SB Nation User Blog: CelticsHooRah

Lakers lose against Miami, 89-87

CelticsHooRah — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:03:13 -0000

Lakers lose against Miami, 89-87

Kobe was outplayed tonight.

Utah Flash @ Idaho Stampede 9PM EST 12/13

CelticsHooRah — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:06:22 -0000

For anyone interested (and since there's no Celtics game tonight), the Flash are playing the Stampede tonight at 9PM EST. Idaho is coming off a 2-game winning streak with a 5-1 record while Utah is sitting at 2-4 with a 2-game losing streak, with the last loss coming against Dakota by 3 points.

JR's season averages: 19.8/7.5/2.5 with 1.7 SPG and 2.0 BPG to go along with 2.5 TOs and a healthy 2.0 PF. JR has basically been dominating the league, but he along with Bill could try to involve the team more and get their teammates more open looks. Bill Walker's season averages: 22.2/4.7/1.2 with 1.3 SPG 1.0 BPG 3.67 TOs and a 4 PF average. As Bill's strengths seem to lie in his scoring, he will hopefully will be able to work more on his D and ball-handling in addition to his court vision.

Our friend Lance Allred will also be playing for the Stampede, check it out!

See the live webcast. If it doesn't work in your browser, copy the link into Windows Media Player.

Live Stats

Utah Flash win in OT, 93-91

CelticsHooRah — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:38:06 -0000

Flash win it by (guess who?) a JR jumper on a Bill Walker assist. Here's the boxscore, hopefully we'll have a link to the game in a few days (or maybe not? I'm new to this). For those following, it looks like Bill's being used as the SF and JR's being used as a SG.

			Field Goals			Rebounds
	pos	min	fgm-a	3pm-a	ftm-a	off	def	tot	ast	pf	st	to	bs	pts
B.Walker	F	41:03	9-19	5-9	0-0	1	7	8	4	4	5	3	0	23
J.Giddens	G	45:21	8-18	1-4	2-5	4	8	12	1	2	1	4	2	19

Total		265	36-83	7-19	14-21	14	37	51	20	22	12	24	8	93
			43.4%	36.8%	66.7%	Team Rebs: 5				Total TO: 24

http://www.nba.com/dleague/games/boxscore.jsp?gameId=2020800004

Austin 93, Utah 91

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 28, 2008 – J.R. Giddens baseline jumper with 0.6 seconds left to play in overtime lifted the Utah Flash to a season-opening 93-91 victory over the Austin Toros Friday at the Austin Convention Center.

On assignment from the Boston Celtics, Giddens notched a double-double in his first action with the Flash, finishing with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Bill Walker, also on assignment from the Celtics, led all Flash scorers with 23 points and was credited with the assist on Giddens’ game-winner. He also collected eight rebounds.

The Flash (1-0) plays the second of a two-game road swing to Texas to open the season when they travel at Rio Grande Valley Saturday. Austin (0-1) hosts the Tulsa 66ers on Saturday.

Dontell Jefferson finished with 15 points and a game-high eight assists for Utah in the third straight overtime game between Flash and the Toros dating back to Dec. 21 of last season.

“We showed a lot of toughness tonight,” Flash coach Brad Jones said. “We had the game in control and then they made some shots and the momentum switched down the stretch in regulation.”

The Flash led 43-41 at the half and stretched their advantage to 80-68 with 4:11 to play on a Brian Jackson dunk. That was the last field goal for the Flash in regulation. In the final four minutes of regulation, Utah missed five field goal attempts, three of four free-throw attempts and turned the ball over three times. Austin made a trio of 3-pointers, including one from Malik Hairston with nine seconds left to force OT.

Hairston made another trey with 1:10 to play in overtime, before a Jefferson jumper with sixth-tenths to play gave the Flash a 91-89 advantage. After Marcus Williams missed a pair of free throws for Austin with two seconds left in overtime, Hairston got the rebound and was fouled, but the clock failed to run.

The officials put 0.6 on the clock and Hairston nailed both free throws before the teams called timeout and Giddens drained the game-winner.

“It would have been easy for us to lay down when things didn’t go our way, but we didn’t,” Jones said. “We won a game on road against a good team and that’s the bottom line.”

Williams finished with a game-high 27 points for Austin and added 10 boards for his first double-double of the season. Hairston followed with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Charles Gaines had 13 boards for the Toros.

Utah Flash @ Austin Toros 11/28, 8:30PM EST

CelticsHooRah — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:32:00 -0000

Utah Flash @ Austin Toros 11/28, 8:30PM EST

For those of you interested in checking out JR and Bill Walker's skills and level of development on the net LEGALLY (provided you feel you need a diversion from the C's game...) you can do so tonight at 8:30PM EST on the webcast link provided. All you have to do is sign up if you're not a member of NBA.com.

First game of the D-League season!

More Solutions to the Patrick O'Bryant Riddle

CelticsHooRah — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:23:06 -0000

A fanpost I thought was worth discussion on the front page - Jeff

So I've already posted in the Patrick O'Bryant thread about this more than a few times. I'm posting this mainly to simplify why I think O'Bryant's potential isn't translating into solid contributions on the floor yet and hopefully will cover some of the things I feel like Jeff missed in his post.

Reasons why Pat's not getting more burn:
1. Not tough enough in the post
2. Doesn't know the sets well enough
3. Not fast enough even if he does know the sets

Reasons why we might be messing up:
1a. We're: not doing enough to get him in shape
2a. not acclimating him to the sets enough
3a. KG and the rest of the team isn't pushing him hard enough.

Reasons why he might be messing up:
1b. He's not trying hard enough
2b. He needs more practice
3b. He hasn't quite bought into ubuntu yet
4b. Baggage from his old team (he was the goat because Nellie treated him that way for 2 years and getting sent to the D-league didn't exactly help either).

While I don't necessarily think he needs more burn in games, but I think we're in some ways not doing enough to translate some of that potential into a solid contribution. Are we addressing his emotional/psychological baggage? Is he indeed motivated enough? Are we working him hard enough with regards to his first step and knowledge of the sets? And, is he getting a real feel for the difference between the Warriors and the Celtics, or has the team actually changed considerably from last year?

The POB question has been of course been beating a dead horse for awhile now but in a larger sense, it addresses questions about the competency of the FO (Danny) and coaching staff in selecting/developing players, the real nature of team chemistry, and the makeup of the player himself, which makes it worth writing some more about.