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Don’t blame the Kendrick Perkins trade for 2-0 hole and other off-day thoughts 05.04.11 at 10:36 pm ET
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Chris Bosh averaged a double-double in the two wins in Miami. (AP)

I’m going to steal from the great Paul Flannery and take his Three-Pointer gimmick for a spin. Stealing from Paul has turned into the norm, unfortunately, as the best Celtics beat writer in town had his computer and all his luggage stolen from the trunk of his car while having lunch (at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Factory — I know) before Game 2 in Miami on Tuesday. He’s OK, though (turns out it’s much easier to fly when all you have to carry is a CVS bag), and will be ready to go for Game 3.

But will the Celtics? Here’s three thoughts still kicking around after the first of three off-days …

(Oh, one more Flannery item before we get started. Bill Russell, as you have no doubt heard by now, will finally get a statue in his honor. Clearly the suggestion from President Obama that it was time for Boston to put up a Russell statue is the major reason why it happened, but it was Paul’s terrific column in Boston magazine last November that got the conversation started.)

1. Here’s why the Celtics are down 2-0 to the Heat: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have a total of 147 points through two games. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett have a total of 87. That’s it. Not the refs, not Kendrick Perkins, not James Jones outscoring the Celtics’ bench by himself in Game 1.

Nope, if the Celtics are going to find a way to get back to Miami at 2-2 — which is a must for any chance to win this series — Allen/Pierce/Garnett have to give you more than we saw in Game 1 and Game 2. Allen was very good in Game 1, a non-factor in Game 2. Pierce was terrible in Game 1, hurt and terrible again in Game 2. Garnett had a six-minute stretch in the third quarter of Game 2 where he made five consecutive field goals. Other than that he’s 6-of-24 through two games.

Listen, no one thought Pierce or Allen was going to outplay LeBron or Wade in this series, and Garnett was probably a slight edge over Bosh. But for these three guys — particularly Allen and Pierce — to have been so dominated in Miami is troubling at best. In the four regular season games between the two teams the Miami Big Three averaged a total of 56.6 points per game, the Boston Big Three 54.1. Now that’s deceiving — Wade only averaged 12.8 per game, not fair to expect that — but the Pierce/Allen/Garnett trio simply have to match their regular-season output or this series will be over in four or five games.

2. I know he scowls a lot, and looks exactly the way you want a center to look, and his team is still in the playoffs so you get to that blast of nostalgia when you watch him every couple of nights, but if Kendrick Perkins was on the Celtics this series would still be two-zip, Miami. Hard to digest for the “Heart and Soul of the Defense” flag-wavers, but it’s true. Kendrick Perkins is averaging 4.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game in the playoffs (by the way, if you do a Google search on “4.4 points per game” the first match is Alexander Johnson’s Wikipedia page. Johnson played 102 games in two NBA seasons, averaging his 4.4 points. He’s now with the Sioux City Skyforce of the D-League).

And the notion that Perkins would be a threat in the middle with his defense against Wade and James doesn’t have any statistical backing. Perkins is averaging 0.6 blocks per game in the playoffs, and Oklahoma City has allowed at least 100 points in both games of the Memphis series. And Perkins was on the court last year in the first round against the Heat when Wade averaged 33.2 points.

Jermaine O’Neal has been a better player than Perkins in this postseason (6.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.6 blocks) in seven fewer minutes per game. And let’s take it easy with the intangibles angle. Much is being made now about Perkins “teaching” the Thunder how to win. It’s easy to be an intangibles guy on a team with Westbrook and Durant — if Perkins has been traded to Minnesota who would never hear from him again. This isn’t fair to Perkins — who was a solid role player for team that needed him — but he isn’t a good enough player to swing a playoff series.

3. Even down 2-0, even with the injuries to Allen, Rondo, Pierce and Shaq, this will be the best chance this team will have to beat the Heat in a playoff series. Think about it: Miami is only going to get better. Wade and James are right in the middle of their primes and are two of the three or four best players in the world, and Bosh is a 17-9 guy also in his prime. Think those three are going to get worse or better after playing together for a full season? There isn’t much cap room for Miami, but the lure of winning plus the city itself should mean a decent pool of veterans to pick from each year. The Celtics are where the late 80′s Celtics were — enough talent to win but maybe too many miles on the tires. And once little brother gets past the bully — think Celtics over 76ers, Pistons over Celtics and Bulls over Pistons — it almost never reverts back.

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  • paul

    Why are you still so eager to stooge for Danny? You say…

    “1. Here’s why the Celtics are down 2-0 to the Heat: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have a total of 147 points through two games. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett have a total of 87. That’s it. Not the refs, not Kendrick Perkins, not James Jones outscoring the Celtics’ bench by himself in Game 1.”

    Well gee, that’s SUCH a good point. Of COURSE trading away the team’s defensive anchor would not have anything to do with the Heat’s Big Three running wild against the Perkins-less Celtics! Gosh, who would ever think that the Cs’ defense would suffer if they shipped their defensive anchor out of town?

    I mean, it’s truly hilarious. Do you really thing ANYONE out here is buying the slop you guys are selling? I don’t think so.

    And then there’s this delicious nugget from you …

    ” The Celtics are where the late 80′s Celtics were — enough talent to win but maybe too many miles on the tires. And once little brother gets past the bully — think Celtics over 76ers, Pistons over Celtics and Bulls over Pistons — it almost never reverts back.”

    Really? You don’t notice that this Celtics Big Three has a little thing that the late eighties Celtics Big Three was supposed to have in Len Bias, but didn’t have because Bias died? You know what I mean. Yes, you got it!! This Celtics Big Three has a young, supertalented rising star that can blend with the old guys and breath new life into their championship hopes. Yes, Rajon Rondo.

    Funny, how do astute observers like you miss a little thing like that? Weird, huh? I guess when you make one fake argument and stick to it, the way you’ve been defending The Trade for weeks, you start feeling like you can say anything at all, without caring whether it makes any sense at all.

    If the Celtics don’t beat the Heat, Ainge should start clearing out his office the next day. What he did was sports management malpractice.

    • http://j.amadis@ymail.com Jason

      I coulfnt have put it any better. That was an embarrassing trade. I mean we have the softest center. Check out Kristich! My grandfather can handle a ball better than he can, and what’s going on with Glen Davis. The man is carrying so much weight in his arms that he can’t make consecutive field goals. Danny Ainge might have cost us an 18th banner. PATHETIC.

    • Paul

      Ok for all you people who still somehow think Kendrick Perkins is a bill russell, wilt chamberlain, Patrick Ewing hybrid, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolf have combined for 80 points in two games against this so called defensive anchor and Marc Gasol plays the same position as perk! To think that Perkins’ presence would somehow stop miamis 3 is absolutely ridiculous. You people are remembering him as a completely different player than he really was and refuse to accept that he was nothing special even when the evidence is right in front of you

  • Carl

    I somewhat agree with Kirk about the big three not playing well may have cost them the games; but agree with Paul’s comment that Perkins is the defensive anchor as well as brings athletic energy to the floor. One good Center Defender can make the difference in stopping Miami’s three from scoring as well as opening up better shots for Celtics big three. JO stats good but I feel he is lacking a certain energy.

    Remember, the Celtics made it all the way to Game 7 in finals last year and most agree they lost because Perk was not there. Ainge made the right move about Celtics future but made a mistake for this year giving away Perkins. Fans and writers who do not see this are just fooling themselves.

    Yes, even with Perk it is possible Celts would have lost those first two games because Miami is in a good stride now, but I think the games may have been closer.

  • boris

    All this coulda-woulda-shoulda is b.s. The citing of stats to say Perk is not a factor, etc. I mean, I undestand Flannery lost his article and you had to sub last minute, by c’mon, Kirk! It don’t work this way.

    Defense is not rebounding or blocks, at least not maintly. And yes, the scowling, offensively challenged Perkins would absolutely be affecting the confidence with which the Heat are getting inside.

    It’s trickled down, too. Baby has more weight on his shoulders and isnt playing as well (as commentor above says.) J-bones is playing pretty well – but I think a lot of that is our expectations are so low. Green has been a disappointment. It’s ironic that Danny said the trade “makes us more athletic” and now we can’t compete with the Heat because as Legler says, they are too athletic. Sometimes you compete with athletisism by beating the shit out of the athletic guy.

    It’s a momentum thing too… Ah well, there is still a shot. I really think the Celts will win Saturday. And then who knows. I remain optimistic.

  • Dano

    I think the Celtics need to make 3 adjustments to turn the series around. First, like Reggie Miller stated several times during the game, D Wade and L James need to be forced to make plays going to their right instead of letting them constantly drive to the left. I cannot remember the last time I saw L James make a shot driving to his right. Philadelphia did it in Games 4 and 5.

    Next, let Ray Allen play the point and Rondo roam on the perimeter. This strategy will stop the Miami defense, which is not that great, from using the man guarding the point guard to double on Pierce and Garnett. Ray Allen would have a historic day if Wade would left him at the top of the key wide open like the Heat let Rondo stand alone. On the otherhand, Rondo will be able to use his skills such as penetration, offensive rebounding, making steals,cutting to the basket, etc, against the much inferior Chalmers and Bibby.

    Next, tell Big Baby to not to shoot the ball unless he is under the basket or completely wide open not more than 10 feet from the basket. Miami is banking on him to take a lot of high risk shots. He is delivering.

    Finally, unleash D West on the offensive end. He should be attacking the rim and taking aggressive shots. He is too good of an offensive player to be standing on the top of the key waiting to make a pass.

    Come on Celtics. You are the only chance the East has to win the Championship. The Bulls, Heat and Hawks just do not make none of the teams in the West.

  • bruce

    Danny Ainge is an idiot. You don’t bring back the old gang for one more run and then change horses in mid stream. Perk and stats? How about the stats for Satch Sanders and Paul Silas – are you going to tell me they weren’t important pieces of those championship teams? And this building for the future crap, how about building for the future around Rondo and Perk??? Perkins is the kind of guy you find a way to keep plain and simple. Now the Celtics are going to suck for ten years or whatever.

  • Jim

    Would having Perk made a difference, maybe not, but you should have at least looked at the contributions of the two guys he was traded for. Kristic and Green for the two games have 6 rebounds and 11 points, there combined +/- is -12. The Celts’ probably would have lost due to the poor play of the big three, but it they would have been a lot closer with O’Neil and Perk providing quality minutes in the post.

  • Dennis

    This is not a “three pointer” but a 2 pointer… Point one and point three have some good points but number 2 is just way out there. I hate when people do this and especially hate when professional writers do this. YOU CANNOT TAKE STATS FROM ONE PERSONS PERFORMANCE AND USE THAT AS EVIDENCE THAT THE PERSON WOULD NOT HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE HERE…. IN THIS INSTANCE “Kendrick Perkins is averaging 4.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game in the playoffs” “And the notion that Perkins would be a threat in the middle with his defense against Wade and James doesn’t have any statistical backing. Perkins is averaging 0.6 blocks per game in the playoffs” yes on a team that he has played with for what…. 2 or 3 months. His stats would be completely different on the celtics than it is on oklahoma city by the way they are paying 2 different teams so you dont even have a common denominator. it is worth mentioning that in the one game he played against the heat as a celtic he played 31 min had 15 points 6 rebounds and 2 blocked shots..

  • dick

    I think Ainge has destroyed this team. Start with his idiotic drafting of small guards that explains why he could not do what he did on trade deadline day. Where in the basketball universe does it make sense to trade a starting big man for a 7th man who plays haphazard defense? If you still have all the five guys dismissed on trade day here, we are not down 2-0. We are the favorites to win it all, and since the trade EVERYONE outside of Boston has the Celtics as pretenders, not contenders… the celtics record since that day proves it

  • Garrett

    I agree with most of these comments. How is that alot of boston media disregards the fact that when the Celts traded Perkins, the team played poorly. Not to mention they lost Marquis Daniels and traded away Erden and brought in all these new guys on team on their way to a championship and have all these guys try to learn a new system in a short period of time. They traded away their best defender in tony allen last year who was the only guy who could stop D-wade last year in the playoffs and then lost their best wing defender this year in Daniels. To me, this was even more reason to keep a good defender in Perk.
    Garbage line – trade away some dfense in perk for a little more offense in Kristic and Green. that work’d out great. oh I guess they forgot that d-fense wins championships in just about every sport.

  • mike

    OK, enough Perk talk! Come on we need to move on with this topic. Our starting Big Three are too good to make Perkins the reason we do not win a title and Rondo when playing good is one of the best point guards in the NBA. If this team doesn’t win because they are upset about this trade than they don’t deserve to win, PEERIOD! Get over it, move on. The same people that complain about this trade would be complaining during the summer that we didn’t offer him enough money or would call Perkins not loyal when he left for much bigger $$. The fact is we had to do something about this and getting a young good not great player in Green, an ok big man in Kristichand a #1 Clippers draft pick in 2012 was a very good trade for the future. Ok maybe not great for this yr, but why is Perkins the man that always represents a championship. We lost yr becuse the team was exhausted, PERIOD, up by 12 in the 4th remember. They ran out of gas! And now this yr, if we don’t win it’s because we don’t have Perk. GET REAL! It’s because we are not good enough against a better Eastern Conference!

    • Paul

      I could not agree with you more. Of course Perkins would help but with the rest of the team playing so sporadic and unpredictable the types of things Perkins contributes to a team would have been irrelevant and we would still be down 2-0

  • CarlSpackler

    Its all about points in the paint. LeBron/Wade are not settling for jumpers because they have no fear going into the lane. Considering both mentioned how happy they were that Perk was traded, one can guess that they didnt like going to the lane and getting smacked hard by.

    Nonetheless KG has been the worst player on the court for 2 games.

  • http://thisone Mike

    Sorry Celtics fans this series will be over in 5 games. The Heat Dynasty is just getting started. And LOL at the Celtics as having the only chance for the Eastern conference. You keep telling yourself that…

  • Fred

    Last two games vs Memphis
    Perkins +/-
    Game 1 -8
    Game 2 -7 The only player on the team in the negative.

    Please.

  • john

    Yes, J. oneal is better than Perk so what, he got 18 mins last game. If doc plays Baby 26 mins a night at center ARE U KIDDING ME?!? He is 6’6” fat and cannot jump. We all loved baby who has heart a few years ago vs bulls played well. But he has lost any little game he had. NO TEAM IN THE NBA CAN WIN ANY PLAYOFF SERIES WITH HIM AT CENTER FOR OVER HALF THE GAME.

    His playoff PER is 5. Not to go state geek but that is bad. He encourages the other team. The Heat are PLUS 35 with him on the court. They gain a point a minute. Jermaine is EVEN. EVEN on the road vs heat. JO went 37 vs Wizards late in year. His is leading shot blocker per minute in playoff. He is tall. OME Sorry to rant but this is on Doc.

  • john

    How can anybody write an article regarding the Celtic center position and not mention the guy who is playing most of the game at the position? You think the fact that Heat are +35 with Baby on the court and Even with Jeramine O’Neal is relevant? I sure do. Nobody thinks its strange that our center is short fat and cant jump? Nobody thinks its strange that c’s thrive with Perk, Shaq, or Jermaine but suck with Baby? Vs the Knicks JO was +1 per minuite played after the first game, and he help win the first game for us in 3rd. Baby was horrible throughout been that way since the break. The other team lights up when the look down low and see someone has no chance to protect the rim. Just play Jermaine max minutes with KG that is the best defensive tandem bigs in the NBA.

  • mkword

    I understand why Ainge made the deal (once Marquis went down he had to get a sub for Allen and Pierce), but at the time, I didn’t like it.

    Given how the new players have played, and the fact that Shaq is out, I still don’t like it.

    BUT … let’s be real. The Celtics tore through the first half of the season without Perkins. They were the best team in the league at that point … without Perkins. Yes, they had Shaq, but how many minutes was Shaq contributing every game???

    After the deal was made, the Celtics actually IMPROVED their defensive stats. True.

    The problem was, their scoring suffered horribly.

    I watched both Miami/Boston games … and I was prepared to say that Ainge blew it if the Heat won these games.

    However, my impression is the same as Kirk and Paul’s … there is no way the Celtics would have won these two games if they had Perkins … unless … somehow … Perkins emotionally/mentally sparked the rest of the team to play better.

    That, though, really sounds like fan wishful thinking.

    Bottom line … the Cs have not played well. They can beat the Heat … but not with the way they are playing … and the way they are being coached.

  • The reality check

    guys,

    Here are our celtic fans problems. First of all we have to excuse the heat fan trolls for having no balls. Second, Miami last year was not healthy. This year they are. Boston last year was HEALTHY..This year they are not. Health plays into this league and is a reality. Sure you can make the health / age corrilation. But when a team is more healthy they win.

    TO ALL OF YOU PERK FANS……….THE TRADE HAD TO BE DONE…..AND IF WE HAD PERK WE WOULD NOT BE UP IN THIS SERIES WHY……..

    1. PERK did not help us this season at all. SHAQ helped us more than perk. When perk came back this season he was dominated by bynum and howard. Sure perk set picks. sure WE NEED THE ROLE…BUT PERK IN THAT ROLE….HIS TIME RAN OUT….I put this on the trade a bit….I think tough players were UNDERVALUED…IF danny could have traded perk and robinson to houston for SHANE BATTIER. WE WOULD HAVE NOT COMPLAINED…HE is a TOUGH AS NAILS DEFENDER MEAN AS ALL HEC….AND IF WE PICKED UP LEON POWE and NAZI MUHAMID…Both tough guys at center….WE WOULD BE UP 3-0….Jeff GReen may be a great player. He was brought in in the wrong cercumstance. Give GREEN A TRAINING CAMP…HE WILL BE GREAT……I hope SHAQ can return…I feel with shaq at his level…BOSTON WILL WIN THE SERIES…WITH NO SHAQ….Danny will have to look at trading for nene or marc gasol…TO DO THE GASOL TRADE…IDE GIVE them JEff green, baby, kristic, west…If we can get gasol and oj mayo…

  • JT

    Stop the wineing yes Perkins is gone its time to break out the lunch pail and play some real D each guy sitting on the bench has 6 fouls to use and I say use them if james and wade want to drive make them pay and take back the paint why add players to your roster if they can’t be used CELTICS play hard like you are supposed to and let the wins fall were they may and remember what Champions play like

  • Steve

    I’ve got a big fat scoop for everyone, you included Minihane. It IS the refs, just like they stole the title from the Celts last year in the 4th quarter of game 7 in the Finals. Haven’t you noticed that James and Wade get all the touch fouls, Baby and KG get mauled in the paint with no calls, Jones’ flagrant that wasn’t called, Jones flopping after barely getting touched by JO and a flagrant was called on JO, Pierce’s ejection, James bowling over Rondo with no call, and the big edge Miami has had in free throws so far? Couldn’t the NBA be more obvious that they want the Heat to be in the Finals for their star power and for tv ratings?
    You ought to read Personal Foul by Tim Donaghy. I have never read a more accurate picture of how the NBA is today.

  • Reality Check

    Wow. This blog has been overrun by Celtics Blog moderators.

    The conflation of Kendrick Perkins into Bill Russell is great comedy entertainment, especially as this team goes down the crapper. Not a single word of it is true, of course – Perkins is a non-factor in Oklahoma City with his “barely cracking the stat sheet” efforts and Jermaine O’Neal’s production has been FAR superior.

    Good comments on the stupid season that seems to follow the trade of the Big Nonentity. Some of you folks need to learn that just because Perkins was your favorite player, there’s no need to pay him stupid money – and $9 million is stupid money – to stand in the middle, glower and rack up illegal screens and technical fouls.

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