Gambles not paying off

WALTHAM -- Thanks to Ricky Davis and rookie Tony Allen, the high-flying acrobatics of last season have returned to the Celtics' offensive repertoire.

This development highlights a couple of important facts. First, Boston will be an entertaining team if dunks are your thing. Second, the Celtics boast incredibly athletic players.

But it has also quickly become apparent that athleticism can be a blessing and a curse. The same athleticism that allows Davis, Allen, and Co. to soar above the rim also convinces the Celtics they can gamble in other areas. Coach Doc Rivers wants athletic, aggressive players, but he also wants a fundamentally smart team.

"The turnovers and our gambles hurt us [against Cleveland in a 96-91 loss at Mohegan Sun Saturday night]," said Rivers. "But those are fixable. Those are always discipline issues. Sometimes being athletic hurts you. We keep thinking we can make these plays by shooting the gap and going for steals. If you don't get them, it hurts your team. It breaks your team down and puts somebody else in foul trouble."

Against the Cavaliers, Raef LaFrentz picked up three of his five fouls because one of the Celtics' guards gambled and forced the power forward to step out and defend a guard. In its final two exhibition games, Boston will try to cut down on such costly errors.

During practice yesterday in preparation for a rematch tonight against the Cavaliers in Columbus, Ohio, the Celtics watched tape of their mistakes. Rivers and his staff highlighted the domino effect when one player takes a gamble.

Rivers said a recurring theme of the skull session was that players would attempt to block a fadeaway jump shot with less than three seconds remaining on the shot clock. Simply contesting the shot would have been fine. Instead, more often than not, the attempted block led to a foul. At one point it happened six times in a row.

"They're trying to do the right thing," said Rivers. "They're playing so hard that they're trying to make sure the guy doesn't [make a shot]. But you have to just trust in your rules. As a coach, [I can see] they are doing what we're asking them to do. They're playing hard. Then, at the end [of an opposing team's possession] they want to really stop them. We had a couple of possessions where we were really scrambling. We were playing great. Then we broke down at the very end and it was almost like, `OK, now that we've stopped them, we're going to really stop them.' "

Rivers reinforced his most important point with a specific example from the third quarter against Cleveland. The Celtics had held the Cavaliers scoreless to start the quarter and built a 10-point lead. Cleveland finally scored after Boston gambled on a pass from Jeff McInnis to LeBron James. With the defense out of position, the ball went back to McInnis and he hit a 12-footer. The basket generated momentum that eventually propelled the visitors to victory.

Making better decisions about when to be aggressive should come with time as the Celtics put more trust in their teammates. Until then, Rivers will keep talking about the downside of defensive gambles and keep drilling fundamentally sound defense.

"Here, if you make a mistake, it's different [than in college]," said Gary Payton. "If you play good defense for 20 seconds and then all of a sudden you want to go for a steal and your man goes by you, he hits a jump shot. We've got a lot of guys that [go for the steal] and it's trickling down to the whole team. A lot of us now are trying to take risks. We're not good enough to back up each other; if somebody goes for a steal, somebody won't be right there. We're going to have to keep people in front of us."

With veterans Paul Pierce and Tom Gugliotta back in the lineup tonight and the starters playing more, there should be a reduction in overzealous play. But the veterans are far from blameless for Boston's gambling nature.

"This is not a rookie thing," said Rivers. "This is a team thing. We are getting better. We've just got to keep working on it. The last four days, we've said everything is a little thing in practice. We'll blow the whistle every time they don't do one of the little things. If there is an extra gamble where they didn't have to, we'll blow the whistle and point it out."