BOSTON — Kevin Garnett wants to play another year. That’s what some of his teammates believe, and even his ex-teammates. As Kendrick Perkins said recently: “I think he will. It’ll probably depend on the money, and if he can win a championship wherever he goes.”
Garnett has looked solid in spurts, even All-Star-like. He remains in solid shape and although his health was an issue in the past, his body hasn’t betrayed him here in this abbreviated season, unlike other players. Because the NBA still puts a premium on big men, it’s reasonable to suspect a handful of teams will inquire about the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent. At least those teams who consider themselves title contenders.
Therefore … where does he go?
It’s not totally out of the question that Garnett returns to the Celtics. He wouldn’t have to learn a new system, deal with a new coach, new city, all that. Besides, the Celtics will have plenty of room under the cap to give him a reasonable salary, say $10 million. With Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo, they’d be a 45 or 50-win team.
There are other possible landing places as well. Maybe the Lakers? Garnett has a home in Malibu, and the Lakers have Kobe Bryant. What they don’t have is cap room, but that can be resolved if they agree to a sign and trade for Pau Gasol. The Lakers desperately want Gasol’s contract (three years, $60 million) off the cap and tried to trade him last summer. The Celtics, with only Pierce and Rondo making decent money, could take Gasol, although that would likely prevent them from re-signing Brandon Bass.
BOSTON – The Philadelphia 76ers set an NBA record this season, turning the ball over just 11.2 times per game. The Sixers weren’t a good shooting team or a good offensive rebounding team. And they ranked last in the league in free throw rate. But they got by offensively because they took care of the ball better than any team in league history (or since turnovers were first recorded in the 1977-78 season).
In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Sixers shot the ball pretty well (47 percent) from the field. They also gave themselves plenty of second-chance opportunities with 14 offensive rebounds.
But uncharacteristically, it was turnovers that killed the Sixers in Monday’s 101-85 loss to the Celtics. Philly was holding on to a four-point lead with eight minutes to go in the third quarter when they proceeded to turn the ball over five times on their next six possessions, sparking a 10-0 Boston run that changed the game.
Four of the five turnovers were of the live-ball variety, allowing the Celtics to get out in transition and Brandon Bass to turn into a beast underneath the basket.
PHILADELPHIA – It’s not clear if Brian Scalabrine is ready to retire yet, but he’s already in preparation for his next career.
Comcast SportsNet New England, which broadcasts Celtics games, hired Scalabrine to provide pre-and postgame analysis during the Celtics-Sixers series. So, there he was, in a suit at TD Garden on Saturday, talking about the Sixers just 48 hours after Philly had eliminated his own Chicago Bulls.
The former Celtic got a huge ovation from the Garden crowd when he was shown on the Jumbotron on Saturday. But Scalabrine’s finest moment of this postseason came after Game 3, when he asked Rajon Rondo one of the smarter questions you’ll ever hear in a postgame press conference.
“The adjustment on the side pick and roll,” Scalabrine said, “you guys went to the ‘ice’ or the ‘down,’ or whatever you guys use in your terminology. Do you like that better than going over the top with the ‘show’?”
“I like it better,” Rondo replied. “I don’t think they do. Their offense, we watched the first couple of games, they got into the paint pretty good on the side pick and rolls. And it led to corner threes, it led to the high-low. I think we took a clip from you guys. You guys ‘iced’ a lot of the side pick and rolls in that series, and I think they struggled offensively. I think we did a good job tonight. The bigs did a great job talking, and guards kept fighting over, even when they did step up and set the side pick and roll.”
OK. So what the heck does it mean to “ice” a pick-and-roll?
OKLAHOMA CITY – The decision on whether or not Rajon Rondo sees the floor in Game 2 of the Celtics series against the Hawks will ultimately come from another place, namely NBA headquarters in New York.
Rondo lost his cool after Brandon Bass was called for a foul on Josh Smith late and was sent to the showers early for screaming at and then bumping one of the game officials. Whether or not he meant to bump Marc Davis from behind will be debated from Buckhead to Bunker Hill (not to mention the rest of the NBA universe).
I’d tell you the video doesn’t lie and that Rondo’s bump was the result of him stepping on the foot of Davis or Bass and his momentum sending him into Davis accidentally. Celtics fans would probably agree with that theory.
Hawks fans, on the other hand, saw a guy that could have avoided Davis bit stuck his chest out and went right into Davis to complete his protest. And they’d love to see him miss Game 2 Tuesday night in Atlanta.
The incident will require a thorough examination by the league’s “Dean of Discipline,” VP of Basketball Operations Stu Jackson,and his staff. He’ll also have to factor in Rondo’s recent past — he was suspended two games earlier this season for throwing the ball at an official — the same way they did Metta World Peace‘s extensive history when they handed down his 7-game unpaid vacation for that elbow he landed to the side of the head of Thunder swingman James Harden.
League rules stipulate that “any intentional contact with a game officials” results in a one-game unpaid vacation for the violator of the rule. So the discussion will center on whether or not Rondo’s chest bump was “intentional’ or not.
While we await his ruling, we’re going to do our own little experiment here and take the pulse of the people …
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Go ahead and mark it down now — the two cities that every team dreaming of a championship needs to avoid at all costs during the playoffs are Memphis and Boston.
Just like the Grizzlies in the Western Conference, the Celtics have given everyone ample warning that they will be in the business of crushing hopes come playoff time. Their work since the All-Star break has been well documented. They have all of the components needed to derail the title aspirations of any other team in the playoff field, just as the Grizzlies did to the Spurs last year.
From a coach in Doc Rivers (who is arguably the best in the business at taking whatever parts he has and crafting them into a cohesive unit) to a clear leader in Rajon Rondo (who has finally asserted himself as the true catalyst for this club) to the fading-but-still-furious-glory of future Hall of Famers Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (who have all had to accept diminished or drastically different roles than they are used to at this stage of their careers), the Celtics have everything in place to squash dreams and realize their own.
Their demolition of the Miami Heat twice in the past 10 days is no fluke. The Celtics, the league’s nastiest defensive team, showed last night that when they’re knocking down shots, they are nearly impossible to deal with. The Heat scrapped their way back into the game and still couldn’t overcome the Celtics, who shot a blistering 61 percent.
With Rondo directing the traffic, the ball moves all over the floor, making it hard for any team — even one as talented as the Heat — to concentrate its defensive focus in any one place. Garnett and Pierce both turned back the clock last night.
Along with most NBA watchers, the Oklahoma City Thunder are convinced that their sprightly legs and extraordinary team-wide talent will enable them to trump the difficulties of the shortened season and eventually run their way to the championship. As if the Thunder need any further motivation, beating the Celtics in Boston would provide immediate evidence that elderly tortoises are no match for young hares.
Conversely, the Celtics understand that this is the last go-round for their rapidly aging core of KG, PP and Ray-Ray. Here is a golden-age opportunity to demonstrate that they’re not quite ready for the glue factory.
These are trying times for the Celtics, whose main purpose tonight is to make the Mavericks, who visit the Garden (8 ET, ESPN), look older than they are.
They had high hopes this season for Jeff Green, who came in the controversial Kendrick Perkins trade, only to see Green diagnosed with an aeortic aneurysm during a routine physical. He’s gone for the season following surgery. They lost out on David West when the free agent chose the Pacers instead, which was a slap in the face for a proud Boston franchise. Paul Pierce missed the first few games of the season, which the Celtics opened by losing three straight. And while the Celtics peeled off a four-game winning streak, they fattened up on sweets, beating the Wizards twice, along with the Nets and Pistons.
And now we’ll see what a team that starts 50-year-old Jermaine O’Neal is made of, because the Celtics get the Mavericks, then the Bulls, then travel to Indiana before returning for Oklahoma City. Either the Celtics will show the grit of a veteran team, or watch the young Sixers continue their threatened takeover in the Atlantic Division.
HANG TIME TEXAS – Seasons change and teams change. It’s part of the circle of life in sports.
An interesting angle to watch tonight when Boston plays at Miami is whether the Celtics have changed too much to contend with the new-look LeBron James.
A year ago, whenever James tried to take the ball inside against the Celtics, he was confronted by the hulking and sometimes snarling likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Kendrick Perkins and Glen Davis.
Now the Boston front line consists of the aging Jermaine O’Neal along with Brandon Bass and Chris Wilcox.
“Kid can play,” coach Doc Rivers said. “He’s tough. He can finish. He can offensive rebound. He can do a lot of things. He’s doing it right now, but he’s second guessing half of the things he’s doing because of the execution part of it.
“He’s late on a lot of stuff because he’s just not sure yet. He’s just going to keep getting better and better as the year goes on.”
Kevin Garnett was equally impressed, though when asked about Bass he preferred to refer to the bench as a whole.
“Brandon is going to give us a more mature, consistent scorer off the bench,” Garnett said. “I actually like our bench — not just on paper, but in practice and in games. Not just Brandon, but Chris Wilcox and Keyon (Dooling), too.”
The question can the Celts’ new threesome derail James’ plan to use the post-up drills he did with Hakeem Olajuwon during the summer to do most of his work closer to the basket this season? While the powerful slam dunks and the pretty tip-pass to Dwayne Wade was nice, maybe the most impressive part of James season-opening effort in Dallas was that he did not attempt a single 3-point shot. Neither did Wade.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – There is a very real possibility that we have seen the last of this Orlando Magic team as a true contender in both the Eastern Conference and the league.
And before you dive into your best Stan Van Gundy impersonation, listen up. The Magic coach agrees with us. His team has taken it on the chin from both the Heat and Celtics in the past four days and it was clear that 2009 Eastern Conference champs don’t belong in the same conversation with those two teams.
“Not even close, not even in the same ballpark as these guys,” Van Gundy told the Orlando Sentinel after Sunday’s loss in Boston, when asked about the gap between his team and the Celtics. “We can be, but we’re not right now. I think that showed today.”
We’re not sure they can handle the Bulls or the Hawks either. All four of those teams sit above the Magic in the standings this morning. The potential of a first-round playoff matchup in Chicago or Atlanta might have sounded good in the preseason, but not so much now.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – When I made the joke to NBA TV analyst Brent “Bones” Barry Tuesday during The Jump about this being a great time for NBA trade rumors, he reminded me of the flip side.
“It’s not a great time for player to hear their names in all these rumors,” Barry said.
“If he was traded to Charlotte, he would think about retiring,’’ the source said. “He’s made plenty of money. He’d rather play, but he’s at the point in his career where he doesn’t want to get bounced around from team to team. If he’s traded, it would have to be to a contender.’’
Surely, Orlando qualifies as just that, a contender.
