Time to call out Pierce, Garnett, et al

[RAcker]

Forgive the rant here, but I felt I had to do something similar back around the all-star break, and I'm feeling like it needs to be done again.  There are times when grown men who are not getting the job done need to be called out.  And I tell you this, no matter what their reaction would be, I'd love to tell them this face to face.

Pierce:  Get your head out of your own *ss.  Your self pity and pouting during games is disgusting.  Just play and play hard.  Right now, you are simply getting outplayed.  Stop getting caught up in referees and what you see as dirty play by the opponent.  Guess what?  It's the playoffs.  Stop settling for 3's and other jump shots. Start manning up and go to the basket.  If you make up your mind to absorb the contact like a man, they can't stop you.  Yes, you missed some free throws, but this is just a mental thing.  It's time to get mentally tough. Right now, as Bird would have said, you are playing like a sissy.

Garnett:  Where are you at crunch time?  For all of your chest pounding and macho faces, you disappear.  When you are letting Zaza Nobody headbutt you without dropping 25 rebounds on him, you are no longer intimidating.  When we needed a rebound in the closing minutes, where were you and your teamates?  I'll tell you where...you were getting out hustled like you have been for the last two games.  It's time to get your game up to the level of your pre-game facial expressions.

Ray Allen: Just a pathetic defensive effort.  This is not to say that Joe Johnson wouldn't have torched virtually anyone last night, but he particularly torched YOU in the closing minutes.  Posey at least kept him semi in check.  And let me say this to you...stop settling for 3's.  Yeah, you shot well for 3/4 of a game, but when you get tired and legs start to weaken, go to the [dang] basket.  Your meaningless dunk in the last minute was too little too late.

Perkins: Perk, you played solid for the first quarter and a half.  You rebounded like a beast and you stayed within your role by cleaning up around the basket.  However, you continuously were killing us as you have all season with free points for the opponent.  There are your defensive 3s and being out of position when the Atlanta's slashers go to the basket. This is completely ridiculous and has to stop.  It is Mickey Mouse crap like this that kills our momentum at crucial times.  And for crying out loud, when you are caught making a mistake, stop whining to the refs about it.  I've watched you all 82 games...you are doing what you are being called for doing!

Doc:  What in the hell are you doing with your rotations?  It's simple.  Your starting five, plus Cassell, Posey and Powe are all that should be playing...period.  You can bring in others as situations require, but you aren't doing that or you'd have had Tony Allen in there to stop Joe Johnson.  What was the role you intended for House or Big Baby? Both played useless and unproductive minutes last night. Stupidity.  If Cassell isn't getting it done, play Rajon 48 minutes if you have to in order to get the win. IT'S THE PLAYOFFS!  Even Tommy H called you out on the post-game show for screwing up our momentum.  If you don't want to be known as a coach that can't get it done in the post season then do this...stop over rotating!

Sam Cassell:  Please, for the love, start playing your role and stop thinking you are needed more than you are.  You are a great player, no doubt, but you don't have to jack up these horrible forced shots.  Set up the team; explore the defense; then attack whatever they give you.  Trust those around you, because guess what?  They were doing just fine before you got here.  You are supposed to compliment them...not SAVE them.  They don't need your saving.

EVERYONE: When Zaza is headbutting your star player and Al Horford is taunting your Captain and we are losing every lose ball and every crucial rebound...it's time to look yourselves in the mirror.  Are you men?  Well, guess what?  Atlanta feels that they are!  You'd better dig down deeper or be prepared to feel sick just like I'm going to feel if we don't man up.

It's time to stop posting polls and other posts that blame Doc or some other single element.  We have a lot of blame to go around.

[crownsy]

garrnett scored 4 of our only points down the stretch last night and had 32 and 12 in game 3.... in fact, last night he was our ONLY guy going to the hoop in the final 4 minutes.

last night he almost had a triple double. other than controling himself a bit more, i don't know what else you want out of kev, a quad-double?

[RAcker]

garrnett scored 4 of our only points down the stretch last night and had 32 and 12 in game 3.... in fact, last night he was our ONLY guy going to the hoop in the final 4 minutes.

last night he almost had a triple double. other than controling himself a bit more, i don't know what else you want out of kev, a quad-double?

See, this is the type of attitude that misses the point. What about Josh Smith's play against Garnett in the past two games? I don't give a rip what his "numbers" are.  He is being outplayed when it matters the most.

However, you will notice that I didn't just call out KG alone.  He is only one of our major pieces that is being embarrassed.  If the team has your attitude going forward, this series will be over and we'll be on vacation as of Friday.

[wdleehi]

garrnett scored 4 of our only points down the stretch last night and had 32 and 12 in game 3.... in fact, last night he was our ONLY guy going to the hoop in the final 4 minutes.

last night he almost had a triple double. other than controling himself a bit more, i don't know what else you want out of kev, a quad-double?

I want him in the low post more.  So many open shots were created and made when either KG got the ball in the low post or Rondo penetrated along the baseline. 

KG has to want to be there, and Doc has to send him there.

[RAcker]

garrnett scored 4 of our only points down the stretch last night and had 32 and 12 in game 3.... in fact, last night he was our ONLY guy going to the hoop in the final 4 minutes.

last night he almost had a triple double. other than controling himself a bit more, i don't know what else you want out of kev, a quad-double?

I want him in the low post more.  So many open shots were created and made when either KG got the ball in the low post or Rondo penetrated along the baseline. 

KG has to want to be there, and Doc has to send him there.

Thank you.  The fact that we are starting 80% or more of our offense from outside instead of going into the post is ridiculous.  Besides that...look how scared KG, Powe and everyone else looked when going to the basket.  They look completely intimidated.

[wahz]

How can we get to this point after a huge effort all season and then have to watch KG get outhustled all game or more accurately watch him seemingly give a half hearted effort?

I actually hope he gets suspended for a game and I think we'd have a good shot at winning that game anyway as everyone else will have to man up and KG might snap out of it.

Yes I know he seems to give a consistently high effort all season, but if you are watching closely and observing fairly we were outhustled. KG has done this before in the playoffs. He is choking badly. And its on defense and on the boards! Its very odd to me.

Does he really want to live with this reputation? No basketball fan will ever forget this, just as they won't forget Dirk's no show last year.

And how do you keep the same guy on Joe Johnson? Its not like Ray is known as a great defender...yeah I have watched nearly every game I know he has made a great effort this year, but why not throw Tony at him, or Posey?

How does KG not get out on his man? How does he let rebounds hit the floor twice in the 4th?

Right now your non choke team looks like: Rondo, Posey, Ray, Perk. But I think it was predictable KG would choke like this and PP would choke on offense. We had to play great team defense to overcome them, when they went into a tailspin. Which meant the coach had to overcome it. THE COACH??

[Who]

garrnett scored 4 of our only points down the stretch last night and had 32 and 12 in game 3.... in fact, last night he was our ONLY guy going to the hoop in the final 4 minutes.

last night he almost had a triple double. other than controling himself a bit more, i don't know what else you want out of kev, a quad-double?

I want him in the low post more.  So many open shots were created and made when either KG got the ball in the low post or Rondo penetrated along the baseline. 

KG has to want to be there, and Doc has to send him there.

Every time they passed it to in the low post in the fourth quarter he just held onto the ball, waited for the double, and kicked it outside for a jump shot.

His scoring at the end of the game came from short drives off the elbow

He kills Al Horford in the low post when he goes at him, he kills Josh Smith in the low post when he goes at him. He just doesn't go at them enough. What's it about Leopards and changing spots?

It'd be nice for KG to play down there but I don't we can expect and I don't think his teammates can rely on him to do it.

[crownsy]

garrnett scored 4 of our only points down the stretch last night and had 32 and 12 in game 3.... in fact, last night he was our ONLY guy going to the hoop in the final 4 minutes.

last night he almost had a triple double. other than controling himself a bit more, i don't know what else you want out of kev, a quad-double?

See, this is the type of attitude that misses the point. What about Josh Smith's play against Garnett in the past two games? I don't give a rip what his "numbers" are.  He is being outplayed when it matters the most.

However, you will notice that I didn't just call out KG alone.  He is only one of our major pieces that is being embarrassed.  If the team has your attitude going forward, this series will be over and we'll be on vacation as of Friday.

thats your opinion, and i'm not required to take it as gospel. To me, KG has been the only one showing ANY heart out there, on that we agree. Ray is alright, but slacking on defense, rondo is suddenly unable to keep bibby in front of him, and pierce has been non existant.

But to me, KG has been fine. he was in the low post all of crunch time last night, josh didnt have one offenseive contribtuion in the last 6 minutes. Joe Joe killed.

Losing is a team effort.

[X Man]

I'm sorry to disagree with everyone here but I feel its very hard to impose your will on a team if you get penalized every time you try to execute your game plan, especially with such inconsistency.  If anything I fault the C's for not robotically (a la The Spurs) sticking to their game plan.  They need to start playing as if each quarter is an individual game.  This, I think, is a good way to neutralize and forget about the officials, momentum  and all the ups and downs of an NBA playoff game.  It makes it simple for a group that is playing playoff basketball for the first time together: WIN EVERY QUARTER!!

[icandunk]

"KG has done this before in the playoffs."

huh?  not sure i see where you're coming from on this statement.  sure, he had a bad game... everyone had a bad game... but seriously, this is not a fair statement.

look up his numbers in the playoffs... esp when in '04, when he had a good supporting cast.


i suppose when it rains, it pours...

[LarBrd33]

This entire thing just makes me angry.  Maybe there is a reason the big 3 are all playoff losers. 

I'd expect this against the Cavs or Pistons.  But Atlanta?  What a joke.   Unbelievable. 

I mean you can't even just say, "good hard fought series" now that it's tied up.  It's just a total embarrassment.  Atlanta has no business even being in the playoffs.  It kills a ton of confidence for the Celtics.  I know we haven't played a good team in like two months so I expected us to get owned in game 1 against the Cavs... but I didn't expect us to get owned by freakin Atlanta.  Pathetic.

[Big Ticket]

One of the few gripes I've had with KG for many years is his reluctance to use the jump hook.  Yes, he did go down low and go 2-3 and get to the line during the last 4 minutes last night.... but all that proved is that he is capable of getting off a clean jump hook at any time.  My problem is that he doesn't use it 10-15 times a game, while instead waiting 'til the desperation moments.

[ma11l]

I think Pierce's back is more of an issue than we think.  Ray is being asked to do entirely too much on the defensive end, especially since we have 3, count em THREE players who should be covering Johnson before him.  KG might be suspended so we won't hafta worry about having a "big playoff loser" in the biggest game of the year.

[Petro]

Hey maybe this is exactly what we need before we face the cavs or pistons."A WAKE_UP CALL" have them all look in the mirror including our coach and say hey we have been humiliated by the lowly Hawks and we are not as good as we think we are.Maybe just maybe this will inspire them to play with fire instead of walking around like they are the best team in basketball and everybody is supposed to fear them.Maybe the Celts need to play with some fear of thier own to remind them what they need to do to win a championship which they havent won but act like they have.They have to play hungrier not like they're defending something the don't own( a championship)"PLAY TO WIN" dont play " NOT TO LOSE"

[Redz]

Hey maybe this is exactly what we need before we face the cavs or pistons."A WAKE_UP CALL" have them all look in the mirror including our coach and say hey we have been humiliated by the lowly Hawks and we are not as good as we think we are.Maybe just maybe this will inspire them to play with fire instead of walking around like they are the best team in basketball and everybody is supposed to fear them.Maybe the Celts need to play with some fear of thier own to remind them what they need to do to win a championship which they havent won but act like they have.They have to play hungrier not like they're defending something the don't own( a championship)"PLAY TO WIN" dont play " NOT TO LOSE"

Or maybe they'll lose the series and this will be their "wake up call" for NEXT SEASON.

I bought the Game 3 wake up call theory, but they should have been awake enough to win last night.  Lordy, I feel like such an elitist now for all the confidence I had boasting that the Celts were way different than the Mavs, and Atlanta was nowhere near the team that Golden State was.

Yes, the Celtics still should win this series, but they should have won at least one in Atlanta too. 

I just hate having doubt seep into my pretty picture of how things should go.  I guess someone forgot to clue the Hawks in on how things are supposed to be too.

They're my team and I love them.  I promise I'll still be happy if/when we win this series regardless of how many games it takes.