Same old Doc

[Tr1boy]

As most of you know i'm not a big fan of Rivers and we won it a couple of years mainly because we had a stacked team with kg.

The biggest crap i don't like about his coaching is his substitution patterns and not giving his rookies a chance to gain experience.

I thought maybe he changed that 2 games ago but he is up to his old tricks playing lester hudson a total of 4 mins the past two games. What has the rookie done? Basically play his butt off, make little mistakes and score points in a variety of ways. He only played 3 mins last game and had a plus 7 on the court. Why make him sit so that his eyes needs to gain the experience on the court instead of sitting him for playing like a "rookie" which makes more sense. I personally think he uses some rookie initation crap that is not necessary all the time.

The more he overplays his stars, the more the bench gets rusty, the less chance we have finishing the season with everyone healthy

[Roy Hobbs]

While I agree that the pre-season is the time to get guys like Hudson minutes, I don't necessarily agree that Doc relied on his starters too much or put his bench at risk of being rusty.

Only Ray played 30+ minutes.  Daniels, Rasheed, and House all played 20+.  Doc does need to be able to tell what he has with his primary rotation, which is basically going to be 9 (and sometimes 10) guys.

Again, I wish Hudson had seen some minutes, but at this point I think Doc is focusing on the guys who are actually going to play, and getting them ready for the season.

[mgent]

Lester's a rookie.  That's just the way it is for rookies.  He needs more time to practice with the team.  He hasn't truly proven himself.  And there's really no minutes for him with Eddie and Marquis.

I hope he'll be able to contribute something this year (a lot of rookies don't).  But he's likely to continue to see limited minutes for the next few months at least.

[lon3lytoaster]

It's ok.. Lester will probably get 30 minutes tomorrow night. I don't think any of the starters are playing.

[Tr1boy]

It's ok.. Lester will probably get 30 minutes tomorrow night. I don't think any of the starters are playing.

knowing doc's army style coaching i wouldn't bet on it.

[guava_wrench]

I think this thread is very short-sighted.

Most of the starters are likely not playing against Clev. They also need practice to get in sync, so they needed minutes against NY. NY was the game where they most needed to do real game minutes since it was the last real game of the preseason.

Hudson can get his minutes against Clev.

[Bahku]

I actually think Doc has done a great job with the rotation in the pre-season ... ramping up the minutes for the starters, and yet giving enough minutes to the bench in order to get a feel for how they will perform in the regular season. The priority has to be getting the starters ready to roll, and that's what Doc's been doing. The way he's passed out the minutes has been just about right, although I would personally give the Big Three at least a few minutes tomorrow, (but I also understand the rationale behind sitting them out).

[nickagneta]

Unbelievable!!!

Doc bashing for not getting a 58th pick in the NBA draft more playing time in the preseason when there are clearly, at the very least, 6-7 BENCH players in front of him with more experience and talent.

As for Doc not playing rookies, I will say that he does play rookies...when they are better than the other players at his position on the team. I have seen NOTHING from Hudson that says he is a better PG or player than Rondo, Daniels or House, the other PG type players on this team.

As for the overplaying comment, every single one of the top 10 players on the team in what will be Doc's rotation are averaging between 13.7 to 26.3 minutes per game with 8 of those players between 20 and 24.4 MPG. Where exactly is he overplaying players.

Doc has obviously seen what he needs to see from Hudson, Sweetney, Giddens, Williams and Walker from hours and hours of training camp, practices, scrimmages and preseason games to know that they just aren't as good as the 10 healthy players in front of them on the depth chart. So over the last two days Doc decided to build some chemistry on his 1st and 2nd teams before turning tomorrows preseason closing game over to the bottom third of the depth chart.

Does Doc really need to prove to his detractors that he is making the right decisions by making every training session film, practice film, scrimmage film, preseason game film and audio conversation of every player on the team available to Celtics fans online so that they can see and hear what he sees to justify his decisions because it sounds like it's going to be the only way to get Doc detractors to stop with some of these truly unwarranted observations.

And sorry but this is one is even a bit silly.

[KJ33]

Apparently you don't watch too many news reports on the Celtics.  The plan has been made very public that the Knicks game was to be most of the starters last preseason game, and that the Cleveland game would be played by mostly the reserves.  So logically, the starters and top reserves got most of the minutes.

Tune in tomorrow, while I am off doing something else, waiting for the real game against Cleveland next week, you will be able to enjoy one of your favorite games of the year.  Hudson should see big minutes, as will JR.  Ditto for Shelden and even Sweetney if he is over the flu.  Enjoy!

[Tr1boy]

I have seen NOTHING from Hudson that says he is a better PG or player than Rondo, Daniels or House, the other PG type players on this team.

Are you serious?! He is already a better defender than house by default. I don't care if house gets a million years experience , nobody feels confident with his defense especially one on one. Also he by default a better shooter than daniels and rondo and more than half of the celtics team. Is he a vet ? no. But so what. he has hustled out there, hasn't made too many mistakes and hasn't turned the ball over.

I personally can't care what house can bring except being a 3 pt specialist and energy guy wit daniels showing me nothing in the pre season except inconsistancy play.

Experience is not everything and shouldn't be everything when you plan how you will distribute the minutes.

[Tai]

I have seen NOTHING from Hudson that says he is a better PG or player than Rondo, Daniels or House, the other PG type players on this team.

Are you serious?! He is already a better defender than house by default. I don't care if house gets a million years experience , nobody feels confident with his defense especially one on one. Also he by default a better shooter than daniels and rondo and more than half of the celtics team. Is he a vet ? no. But so what. he has hustled out there, hasn't made too many mistakes and hasn't turned the ball over.

I personally can't care what house can bring except being a 3 pt specialist and energy guy wit daniels showing me nothing in the pre season except inconsistancy play.

Experience is not everything and shouldn't be everything when you plan how you will distribute the minutes.

....Who said anything about experience, let alone that experience "was everything"? Also, it's not like it means Hudson hasn't shown anything. However, Daniels very clearly works well with House in the backcourt, just like Doc hoped. And with that, opposing teams face a lot of matchup problems with Daniels playing in the backcourt.

It's not like Hudson's doomed to the bench and/or D-league for the entire season. It's definitely a keeper, and Doc, along with the other players have said that a thousand times. Chill out.

[Atzar]

I have seen NOTHING from Hudson that says he is a better PG or player than Rondo, Daniels or House, the other PG type players on this team.

Are you serious?! He is already a better defender than house by default. I don't care if house gets a million years experience , nobody feels confident with his defense especially one on one.

If you'd stopped after this sentence, I would have supported you.  Nate Robinson ripped Eddie in half, and I really wanted to see if Lester could handle him.  I don't really agree with anything you said after that, though.

[crownsy]

I have seen NOTHING from Hudson that says he is a better PG or player than Rondo, Daniels or House, the other PG type players on this team.

Are you serious?! He is already a better defender than house by default. I don't care if house gets a million years experience , nobody feels confident with his defense especially one on one. Also he by default a better shooter than daniels and rondo and more than half of the celtics team. Is he a vet ? no. But so what. he has hustled out there, hasn't made too many mistakes and hasn't turned the ball over.

I personally can't care what house can bring except being a 3 pt specialist and energy guy wit daniels showing me nothing in the pre season except inconsistancy play.

Experience is not everything and shouldn't be everything when you plan how you will distribute the minutes.

You seem to be watching different preseason games than i am to get those impressions.

Your dead on about eddie's defense, he gives effort but he's just not very good. Other than that though...I strongly disagree with everything in the post.

[nickagneta]

I have seen NOTHING from Hudson that says he is a better PG or player than Rondo, Daniels or House, the other PG type players on this team.

Are you serious?! He is already a better defender than house by default. I don't care if house gets a million years experience , nobody feels confident with his defense especially one on one. Also he by default a better shooter than daniels and rondo and more than half of the celtics team. Is he a vet ? no. But so what. he has hustled out there, hasn't made too many mistakes and hasn't turned the ball over.

I personally can't care what house can bring except being a 3 pt specialist and energy guy wit daniels showing me nothing in the pre season except inconsistancy play.

Experience is not everything and shouldn't be everything when you plan how you will distribute the minutes.

I never mentioned that Hudson wasn't better at a certain aspect of the game than Rondo or Daniels or House. Obviously he has certain strengths  and he might be slightly better at this or that than the vets.

But as an overall player, which is what I said, I don't see that he has shown that he is a better player than those guys. Now, mix in the fact that Rondo and House have years worth of experience playing in the system, as well as playing with their team mates, as well as playoff and big game experience and it's a no-brainer he doesn't get the nod over them. Daniels is just miles better than Hudson and his versatility in playing and defending different positions as well as his knowledge of players in the league makes that point nearly inarguable.

Hudson has talent for a 25 year old drafted at 58th in the draft. If he was drafted by Minnesota, Memphis, Sacramento,or even Philly he would probably be getting serious consideration for some playing time at some point this year. On this team however, it's going to be the NBDL and the inactive list for probably the whole season, barring any injuries.

[Chris]

The young guys will get to play plenty tonight.  Last night was used as the final tune-up for most of the regulars.  Tonight, they will get a look at guys like Hudson, who are not part of the rotation.