So You thnk the Celtics are TOUGH!!!

[CaptChris]

Did you watch the Reggie Miller Show Sunday night? You saw the Knicks and the Pacers playing a little basketball. Well done show, and the comments were hilarious.

Perk thinks he is TOUGH. The Celtics think they play physical. Hope the Celts didn't watch this one. It might have scared them to death.

Celtics Front Line -- Perk -- KG -- PP -- with Wallace -- BB -- Williams

Knicks Front Line -- Ewing -- Oakley -- Anthony Mason -- with Charles Smith -- Herb Williams

It would be like the Celtics showing up with a KNIFE to a GUNFIGHT!

Did you hear the Riley comment? "NO LAY-UPS! NO LAY-UPS! -- NO LAY-UPS!". Wonder if Rondo would be alive if he played then? You got one lay-up and then you got laid out. OUCH!

Today's Flagrent 2's that get you thrown out of the game, were just FOULS. You got 6 of them in a game. OOPS!

Different World -- Different Rules. If Perk scowled at those guys, they would laugh in his face. Can't you see Oakley or Mason being intimidated?

[Celtics17]

Remind me again how many titles the Knicks and the Pacers won in those days.

Back in the old days . . . up hill . . . both ways . . . four feet of snow . . . no shoes . . . blah, blah, blah . . .

Tough, oh, we were so tough . . . back when we were tough.

[CaptChris]

How many titles did the Celtics win in those days? OOPS! How many since 1986? What year did we win 15 games? All has nothing to do with being Tough. It has to do with the Rules in the 1990's and the Rules today.


Doc Rivers knew when his time was running out as a player.


"The first year, they took my hand check away," Rivers recalled. "The next year, they took our forearm away. And then, I retired. I was done. I was like, 'I've got to move my feet? I quit. This is no fun anymore.'"

For 13 seasons, Rivers made a very good living in the NBA as one of the league's best on-ball defenders. Tall (6-foot-4) and strong, able to use his hands to steer opponents away from the basket, able to clip guards moving without the ball from their desired routes around the court. But the style that helped his Hawks teams get to the Playoffs and that put his 1994 New York Knicks team in the Finals is now a relic, consigned to the basement in Pat Riley's head.

You still have to play defense to win NBA championships. But now, you have to do it without fouling.

With the Playoffs underway, the teams that can slow their opponents down without putting them on the free throw line have a decided advantage. But that's much harder than in Rivers' day, when the Knicks would establish how the game would be called in the first five minutes by being as physical as possible, daring referees to call every bump and hold. Most times, the refs would ultimately let a lot of contact go, which is precisely what Riley wanted.

But the league has gradually legislated that kind of defense out of the game.


Since 1990, the NBA has instituted a series of rules changes to increase the offensive player's flow and make physical play costly. First came increased penalties for flagrant fouls (1990) and fighting (1993), the implementation of the "five points" rule that called for automatic suspensions of players who amassed a certain number of flagrants (1993). Hand checking was eliminated in 1994. Using the forearm to defend players facing the basket went away in 1997.

In 1999, the league eliminated contact by a defender with his hands and forearms both in the backcourt and frontcourt, except on offensive players who caught the ball below the free throw line extended. Defenses were also prohibited from "re-routing" players off the ball. This freed up perimeter players who used screens to get open. Nor were defenders able any more to grab or impede offensive players setting screens. In 2001, the defensive three-second rule eliminated defenders camping out in the lane away from their offensive man to help

Article on Rules Changes -- David Alderidge, April 23, 2009

So the rule changes took the "physical" out of the game. They play more physical in college than they do in the NBA now. The "toughness" was ruled out of the game and "slick" was in.

The "cross-over" (Palming) was in. And don't you impeed the poor man's path to the basket, that's a no-no. A hard foul became a flagrent II, an elbow became Murder I.

So to listen to how TOUGH Perk is, makes me laugh. Box out -- Get 15 Rebounds -- use hard fouls to stop the drives, and stop bitching -- then you are getting Tough. "SMILE" when you put the other guy down! You are having FUN. A little Rick Mahorn cango a long way.

So it didn't mean that the times were tougher in the 90's -- the Rule were.

As Larry Brown said to Michael Jordan: "You could score 50 Pts. a night with today's rules".

[Celtics17]

Captain,

I'm sorry, but you're just not making any sense to me.

We all know that the rule changes have made it harder to get away with physical play. I don't understand how this is an argument against Perk. If he lays someone out, and gets a hard foul called and a T against him, then, he gets labelled a disruptive idiot who can't control his emotions. Yet, as far as I can make out, your original argument seems to be that the Cs aren't tough because they could never get away with playing the kind of ball that some of the teams of the early to mid '90s were able to because of the difference in the rules.

Perk is clearly one of the top interior defenders in today's game. Athletically, he's nowhere near some of the other top bigs around, but Kendrick gets it done with strength, dedication, and, yes, a toughness that I find very admirable.

So, anyway, is your post about decrying the rule changes that have made physical play harder to get away with, or is it about the current Celtics not being tough enough?

[CaptChris]

The idea that the Celtics are physically tough. They aren't. They are the worst "O" rebounding team in the league. The worst rebounding team over-all.

See many TOUGH rebounds from the starting 5? Or do you see too many times when there is not one Celtic under the boards. They don't box out on the "D" end and allow too many "O" rebounds and 2nd chance points to our opponents. That's a TEAM problem.

Perk plays very well in the team "D" SYSTEM. He is a SYSTEM player. His scoring comes from getting open for easy lay-ups. Works well for him. The bit that his scowl makes him tough. The make believe rage that requires a bitch on every call. The idea if you look mean -- you are, doesn't hold up. He is just an average rebounder. Not a good one. Yet, when he went south this year, and played soft for 6 weeks, his fans never questioned his lack of effort. How come? YOu want to be the tough guy, you bang the boards and play hard all the time.

The knock isn't on Perk alone. It is the whole TEAM. You want to win in the play-offs, you have to get physical. You have to get every loose ball. Chase every rebound.

Watch how many times when the 2nd unit is on the floor, BB is the only guy fighting for a rebound. Sometimes you see him, and 3 guys from the other team. Funny thing is that he gets "O" boards with no help. Too bad he can't make a shot after getting the ball.

[Spleen]

See many TOUGH rebounds from the starting 5? Or do you see too many times when there is not one Celtic under the boards. They don't box out on the "D" end and allow too many "O" rebounds and 2nd chance points to our opponents. That's a TEAM problem.

Perk plays very well in the team "D" SYSTEM. He is a SYSTEM player. His scoring comes from getting open for easy lay-ups. Works well for him...

Offensive rebounds are virtually non-existent in part due to the perimeter play that we are seeing from most of our front court players, and also that they are "cheating" back on defense rather than charging in for an offensive rebound. This may help slow down breakaways, but doesn't help keep a ball alive in their offensive zone. Davis at 17 minutes a game leads the club in offensive rebounds. Wallace at 23 minutes is doing his part with 0.5 O-Boards a game. Pierce's rebounds are down a couple a game from his career average, and of course Garnett's career average of 10.9 is down to 7.4. This has led to a twist on the old one-and-done from the Walker days. We may not always be shooting from the 3-Point line, but if it doesn't go in, there isn't anyone in green fighting for it, they're already heading back down in the other direction. Another sign of age is when you have to "cheat" on getting back.

None of this is going to change between now and the end of the Celtic's year be it in the first or second round. We won't be drafting very high, so what are the chances of finding another Jefferson this year? Oh Semeth our European savior, where art thou oh Semeth? All hope rests at your feet, which may be rather telling of where the franchise is heading.

The fact that the rules changed almost 20 years ago should not be a reason why we don't do a particularly good job rebounding. Other teams adapted and have been successful, and other than the 2007/2008 season, it would be hard to say that the men in green have been totally in sync with the game as it is played today. Two years ago we won 66 games and a championship, and last year it 62 games without Garnett at the end. This year we will be in the low 50's at best. Safe to say the "Run" as brief as it was, is all but over? The Big Three aren't nearly so big anymore.

Looking forward we have a rising star PG in Rondo, a solid journeyman center in Perk who needs structure to be effective, but we'll need replacements at both the small forward and power forward positions soon enough. Big Belly won't be a full time PF on a good team, Wallace should have stayed in Detroit, and Finley, TA, RA, Robinson, Daniels, Williams, and Scal all have expiring contracts. Realistically, would we want to compete on the free agent market for most of them? Just hoping that we don't have to wait another 22 years before another title comes back to Boston.

[RondoFan00]

Remind me again how many titles the Knicks and the Pacers won in those days.

Back in the old days . . . up hill . . . both ways . . . four feet of snow . . . no shoes (http://sneakermaniac.com) . . . blah, blah, blah . . .

Tough, oh, we were so tough . . . back when we were tough.

Hahaha, I don't think the Knicks and Pacers did much.. Well... We might of been tough then but let's talk about the present... Yeah... Not so tough when all our players are over 30... Sad.