After years and years of deep lamentations from the Boston faithful, we actually have reason beyond our stubborn Massachusetts pride to cheer for the boys opposite old North Station. For the first time in almost 10 years, we can cheer for the Celtics openly, and without fear of prejudice or persecution.
And it's all thanks to Rick Pitino going home and away from the harsh Boston press and the players with ego's exceeding their oncourt hustle ten-fold. Thank you Rick, wherever you are, for leaving our fair city and turning your eyes back towards the world of basketball idealism that is the NCAA.
To be more accurate, the credit should be given not to Pitino (boy it seems difficult to mention those two terms in the same sentence) but to the new Jimmy O. Of course I refer to interim (a tag which had damn well better be dropped by season's end) head coach Jim O'Brien.
The is the second coming of James O'Brien. The first was of course that wonderful man who brought the Boston College Eagles to the Elite Eight only to run for the hills of Columbus, and the comfort of a job in the glamorous press haven that is Ohio State basketball.
O'Brien has been in the coaching ranks since joining Wheeling Jesuit College in 1974, and became a member of Pitino's New York Knicks staff in 1987. He later coached the Dayton Flyers to an NCAA tonament berth.
This was the last of the great coaching changes in Beantown over the last two years, following the line of Mike Keenan and Bill Belicheck coming in to replace Pat Burns and Pete Carroll. This has fortunately been the most successful one, at least thus far.
O'Brien stripped down the complex offense that Pitino has established, and it has produced outstanding results. The team has averaged 97.5 points per game after O'Brien's first week on the job, well above their current season average of 94.0.
Though this may seem insignificant to the average NBA fan, this simple addition of three and a half points would give the Celtics an additional four victories, and would be near overturning four other losses by either four or five points under the Pitino regime. Even splitting the other four games, the C's would be 27-21, which would place them at fifth in the Eastern Conference, instead of ninth, and only three games away from home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
What has changed? Either Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker were the team's leading scorer in 32 out of Pitino's 34 games, and in all 14 of O'Brien's. Yet the team is 9-5 under the new guy, and were 12-22 under the old guy.
One noticeable difference is in the style of player rotation. Pitino used a regular rotation of nine or 10 players, which meant that there were times when neither Pierce nor Walker were on the floor, and times when they were slightly out of position and were not the best scoring option on the floor.
Under O'Brien's system a maximum of eight players rotate, and one of the stars is always on the court, and no matter what they are the go-to-guys. The difference may be philosophical, pitting Rick's "The ball should go through Antoine and Paul" against Jim's "The ball should go to Antoine and Paul."
Given that Pierce (24.5 ppg) and Walker (22.6 ppg) score just over half the teams points, you would assume them to be taking the majority of shots. Pitino was forever looking for a "third weapon" at times trying Bryant Stith, Tony Battie, Vitaly Potapenko, and Eric Williams as a major offensive option.
In O'Brien's new system he realizes that though he has a lot of fourth and fifth option scores, with five players between six and 10 points per game, he has two outstanding options. So instead of looking for a third, O'Brien would rather just keep giving it to the two.
The new approach seems to have helped out, as the Leprechaun's charges were 4-8 in games decided by five points or less under Ricky P but are already 3-2 under Jimmy O. In case you're thinking that all O'Brien has done is coach less and let his stars shoot more, think again.
O'Brien has finally got the team to use Pitino's ever recurring jabs of "play better defense" as they have allowed only 92 ppg contrasted with the 98.3 they were allowing under the wizard of the collegiate zone press. Now THAT takes skill as a coach.
So now you have an unheralded coach, playing within his talent pool, not overcoaching (like some Armani-wearing people I've seen), and getting his team to practice the defensive fundamentals that they had always heard preached.
The result is that the Celtics are now one of the most fun teams in the NBA to watch. In an era of obnoxious games with scores like 72-58 (see earlier invective on this topic), the C's have actually been involved in three games in which the teams combined to score over 200 points.
Oh yeah, and maybe, just maybe, the Celtics will keep this up (please Larry, say a little prayer for us, would ya?) and Boston will see its first playoff-bound basketball team since the days of Reggie Lewis. Not to be too greedy, but can I ask that we get to play the Knicks in the first
