The C’s will put their four game winning streak on the line in Milwaukee against a team that starts dudes from Cameroon, Australia and Argentina. Not to mention they are the Bucks. I’m not knocking foreign players but I am knocking fielding a front court dominated by them. I’m actually going to go out on a limb here and say that Milwaukee has the most foreign born players on their roster. Don’t believe me?
Andrew Bogut, Australia. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Cameroon. Carlos Delfino, Argentina. Ersan Ilyasova, Turkey. Primoz Brezec, Yugoslavia. Dan Gadzuric, the Netherlands. That is six of their fifteen allotted players or 40 percent of their team. Not one of them is from the same country, either. That must make communication hell.
Although, the Celtics communication has been lacking lately and they have all US born players. Boston needs to keep the Bucks from jumping all over them early as they have tended to come into these contests flat. The Celtics squeaked out an uncomfortable win in their last meeting in Boston but that was with Kevin Garnett on fire and carrying the team with his 25 points. I’m not saying that they are going to have a hard time but they can’t let bad teams hang around.
Rondo needs to assert himself every time he is on the floor. Laying back for a quarter or even a half at a time is not going to get the job done especially with his backup being the streaky Nathan Robinson (rather than the streaky Eddie House).
Paul Pierce had been playing steady ball the past few games and hopefully that will rub off on KG who struggled on Sunday. I would look to see the Celtics run plays for Kage to get him going early. This would also be an ideal game to start getting Shelden Williams some minutes to get him back into the thick of things after playing a strong 16 minutes against Detroit. Since that game, Doc has run his minutes back down to zero. I can almost see the logic there. Build him up with a 3-4 night with 4 REBS (2 OREBS) and then shove Scal out there to jack up air balls and look like fat Bambi on ice. It makes sense. Oh wait, no it doesn’t.
I just hope Boston can keep this little momentum swing up long enough to miss the Hawks in the playoffs.
Lee Herman covers the NBA and Boston Celtics for North Station Sports.
Find more of his great work here.
