Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Man, blew it in the end. 
Artest ( A- ) -- first the hair...oh my. Either a stroke of unifying brilliance ala all those dumb college teams shaving their heads or whatnot, or the final nail in the coffin of any attempts to get value for him in a trade. Either way, shaking things up. Early defensive intensity and poking balls away, not so much offense. Began to give us a lift on the boards in the second quarter, and after half was getting it done on offense as well. Combined with Kevin to pull thi sout, but while Kevin scored a lot of points tonight on various breakdowns in the Boston defense, but it was a pretty one dimensional effort. Ron on the other hand looked smooth and comfrotable all night in the new do, and did most whatever he wanted to against the Celtics' kiddie corps.
Reef ( D- ) -- bad game for Reef. Started off really struggling against the young Boston bigs, who repeatedly challengted and blocked his shots. Continued to struggle after half, and was removed early in the third. Had a moment here or there, but generally looked old and worn down on both sides of the ball today and watched the bulk of this one from the bench.
Miller ( B ) -- Solid game in the way of the old Brad Miller "solid" games. In other words helped by hitting jumpers, and running the offense -- in particular hitting Kevin for 3-4 easy hoops. On the other hand like his old "solid" games, did not reboudn and got worked over on defense. Nonetheless, posed a problem for the Xeltics, when they weren't scoring over him at will, and was the third of our three Kings to give us a game tonight. And three is more than enough when you are playign a crew as bad as the Celtics.
Martin ( A- ) -- Scored a lot of points, which is what he's supposed to do, and along with Ron carried the Kings tonight. He even had a couple he had to work for, as the Cs left him open on cuts, leakouts, on give and gos, you name it. But mixed in with all the freebies were a few nice takes, once along the baseline for a big slam, once recovering and converting a bad alley oop from Brad, and a couple of his little running one handers with people (if Gerald Green counts as a "people") in his face. Was missing his jumpers early, and never really did get much from outside. But did not need to. Disappeared in the 3rd, but showed back up in the early 4th and was the biggest component of our mighty 34 pt 4th quarter drubbing of the Beanie Babies (just made that up -- god I'm good.
).
Bibby ( D+ ) -- got off to an ok start, looked good on some of his shots, shaky on others. But was being generally outplayed by Delonte West. And then just disappeared. I mean as in almost completely. Just not involved when he was out there. Was not always out there. And wrapped up with a forgettable 11pt 4reb 4ast evening.
Salmons ( B- ) -- in the first half had most of his good moments and was able to post up 6'1" Rajon Rondo at will with the 6" height advantage. Made a real nifty internal post pass to Justin Williams that was not rewarded when Williams dunk attempt got blocked. Returned in the third on a questionable substitution for Ron Artest (who was largely carrying us) and got a lot of minutes in various longer/defensive minded lineups from there on out. Did not do much in them besides be long, and had a few ballhandling misadventures.
Corliss ( C ) -- in the first half picked up fouls against a scrub named Leon Powe, had one nice block in transition, otherwise struggled. Got back in in the mid third wiht Reef having his own issues and immediately helped with a couple of hoops (the first of the lucky miss so bad it goes off the backboard and in variety).
Douby ( C- ) -- applied a little ball pressure in his first half minutes, did little else. These flat nothing efforts are so hard to grade, especially from guys who may or may not have real NBA game. Did nothing...but did nothing wrong. Lost hsi second half minutes to Cisco.
Williams ( B ) -- active in his first half stint giving you what you would hope/.expect. challenge shots, rebounded, had a finih at the rim. Also blew a FT, committed an offensive foul on the over the back call, got a dunk blocked. And got into foul trouble on rookie mistakes. Still a nice energetic effort off the bench. Not spectacular, but the sort of effort you need froma bench big. Energy. Not terribly effective after half.
Garcia ( B- ) -- gott Mussed into the game for his first minutes to start the 4th quarter with us down 5. And then in Muss fashion he ends up playing the entire quarter. But its not Cisco's fault Muss and Doc were having a tankoff to see who could make the more bizarre 4th quarter suibtitutions. So Cisco stayed, and contributed to our general length/defensive focus in the 4th as we slowed the mighty Celtics offensive machine just enough to eke ouot a victory int eh last 2 minutes. Also hit a layup off off the ball movement in the late 4th -- the Celtics are so ridiculously clueless and disorganized that they gave those up all night.
Muss ( B ) -- Well, that was fundamentally unimpressive. Ron hairdo gambit aside. And of coruse his hairdo inspired nobdy as far as could be told. So much for the rally around the stupid **** with the funny hair theory. Oh well, maybe if our guys are deluded enough to think beating Boston means something, they will draw a connection between Ron's hair and victory, adn we will be off and running. So against the 12-25 Boston Celtics, with the owrst home record in the league, missing their 2 best players, starting and playing an entire game with maybe not a single 25+ yr odl NBA vet, we trailed after the first quarter, trailed at halftime, trailed after three. We got them in the end thought. Woot and all that. Some interesting little side notes\. KT is decisevely completely gone from the rotation now. Unfortuantely with him goen so is our rebounding -- we are sad. N o, scratch that. Not sad, pathetic. We got ourtrebounded tongiht by 6 and I was thinking "not bad". And that wiht ron giving us his best reboudning game in months. We tried a variety of defesnive type grouping tongiht, and its funny how cutting KT out of the rotationa dn limiting Reef's minutes made that seem more possible. So We had ron, and Salmons, and Willaims and Cisco out there in various combinations going for a longer, peskier look. Of course were were peskying the remnants of the Boston Celtics, and still getting lit up by their PF and PG, but it was interesting to see us for the first time in a long time actualy have a "flavor" to some of our lineups other than "leftover stew". There were a few questionable rotation decisions tongiht, as per Muss's usual: Taking out Ron and inserting Salmons in the late third. Sending Martin to the bench even for a few minutes in the mid 4th. Dragging Cisco out of nowhere and throwing him on the court to start the 4th quarter of a close game after not having played a second to that point -- a Muss random special there that worked ok). And in the end we barely pulled this out against a truly awful opponent. But pull it out we did with that oh so veteran presence of ours vs. their kids. And our big three of Ron, Kevin, Bard trumped theirs of West, Jefferson and Gomes. Yay.
Doc Rivers -- hard to tell whetehr his late substitutionswere just incompetent or actual thrwoing of the game. Either way...thx? Or not thx? Oh well -- just felt the Celtics might have beaten us with a couple of seemingly obvious changes in coahcing strategy. Of course, that's why they are the Celtics, and we are the mighty, immortal, vanquishers fot eh 4-14 at home team. Grrr.
Artest ( A- ) -- first the hair...oh my. Either a stroke of unifying brilliance ala all those dumb college teams shaving their heads or whatnot, or the final nail in the coffin of any attempts to get value for him in a trade. Either way, shaking things up. Early defensive intensity and poking balls away, not so much offense. Began to give us a lift on the boards in the second quarter, and after half was getting it done on offense as well. Combined with Kevin to pull thi sout, but while Kevin scored a lot of points tonight on various breakdowns in the Boston defense, but it was a pretty one dimensional effort. Ron on the other hand looked smooth and comfrotable all night in the new do, and did most whatever he wanted to against the Celtics' kiddie corps.
Reef ( D- ) -- bad game for Reef. Started off really struggling against the young Boston bigs, who repeatedly challengted and blocked his shots. Continued to struggle after half, and was removed early in the third. Had a moment here or there, but generally looked old and worn down on both sides of the ball today and watched the bulk of this one from the bench.
Miller ( B ) -- Solid game in the way of the old Brad Miller "solid" games. In other words helped by hitting jumpers, and running the offense -- in particular hitting Kevin for 3-4 easy hoops. On the other hand like his old "solid" games, did not reboudn and got worked over on defense. Nonetheless, posed a problem for the Xeltics, when they weren't scoring over him at will, and was the third of our three Kings to give us a game tonight. And three is more than enough when you are playign a crew as bad as the Celtics.
Martin ( A- ) -- Scored a lot of points, which is what he's supposed to do, and along with Ron carried the Kings tonight. He even had a couple he had to work for, as the Cs left him open on cuts, leakouts, on give and gos, you name it. But mixed in with all the freebies were a few nice takes, once along the baseline for a big slam, once recovering and converting a bad alley oop from Brad, and a couple of his little running one handers with people (if Gerald Green counts as a "people") in his face. Was missing his jumpers early, and never really did get much from outside. But did not need to. Disappeared in the 3rd, but showed back up in the early 4th and was the biggest component of our mighty 34 pt 4th quarter drubbing of the Beanie Babies (just made that up -- god I'm good.
).Bibby ( D+ ) -- got off to an ok start, looked good on some of his shots, shaky on others. But was being generally outplayed by Delonte West. And then just disappeared. I mean as in almost completely. Just not involved when he was out there. Was not always out there. And wrapped up with a forgettable 11pt 4reb 4ast evening.
Salmons ( B- ) -- in the first half had most of his good moments and was able to post up 6'1" Rajon Rondo at will with the 6" height advantage. Made a real nifty internal post pass to Justin Williams that was not rewarded when Williams dunk attempt got blocked. Returned in the third on a questionable substitution for Ron Artest (who was largely carrying us) and got a lot of minutes in various longer/defensive minded lineups from there on out. Did not do much in them besides be long, and had a few ballhandling misadventures.
Corliss ( C ) -- in the first half picked up fouls against a scrub named Leon Powe, had one nice block in transition, otherwise struggled. Got back in in the mid third wiht Reef having his own issues and immediately helped with a couple of hoops (the first of the lucky miss so bad it goes off the backboard and in variety).
Douby ( C- ) -- applied a little ball pressure in his first half minutes, did little else. These flat nothing efforts are so hard to grade, especially from guys who may or may not have real NBA game. Did nothing...but did nothing wrong. Lost hsi second half minutes to Cisco.
Williams ( B ) -- active in his first half stint giving you what you would hope/.expect. challenge shots, rebounded, had a finih at the rim. Also blew a FT, committed an offensive foul on the over the back call, got a dunk blocked. And got into foul trouble on rookie mistakes. Still a nice energetic effort off the bench. Not spectacular, but the sort of effort you need froma bench big. Energy. Not terribly effective after half.
Garcia ( B- ) -- gott Mussed into the game for his first minutes to start the 4th quarter with us down 5. And then in Muss fashion he ends up playing the entire quarter. But its not Cisco's fault Muss and Doc were having a tankoff to see who could make the more bizarre 4th quarter suibtitutions. So Cisco stayed, and contributed to our general length/defensive focus in the 4th as we slowed the mighty Celtics offensive machine just enough to eke ouot a victory int eh last 2 minutes. Also hit a layup off off the ball movement in the late 4th -- the Celtics are so ridiculously clueless and disorganized that they gave those up all night.
Muss ( B ) -- Well, that was fundamentally unimpressive. Ron hairdo gambit aside. And of coruse his hairdo inspired nobdy as far as could be told. So much for the rally around the stupid **** with the funny hair theory. Oh well, maybe if our guys are deluded enough to think beating Boston means something, they will draw a connection between Ron's hair and victory, adn we will be off and running. So against the 12-25 Boston Celtics, with the owrst home record in the league, missing their 2 best players, starting and playing an entire game with maybe not a single 25+ yr odl NBA vet, we trailed after the first quarter, trailed at halftime, trailed after three. We got them in the end thought. Woot and all that. Some interesting little side notes\. KT is decisevely completely gone from the rotation now. Unfortuantely with him goen so is our rebounding -- we are sad. N o, scratch that. Not sad, pathetic. We got ourtrebounded tongiht by 6 and I was thinking "not bad". And that wiht ron giving us his best reboudning game in months. We tried a variety of defesnive type grouping tongiht, and its funny how cutting KT out of the rotationa dn limiting Reef's minutes made that seem more possible. So We had ron, and Salmons, and Willaims and Cisco out there in various combinations going for a longer, peskier look. Of course were were peskying the remnants of the Boston Celtics, and still getting lit up by their PF and PG, but it was interesting to see us for the first time in a long time actualy have a "flavor" to some of our lineups other than "leftover stew". There were a few questionable rotation decisions tongiht, as per Muss's usual: Taking out Ron and inserting Salmons in the late third. Sending Martin to the bench even for a few minutes in the mid 4th. Dragging Cisco out of nowhere and throwing him on the court to start the 4th quarter of a close game after not having played a second to that point -- a Muss random special there that worked ok). And in the end we barely pulled this out against a truly awful opponent. But pull it out we did with that oh so veteran presence of ours vs. their kids. And our big three of Ron, Kevin, Bard trumped theirs of West, Jefferson and Gomes. Yay.
Doc Rivers -- hard to tell whetehr his late substitutionswere just incompetent or actual thrwoing of the game. Either way...thx? Or not thx? Oh well -- just felt the Celtics might have beaten us with a couple of seemingly obvious changes in coahcing strategy. Of course, that's why they are the Celtics, and we are the mighty, immortal, vanquishers fot eh 4-14 at home team. Grrr.
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icons in my posts after losses and keeping track of the loss column in hopes of getting more ping pong balls in the hopper THEN having to keep my fingers crossed in HOPES of getting the top pick isn't gonna happen. 
