Guys relax! It's the playoffs and we're up 2-0. I know that some of you hate the trade, and I understand where you're coming from. But before you denounce Danny and lament about what we lost...
Let's look at our situation objectively. Last year, in the first round, we played a team with D. Wade, an injured JO having his worst season, and a Beasley who was absolutely horrible. We had our starting core healthy and intact. We had Tony Allen to throw on D. Wade. We had Perkisabeast. Yet, during game 4 Wade went for 46-5-5 and handed us a loss in game 4. We only won game 1 by 9 points, and game 3 by 2 points, and game 4 by 10 points. We had one blowout game 2. The Celtics were never a team that blew out inferior teams consistently. We averaged 93.9 points and gave up 91.1 points for a differential of +2.8 last post-season. We are averaging 91.5 points while giving up 89 for a +2.5 point differential in the two games we played.
This year we are playing a Knicks team with Carmello, Stoudemire and Billups. It's true that 2 of these guys missed pretty much an entire game. But Carmello and scrubs are still as good that Heat team that took a game from us last year. To say that the trade is why these games are close and it would be different if we had Perk is rather unsupported by history.
Let's dispel a few myths regarding a trade right away.
1) Rondo lost his heart when Perk left. FALSE. Rondo has averaged 20 points, 8 assists and 6.5 rebounds shooting 48.6%.
2) Ray Allen can't get open because we lost the great screens that Perk set. FALSE. Ray is averaging 21 points in 65.2% shooting.
3) Our defense will suffer greatly without Perk. FALSE. We held one of the best offenses in the league to 89 ppg on 38.7% shooting from the field and 33.33% from three point.
4) Our overall defense might be great but we give up too many points in the paint. FALSE. Dwight Howard and the Magic allow 49% from the restricted area and 63% in the paint against the jump-shooting Hawks. The Celtics allow 47% in the restricted area and a staggering 13% in the paint.
We have two glaring weakness both of which plagued us last season; rebounding and scoring off the bench.
Perkins is hardly a renowned rebounder who would single handedly change this differential significantly. Especially since so many of the rebounds we gave up against the Knicks were long rebounds off missed jump-shots picked up by the likes of Jeffries and Douglas who would hardly be influenced by Perkins. This is a problem that we have suffered even with Perkins and one we will have to solve as a team.
Our bench has not shown itself in the last 2 games, but it has the talent. There is no denying that West, Green, Davis and Kristic are all offensively gifted players who have started in the playoffs. No blame should attach to Danny as this bench is a significant upgrade offensively from Nate, West, Baby and JO (You can include Pavlovic as a backup for Paul but he's untested and our chemistry would be even harder to regain with an additional player from the bench.
We now have a true quality backup for Paul and the flexibility to go small which we did not have before. Furthermore Nate had trouble especially against guards like Douglass who would shoot right over his head, and West who is a better player would have a reduced role. Once our bench wet their feet as Celtics, our bench production should increase significantly and our offense will become much more potent.
Our 4th quarter execution has been absolutely clutch and the big 4 still have their Mojo. Let's see what these guys can do in MSG. It's all about 18.
Topic: No denying it now ,the trade was/is too much of a risk(sorry DA) (Read 17649 times)