DeJuan Blair was killing the Celtics last night. He was pounding the
boards, he was scoring down low, he was hustling and keeping balls
alive... and the Celtics didn't seem to have an answer.
Meanwhile, Shelden Williams sat on the bench. And he stayed there.
Shelden
left San Antonio with a big DNP-Coaches Decision next to his name in
the stat sheet. In a game where the C's were getting dominated on the
boards, a big man whose only real job is getting on the glass and
defending the post sat and watched it all happen. The question is...
was this a matter of a matchup Doc didn't like, or was it part of a
trend?
Shelden had been averaging 16 minutes a game through
November 18 (vs. Golden State). Since then, he's down to 10.3 minutes
per game... a number that was skewed by a 21 minute stint vs.
Charlotte. 4 of the 5 games leading up to Charlotte were single digit
minute games for Shelden.
So did Shelden do anything in that
Golden State game to get into Doc's dog house? Or was it the Orlando
game where he started having problems? Before then, he certainly
seemed to be playing well enough to earn his time. Everyone was in a
hurry to write up the "oooh, Shelden is gonna take Big Baby's minutes"
story. But now it looks like it's going to be the other way around.
Big Baby is on his way back. Shelden's minutes are already down and
the Celtics have won 6 straight. We might see more of Shelden tonight
because of the back-to-back situation... but will he undo whatever he
did to get into Doc's doghouse? He admitted on Twitter to not playing well recently. He's got 2 or 3 weeks to figure it out, before this stop becomes a little too much like his others in the NBA.
Associated Press photo