With 31 points last night Paul Pierce has now scored 30 or more points in 12 of his last 13 games. He is the first player in the history of the franchise to accomplish that.
Paul Pierce is winning basketball games with future CBA All Star talent like Orien Greene, Brian Scalanbrine and Michael Olowokandi playing major minutes and the injured and poor-dribbling Tony Allen logging half the night at PG.
If you ain't watching the team these days you are missing the greatest basketball to be played by an individual in a Celtics uniform in twenty years.
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Please say more about Ryan Gomes.
Gomes has been fantastic to watch. I think it has helped him enormously that he's been playing at PF, which was his natural position for the first three years of college.
His senior year at Providence he starting playing outside after everyone told him that he would only have a long-term career in the pros at SF. Earlier this season he was battling with Justin Reed for minutes backing up Pierce at SF and was completely forgettable in the limited minutes he saw there.
All that said, last night showed his potential and his weaknesses. Gomes only scored 2 points in the second half because he was completely shut down my Michael Ruffin (who? exactly) who ended up with 27 minutes after not playing at all in the first two quarters. Eddie Jordan made a nice adjustment to bring Ruffin off the end of the bench to play Gomes. Rivers then effectively countered by playing 'Kandi and Jefferson together, keying the run that got the Celtics back into the game.
Gomes does everything you could want when the ball isn't in his hands. I have to believe he will have a long career as the kind of player that every good team needs to have on their bench.
For those of you who remember my previous post on Gomes/Perkins/Jefferson, here's another nugget. In the 4 games since that post, he's averaged 16 points and 7 boards per, even as his minutes have dropped to approx 36 minutes per game. Even with the return of Jefferson and Perkins, I think we'll still be seeing about 30 minutes per game from Mr. Gomes.
I think you're right. Jefferson has been back for four games and is only playing something ~14 minutes a night in that time. I may be misreading his body language but either he is still hurt, in awful conditioning, or both.
This is probably the subject of another thread but I'm trying not to worry too much about Jefferson's poor conditioning this year and his struggles with the basics of team defense. To the extent that either are red flags about his work ethic and determination they would be bad news, indeed. The contrast between Jefferson and Perkins in these areas have been growing more and more striking.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Gomes start at PF for much of the rest of the season, with Perkins at C when he returns. Doc has been consistent about only giving Jefferson playing time to the extent he plays well, which would suggest 15-20 minutes a night off the bench the rest of the way.
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