at right now.

You have got to be able to see value, and clearly KG and Pierce see value in someone like Hollins. KG and Pierce wouldn't recommend someone they didn't feel could really help them out.

[Senninsage]

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4693367/pregame-pierce-playing-through-pain

* Rivers on using more Ryan Hollins than rookie Greg Stiemsma at center in recent games: "(Hollins) is playing better; It’s a competition. Always. And Ryan is playing terrific for us. Ryan’s minutes, on the floor with Kevin, are unbelievable. When you put him and Kevin on the floor at the same time, that’s our best defensive team. That’s good for us."


Take your emotions out of it. When Stiemsa is in there, as good as he has been for us, these post players seem to get some sort of weird driving inside confidence out of it, and it usually leads to bouts of us getting killed on the offensive boards even when they miss. They get around and fool Stiemsa with their footwork very often. Hollins is a much tougher nugget to crack, especially when he's defending further out near perimeter. People have to see what I'm talking about.