Celtics (14-4) at Spurs (10-6) 12/3

[Neurotic Guy]

Complain about Doc all you want.  C's win in San Antonio with Pierce playing a stinker and Ray doing nothing in the fourth.  I'm happy -- love Doc.

[Kiorrik]

The W. We has it. Against the Spurs. On the road.

I'm in love with the C's again. Strong. Not perfect, but strong. Gritty win. Love it.

[yoursweatersux]

Everybody getting on Doc for the coaching is missing the much larger issue...

Did you see how easily San Antonio scored in the paint and rebounded?

I'm not sure if it's a lack of effort or the C's are just showing their age, but the C's just can't defend the paint like they used to.

Somebody else said it in another thread and it's so true... the 07 team probably took the most charges out of every team in the league, while this team might be at the bottom in charges taken. People get burned off the dribble far too often.

If San Antonio had been hitting their 3's or free throws, we would've lost the game. San Antonio lost this game, we didn't win it.

But hey, I'll still take the win

[Fafnir]

Despite the lousy rebounding, a good game in all other respects, and a solid win.  We snapped Charlotte's 4 gamer, we snap SA's 5 gamer.  Pretty good week so far.

We'll need better energy to beat the Thunder tomorrow though.

[Kiorrik]

Complain about Doc all you want.  C's win in San Antonio with Pierce playing a stinker and Ray doing nothing in the fourth.  I'm happy -- love Doc.

I might've posted it after you, but I thought it first.

The W comes first, and we got it.

[twinbree]

Very concerned about the defensive rebounding. We have too many good rebounders on the team to be giving up so many offensive rebounds. 
Good win. Slow night for the bench but the starters have had those so I can't criticize them too much.
Nice to see Blair doing well against a taller frontline. Spurs need that depth.

[kozlodoev]

Scal over Williams made sense I thought.  But leaving Rondo out so long in the 4th was pretty bad.  We can maybe trust Eddie on Hill, but there's no way he should guard Parker for multiple possessions.

Maybe, but Rondo still played 36 minutes. And he finished with 4 fouls, so I'd say he was pretty well managed here.

[Kiorrik]

Right, time for bed. Cheerio peeps, it was good once again.

Peace

[Fafnir]

Scal over Williams made sense I thought.  But leaving Rondo out so long in the 4th was pretty bad.  We can maybe trust Eddie on Hill, but there's no way he should guard Parker for multiple possessions.

Maybe, but Rondo still played 36 minutes. And he finished with 4 fouls, so I'd say he was pretty well managed here.

Plus House's defense wasn't the problem. The problem was with rebounding and keeping Blair away from the hoop.

[CelticG1]

Horrible coaching job by Rivers, just horrible.

Yes, let's put Williams in so that he can guard Bonner on the perimeter. We can just give him the ball on the other end and let him go to work. Genius!

Williams is a solid rebounder though... guess what's kept SA in this game??

Blair. He wasn't biased. He abused the 1st unit just as well.

A lot of his points came off 2nd chance opportunities - he killed us on the boards. Shelden def could've helped with that.

Do you think some of those 2nd chance opportunities came because we were playing good defense, especially perimeter defense? Id rather them miss their outside shots then have a poorer defense out there to allow them back in the game...

[Neurotic Guy]

If San Antonio had been hitting their 3's or free throws, we would've lost the game. San Antonio lost this game, we didn't win it.

But hey, I'll still take the win

OK but the C's were 4-18 from 3.  So if SA hit their 3's and the C's shot terribly from 3, you're correct. But if they both hit their 3's, C's win.

But, terrible, terrible rebounding.  Must be fixed.

[nickagneta]

For all the complaining about the coaching job Doc did you would think we lost tonight to a bad team. We beat San Antonio in San Antonio by seven points and pretty much controlled the game from the outset.

Could Doc have coached better? Yeah But Sheed and KG could have played defense and rebounded better against a much smaller, less talented and less experienced player as well and Pierce could have decided to come to the game instead of staying back at the hotel room and Eddie could have not acted like a revolving door on defense and the team as a whole could have shot better than 22% from three.

So, they played well enough to beat one of the better teams in the league on the road and still have enough things be bad to have something to worry about working on in practice. That's a win-win in my book.

[jadams5214]

No doubt a solid win but the rebounding problem is a serious issue.  The C's can't afford to consistently give teams multiple shots.  Not sure what the answer is --- Perk is often the only one underneath.  KG definitely doesn't mix it up underneath as he used to and he seems to now try and tip the ball for rebounds instead of grabbing them.  Pierce also needs to get inside and rebound more.  On many of these rebounds there was no Celtic even close to the ball.

Whatever the reason the C's simply have to improve their rebounding or they won't last long in the postseason.

[Casperian]

I´m glad we won, we´ve made some difficult shots, which helped us (yeah, how obvious).

Good night, everyone.

[CelticG1]

Figured Pierce would miss one as he often does in crucial situations.  Still a great sign that the C's are winning games with no contribution from their best player.  Also their horrid rebounding efforts they have been able to overcome.

Defintely things to work on though especially the rebounding.  

I hardly consider that a "crucial" situation. We were up 5 with 15 seconds left and I think SA had 1 time out left. It would have been a miracle if they came out of there with a win.