I often wonder what opposing teams, their beat reporters and
bloggers
are saying about the Celtics after playing the Celtics. Here's a dose
of 'enemy chatter' from Orlando.
Credit the Celtics for executing a great game plan throughout. I do
think we have to call the Magic's strategy into question here. Over the
last 3 seasons, the Celtics have very well established that they can
shut Howard down one-on-one; posting him up isn't a sound idea, yet
Orlando kept pounding the ball inside to him. Going forward, the Magic
have to get Howard involved as a pick-and-roll finisher, and he can help
himself by creating opportunities on the offensive glass. Expecting him
to score consistently and efficiently against Boston's bigs isn't
realistic. It simply baffled me to watch the Magic consistently clear
out for Howard.
Howard was brutal in the post, absolutely brutal. I've said it before and I will say it again, what is so hard about developing a baby hook?
Well guess what? One Geezer, Ray
Allen, scored 25. Another Geezer, Paul
Pierce, scored 22. And yet another geezer, Rasheed
Wallace, came off the bench to score 13. Meanwhile the Geezers'
grabbing, grinding, distracting, deflecting defense held Dwight
Howard to three field goals, Rashard
Lewis to 2 and allowed the Magic to shoot just 22.7 percent from
3-point range.
Obviously, this is only one game, but the Celtics showed Sunday what many of us suspected all along: That Boston upsetting Cleveland was not necessarily good news for the Magic, who seemed to match up better with Cleveland's one-man band of LeBron and his four little bubbas .
"The game plan is a little harder against Boston." Van Gundy admits. "Against Cleveland, you focus everything on LeBron. With the Celtics, you've got to worry about 'em all."
Obviously, this is only one game, but the Celtics showed Sunday what many of us suspected all along: That Boston upsetting Cleveland was not necessarily good news for the Magic, who seemed to match up better with Cleveland's one-man band of LeBron and his four little bubbas .
"The game plan is a little harder against Boston." Van Gundy admits. "Against Cleveland, you focus everything on LeBron. With the Celtics, you've got to worry about 'em all."
On Page 2, some quotes from the Magic players.
“What they’re trying to do is frustrate me and get into my head,” Howard
said. “They want me to wrestle and fight with them. That takes me off
my game.”
"I don't think we were prepared for the level that they were ready to play," Vince Carter said. "They were ready to go from the jump. And we weren't on their level in the beginning, more than anything."
"You don't want to make excuses," J.J. Redick said. "When you don't do it for a few days, you forget how much you have to put into it, and we didn't put enough into this game."
"I don't think we were prepared for the level that they were ready to play," Vince Carter said. "They were ready to go from the jump. And we weren't on their level in the beginning, more than anything."
"You don't want to make excuses," J.J. Redick said. "When you don't do it for a few days, you forget how much you have to put into it, and we didn't put enough into this game."