BunkoSquad SportsBlog: With one game left and

April 15, 2002

With one game left and

Celtics With one game left and the 3 seed locked up, it's time to look back at the Celtics' season and remember who got them to their first playoff series in years. So here's a rank of all the C's players, in ascending order of their importance.

(I implore you...any fans of any other playoff-bound NBA teams (sorry, Knicks) - send me a similar report on your own team and I'll run it. I've got to know what the Sonics are all about.)

12 (tie). Joseph Forte, Randy Brown, Greg Minor, Roshown MacLeod, Lucky the Leprechaun, Nate Driggers, The Tag-A-Kid Kid, Brett Szabo, Gino. Randy Brown played 6 minutes in a game in December and may have been the most productive out of the bunch. Forte, the third first-round pick the Celtics botched last year, played a total of 39 minutes and it showed. If you don't know who the Tag-A-Kid Kid and Gino are, you ought to get to the Fleet Center more.

11 (tie). Kedrick Brown and Mark Blount. I feel sort of bad lumping these two together; what you see is all you'll ever get from Blount, while Brown showed some flashes in very-limited playing time. Had this been the '96 Celtics, Kedrick might have played 25 minutes a game and gotten a few Rookie of the Year votes. As it was, he got to see a lot of America from the bench and tantalize us with an occasional dunk or an out-of-nowhere rebound.

10. Tony Delk. All I knew about Delk before the Phoenix trade was that he was a guy capable of going for 20 one night and 4 the next. Streaky, to put it mildly. Well, since he came here, it seems like there have been a lot more of the latter than the former. I won't give up on him yet.

9. Rodney Rogers. I'm not quite ready to give up on Rogers, either. My Dad has -- he says he has no basketball head -- and I fear he may be right. It's the little things that make you scratch your head about Rodney: he overruns rebounds, takes way too many 3's for a big guy (though that's probably why the Celts went after him), and looks vaguely surprised every time a pass hits him. Not good signs.

8. Vitaly Potapenko. The Ukraine Train doesn't translate well on a stat sheet. But I don't think anyone in the league works harder. He never gives up on a rebound. He's feisty; seeing him mixing it up with Kenyon Martin last week bodes well for the budding Nets-Celtics rivalry (did I just type that?!?). He's got a pretty sweet touch from 12 feet that he can take regularly, since no defense would even consider guarding him from there. Still, he seems to have done wrong to Coach O'Brien; his minutes have eroded over the year and he's even logged a couple of DNP-CD's. Puzzling.

7. Walter McCarty. Has matured from a grim reminder of the excesses of the Pitino Era into a bona fide sparkplug. Locked into a 550-year contract, Walter started playing to earn it in the second-half of the season. Providing some instant offense and tons of defensive energy off the bench, Walter (I kid you not) single-handedly won a couple of close games for the C's this year. I never thought I'd say this...but I LOVE WALTER!

6. Eric Williams. Although E tends to have more than his share of quiet nights, there have been plenty of times when he was just the right guy to come off the bench. For one thing, he's not married to the 3-pointer, and takes the ball in more consistently than any of the other 2-3-4's on the team. For another, he plays a good defense; he's bottled up Iverson, Kobe, and McGrady for stretches at various times this season. A bit too inconsistent to be a serious 6th Man of the Year candidate, but he's not too far out of the ballpark.

5. Erick Strickland. The Man From Nebraska got plucked off the waiver wire at the beginning of the season and contributed right away. His offensive skills as a point guard are a little suspect; he benefits much more from playing the 2-guard and getting fed by Kenny Anderson. But he always seems to hit the clutch 3, and plays outstanding defense. He gives his body to the team; he's absolutely fearless when it comes to taking a charge and has a knack for coming up with big steals.

4. Tony Battie. Tony's small for an NBA center, but makes up for it with hustle and heart. He'll never score 20, and 10 rebounds is a good night for him, but in the Celts' offense, where he often has to battle 4 opponents for a rebound, his determination speaks for itself.

3. Kenny Anderson. I'll admit it. There have been times in the last few years when I would have happily traded Kenny for warmup jerseys, but he's grown into being an actual leader on this team. He's gotten better at finding the open man, he's gotten much better at hanging back and getting open for a 15-footer, and his defense has improved as well. Just the fact that he's no longer a liability on the court would have been good; the fact that he's an asset is superb.

2. Antoine Walker. #8 has adjusted well to the fact that he's no longer the Alpha Dog in town. He's not out trying to get 35 a night; instead, he's become a floor leader, a tireless worker, and one of the most legitimate triple-double threats in the league. He still makes some head-scratching decisions, and his popularity with the refs still regularly lands him in trouble. But I still think the mistakes he does make are a result of him trying too hard. And you can't fault him for that.

1. Paul Pierce. Firmly established himself as The Man this year. Vaulted from a player with mad potential to one of the top 5 players in the league, no questions asked. He's turned in some AMAZING plays this year, his defense has improved markedly, and he's become the first consistent 4-th quarter go-to guy the Celtics have had since...well, you know. But the best new aspect in The Truth's game (scroll down) is the fire. Push him or make a bad call against him and he gets The Look in his eyes. The Look that says, "Bad idea. Now I'm mad." I haven't seen that look in a Celtics player since...well, you know. Do not get in this man's way.

Bring on the Hornets.

Posted by michaelf at April 15, 2002 11:54 PM

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