haha, i like the knee jerk pun.

I miss Perk

So two games in with the new acquisitions, what do we think? While I think we would have dominated the Jazz tonight if we had Perk (I'd love to see Jefferson get those kind of numbers against Perk), overall I think Krstic is doing a reasonably good job, and he's not even their first option when (if?) Shaq gets healthy.

Overall I'd have to say they are a better team at this point in the season than they were last season, both on paper and in practice. If the Celts do acquire Troy Murphy as rumored, that adds more size and versatility. Boston might have lost some defensive capability and size by giving up Perk, but overall they have better depth and versatility now. Having Green and Krstic is overall better than Perk/Nate/Marquis IMO, but we really need one or both O'Neals for size in the playoffs. Even as is, I think Boston is still the team to beat in the East, maybe in the league.

Just stay healthy and I can haz banner plz.

Well, Big Al had his first ever good game against the Celtics last night. That tells me something.

It likely means they will need further adjustments against teams like Orlando and LA. But it's conceivable they might not even face those teams in the playoffs (Orlando is likely, but I predict LA goes down in Round 2). If Jermaine O'Neal were somehow able to put in some minutes against those teams, that is a solid shot-blocker with 6 extra fouls to give.

Troy Murphy signed with the Celtics as well, which further stretches the team's options.

I think the trade was awesome. I'm a huge Perk fan, but realistically we don't need him. Now hear me out on this. When we won the 'ship he only averaged about 18 mins per game in the finals, and is never on the floor in crunch time. Down the stretch having Perk and Rondo in the game together is just awful due to their lack of FT shooting and outside game. Yes we lost a ton of rebounding and an amazing low post defender, but the thing is we needed a wing BAD. Ray and Paul are both old and were logging a ton of minutes. Not only will having Green help them rest this year, it should help extend their careers.

Yes it would suck to not have Perk against Howard, but with Shaq and BBD we can take care of that. More important, imo, is the fact that Green will be able to match up with Odom and a healthy KG can cover Gasol, supposing the Celtics and Lakers meet in the finals again. I know it's a lot of speculation on my part, but turning Perk and Nate into Kristic, Green, and a likely lottery pick next year (considering Danny's drafting ability) is a nice haul for someone that might not have even been resigned. Adding Murphy and maybe Brewer/Butler to replace two scrubs is just the icing on the cake.

As a final thought though, imagine if we had just resigned TA. He's playing great for the Grizzlies this year.

Huh? Shaq has been, by far, our best center this year. Shaq fits with the 1st unit and has been great - the issue with dealing Perk is that we expect Shaq to be healthy. Before, even with a dinged up Shaq, we probably were still faves because the starting 5 w/ Perk was nearly as strong. Now we have no such security blanket and require Shaq to be healthy, which is asking a lot. And he'll have to play major minutes.

By and large, it's like this:

Healthy Shaq > Healthy Perk > > > Healthy Jermaine > Krstic ~ = Dinged up Perk, Dinged up Shaq, Erden > Dinged up Jermaine

Removing the fillers and just using a big rotation of Shaq/Perk we were untouchable. No idea why we had to **** up a good thing.

one of the things i had read was that since the knicks and heat dont have a big man that perk was expendable..........yeah but the magic do and i hate shaq or krstic trying to defend howard. perk is much better suited to that matchup. plus perk has been big in matchups with the lakers. and krstic is a pussy which is NOT what the C's are about. green is a good addition but he cant defend 4s which is a bit of a problem.

adding a few picks was nice but doesnt help for this year which is where their focus should be imo.

so much now depends on shaq and jo. i have no confidence we'll see anything out of jo. giving up erden seems really strange given the shaq jo situation - he at least was serviceable for 12-15 mins. hopefully shaq is ready to go at somept. i think he isnt in any rush to get back though.

dont mind that much losing daniels esp with green coming in. robinson can help in stretches and can do things west cant but he can be a liability too.

i dont know. we'll see.....

While I agree with the assessment just looking at the 5 position, I also began to consider how likely it is that we could rely on Perk to be healthy as well, as he's already sat out several games since returning and has had pretty restricted minutes. While it's nice that we could count on Perk or Shaq to be healthy at any given time, with their health, age (in Shaq's case), and mileage, I wonder if we were kidding ourselves about the strength of our center position. If neither Perk nor Shaq could put in decent minutes in the playoffs, we'd be in real trouble.

At least with Krstic we have someone who can put in reliable minutes and has to be guarded. I'm not sure that we need Shaq for more than 5-6 minutes per quarter when we have Krstic, Baby, and even KG to plausibly cover the 5 in the off time, particularly when we have flexibility in the 4 with Green and Murphy.

Ainge is starting to look smarter IMO.

Too bad Baby is out for a week... hopefully it won't be any longer than that, but I hope more that his knee starts to feel better. It was getting pretty obvious that it was slowing him down. Looks like Murphy may get more play time earlier than expected.

Never count out the Celtics defense!

New franchise record tonight, holding the Bucks 87-56. And this is without Perk, and without either O'Neal. How can you not love this team?

+1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd4Zl...&feature=feedu

lol

Awesome. Hating Rondo at the moment though. I really hope he's hurt, and not just tanking because they traded Perk (his best friend). I wouldn't be surprised by either though, considering he has had attitude problems in the past.

So Jeff Green really, really sucks.

Yeah I know what you mean. But even when they had Perk, Rondo's numbers have fluctuated this season (I think his APG has steadily declined each month).

The good news is, if it is health-related, at least we have West and Arroyo to shore up some minutes. Arroyo has been doing surprisingly well.

I'm still thinking, however, that Rondo is just making the adjustments to the new guys like everyone else. It just shows more because he normally has such high assist numbers and is such a good passer. His defense is about as good as ever, though.

?

I think he's a solid 6th man.

Yeah gotta love a guy who is a poor rebounder/defender and puts up a 12.4 PER. I mean it's not like those guys are totally abundant or anything.

In 231 minutes, Jeff Green has 22 rebounds and 3 assists. He's getting outrebounded by almost 50% of all PGs. There isn't a single thing he's doing well.

Yeah but there's no way he's going to stay at that level. He was doing better even when he was in Seattle.

PER underrates him; his Usg%/ORtg has been around 20/106 for the last 2 seasons, which is decent for a sixth man. If he can get back to that level that blows away the other guys we've had coming off the bench this season:
Davis 21/100
Nate 21/96
Daniels 15/102

I mean, it could stay that level? He's 23/101 right now. Also, the fact that this is an improvement underscores the weakness of our team, which has been the bench.

We all tend to overrate them because they're in the limelight and are role players on a very successful team, but push comes to shove, our bench sucks. The only guy I think is legit good is Delonte, but he's missed so much time it's tough to know how effective he will be.

The key thing is the players who will play in the playoffs. Sasha Pavolovic and Avery Bradley are not NBA players, but it doesn't matter - neither will play in the playoffs. Murphy, Green, and Krstic will, though. And it slightly scares me.*

*I have to say Krstic has been phenomenal so far. Hopefully that continues!

The bench is fine imo. At least we don't have Shelden playing this time around. Really hope they pull out a win tonight. These games are becoming painful to watch.

Rondo must be hurt. If he gets healthy we will be fine.

in all fairness he held CP3 to his worst game this season. 0-9 w/ 3 TOs. rondo's defense.

I hate bitching about officiating, but the Houston game and this one against the Knicks have been a joke. Melo got 2 fouls in the 1st Q and has been raping Pierce since then and they refused to call #3. Not to mention his elbow to the face of Fat **** Davis 2 feet away with the ref staring right at him.

This is becoming difficult to watch. Davis for 3....Pierce is on fire and has only 9 shots. Rondo passes up and layup, and then takes a terrible floater. What is going on with this team?

It's the Jeff Green virus. He's infected the team, he's in the bloodstream

And they lose to the mother ****ing Bobcats.