Youth will be served over final five games
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Doc Rivers is going to get a good look at his young players in the remaining five games, including new fan favorite, Gerald Green.
(Globe Staff Photo / Matthew J. Lee) |
No more Wally. No more Big Al. Who knows about Delonte? The Celtics have two rotation regulars out for the year (Wally Szczerbiak and Al Jefferson), another who may not play tomorrow night (Delonte West, sore calf), and five games left, all against playoff teams.
You could say Doc Rivers has everything the way he wants it. Or not.
The final five games of the soon-to-be-forgotten 2005-06 campaign will feature what many fans wanted to see along: kids, kids, and more kids. (There'd be even more if Big Al were able to go.) Be prepared to see a lot of Gerald Green, who is fast emerging as a fan favorite, Tony Allen, the reliably efficient Ryan Gomes, Kendrick Perkins, and even Dwayne Jones.
But, Rivers cautioned after Sunday's unseemly bludgeoning by the Knicks, don't get carried away by what you see now.
''Young guys and backup quarterbacks -- everyone wants to see them," Rivers said. ''[The kids] have a chance to be really good, but they're not there yet. I'm patient with that. I understand that."
The stakes are not high for the Celtics. They will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2001; all that's remaining is when the official elimination will come. They could have a say, however, in who finishes with the East's second-best record, depending on how they fare in their two games with New Jersey (Friday at home, Sunday in Jersey) and in the season finale at home against Miami.
At 32-45, they need to win three games to avoid having the worst record since the 1996-97 unit went 15-67 in its futile bid to get Tim Duncan. Since then, the worst Boston team over 82 games was Rick Pitino's 1999-00 assemblage, which went 35-47.
Rivers already made his bed with the kids and he's now sleeping in it for the rest of the season. When did we ever think we'd see a game in which Green logged more minutes than Paul Pierce, which was the case Sunday? Green played a team-high 34:52, Pierce 32:44.
Allen, too, played longer than Pierce, who played less than six minutes in the fourth quarter, when Boston was getting mauled by a Knicks unit consisting of Jamal Crawford, three players who weren't in the league last year (Nate Robinson, David Lee, and Jackie Butler), and a fifth who played all of 40 minutes last year (Qyntel Woods). Crawford outscored the Celtics in the quarter, 11-10, and Lee outrebounded the Celtics, 7-5.
Rivers said after the abomination that he was going to keep playing the young guys as much as he can.
''I told the veterans it's tough on them, because they know we're going to have these different lineups on the floor," Rivers said.
Said Raef LaFrentz, ''I think there's an enormous amount of talent in this locker room, but you have to have an atmosphere that stays positive and allows you to play together as a team. There are a lot of kids here. It's a good place for them to grow."
