First impressions

Tuesday was a wonderful day. For the first time in almost six months, the Boston Celtics played a game of basketball. (And no, Summer League didn’t count.)

In the grand scheme of things, preseason basketball is exactly like preseason baseball, preseason football, and the over-50 volleyball games at your local YMCA: The results mean nothing. But that doesn’t mean that watching them isn’t fun, because it’s always a no-lose situation.

Your team wins? Great. They must really be coming together and clicking as a team. Your team loses? Who cares? They probably weren’t even trying to win anyway. The coach just wanted a better look at the depths of the roster ... no need to go to bed angry. Optimism always reigns supreme in the preseason, as you can see your team go winless for weeks and still be tied in the standings with the best teams in the league come Nov. 1. 0-0 is a beautiful record to have.

Regardless, the Celtics played their first of 8 meaningless October games Tuesday night, and all is right with the world. Sure, they beat the Cavs 109-93, but who cares? The real question is: How did they look? Well, there’s not an incredible amount you can judge from a team standpoint after only a single preseason game, but you can get a handle on individuals, and where they may fit in when the team starts playing the real games. So, after a playing single solitary game of preseason basketball, here are my first impressions:

Three who impressed:

1) Rajon Rondo

Telfair got the starting nod, and Telfair is the guy with 2 years of NBA experience, but Rondo was the one guy who really looked like he knew what he was doing running the C’s offense. All my offseason comments about Rondo vs. Marcus Williams, how people were using the Kentucky offensive system as a lame excuse for his disappointing college career... well, just throw all those comments back in my face and make me swallow them. I saw flashes in Summer League, but since that doesn’t count for anything (see above) I withheld praise. But now? I LOVE what I see.

First of all, Rondo had the demeanor of a true floor general. Where Telfair looked hesitant and sloppy running the offense, Rondo looked confident and like he knew exactly what he was doing. Calling offensive sets, calling for picks, making the perfect pass every single time. It was a revelation to watch him run this Celtics team.

Now, I’m not going to go completely overboard like Tommy Heinsohn and start throwing out Bob Cousy comparisons (I believe Tommy made the reference about a dozen times), but the C’s haven’t had a passer like Rondo in a long time. He made pinpoint perfect passes both in the half court and running the break that led to a number to easy baskets. He then followed that up on the other end by playing the best perimeter defense on the team, making steals and generally disrupting the Cavs guards. One of his most impressive plays didn’t even show up in the box score: Near half court, and setting up the offense, Rondo saw a seam emerge in a split second in the middle of the Cavs defense, so he threw a bullet, one-handed, bounce pass that had such good spin on it that it landed in Michael Olowokandi’s hands like a feather. Olowokandi’s contested hook shot missed, but that pass was a thing a beauty...and there’ were probably five others like it in the game. Anyway, speaking of the Big O...

2) Michael Olowokandi

If you’re like me, when you first heard Michael Olowokandi was in the C’s camp, you laughed, then figured it wasn’t true and someone was playing a joke on you, and then looked it up and realized it was true and laughed even harder. It had gotten so bad for the former NBA No. 1 draft pick that he basically had to crash a team’s camp and try and be the longest of long shots to make a roster that’s already so bloated that I’m pretty sure some of the guys are forced to share uniforms.

So what did the big softy do in the C’s first preseason game? He played like a man possessed. I mean, I have never seen the guy play so hard... not only hard, but extremely effectively. The Kandi Man went after every rebound like his next paycheck was wrapped inside it, and set picks that actually seemed to contain bone, skin and muscle mass (as opposed to his Casper-esque efforts in the past). It was like he morphed from Mr. Rogers to Bill Romanowski. His team-leading 10 rebounds (5 offensive) were impressive enough, but he did it all in 8 minutes, all in a row, all in the third quarter. He kept going and going, dominating the whole quarter. Simply shocking.

3) Gerald Green

I, along with many other people, had trouble seeing where Gerald Green was going to get playing time on a team with such a deep roster at the wing position. Well, If Gerald can play in every game like he did in the first preseason game, then it won’t matter what position he’ll be playing. He’ll be on the court regardless.

No longer does young Gerald look surprised and confused by every offensive and defensive set. Like Neo slowly discovering his powers to manipulate space and time in the Matrix, Gerald seemed to have had some sort of revelation in how to play team basketball.

GG introduced himself early in the second quarter with a two-handed windmill slam on a fast break, and the high-flying antics continued throughout the game. They crested with his impressive offensive rebound/emphatic dunk, beating two Cavs as well as Ryan Gomes to the rim. As impressive as Gerald’s dunks were, we all knew he could do that. But Gerald now seems to see the whole court as well. His defensive rotations were quicker, and although still not perfect, he has a great ability to close quickly on opposing guards and contest long-range shots with his speed and quick leaps.

The most impressive play from Gerald came in garbage time, when he forced a steal at mid-court, then without thinking twice fired a perfect pass to a streaking Brian Scalabrine for an uncontested layup. Anytime you can get Scal an uncontested lay-up, you’ve just done something magical. Gerald made a strong, strong case for playing time in his first exhibition game.

Honorable mention: Kendrick Perkins

He hit the boards like he always does, and looks slightly improved on defense (although he still has fouling problems), but Perk impressed me most on offense. Looks like he spent the summer working on that baby hook shot. If he can continue to score like that in the post, then the C’s have hope when teams slow them down and they’re forced to run effective half court sets. Between him and Al (who just missed the honorable mention), offense in the post looks to be improved this year.

Three who disappointed:

1) Sebastian Telfair

Telfair got the starting nod at the point, and looked pretty shaky at the start, throwing an errant pass in the C’s first possession that led to a LeBron fast break dunk. Sebastian (I refuse to call him "Bassy" - it sounds like something you'd name a cow) looked uneasy running the offense early, and the C’s were kept from getting their open-court game going and had some bad looking half-court sets. He just looked totally out of sync with the C’s first unit, not really penetrating the way he can and turning the ball over. In the first quarter, the Cavs were the fast-breaking team and the C’s were just plodding, not a good sign for Telfair, who’s supposed to bring the tempo up in the first unit.

As the game progressed and he was mixed with different lineups, Telfair got more comfortable, using his quickness and ball-handling to get by defenders for lay-ups. Once the game opened up and the C’s were running, he looked much more comfortable passing the ball as well. But he didn’t really do anything to impress defensively, and Doc supposedly has stressed D above almost all else during training camp. So, to me, it was an unimpressive first outing with Telfair on the C’s. Juxtaposed against Rondo’s brilliant performance in all aspects of the game, Telfair came away looking worse than he probably was.

2) Theo Ratliff

Theo didn’t see any court time after starting and playing the first five minutes, but those were about an unmemorable five minutes as you can have in a Celtics debut. A complete non-factor on both the offensive and defensive end, Ratliff either seemed old or uninterested in the game. He picked up two quick fouls while trying to contest shots, and also got beat for scores a few times down low. We know he’s a good defender, but he didn’t show any of it in his limited playing time.

Now, to be fair to Theo, his five minutes in the game were the five worst minutes the team had as a whole, as Telfair was having his problems getting the team going early on. Theo may not feel the need to go all out in preseason in order to preserve his health for the games that count. Still, I was hoping for more.

3) Wally Szczerbiak

Wally didn’t really do anything bad or wrong in this game, but he really didn’t bring much to it either. He seems to be moving around better on his knee, which is a good sign, but it’s clear that even at 100 percent he still will be unable to guard many 3's on the perimeter...he’s just too easy a defender to get by. On offense, he was about as cold as he’ll ever get, going 1 for 8 and missing mostly face-up shots. He didn’t try to post up very much, which is one of the greater strengths of his game. Overall, he wasn’t very involved in the offense in his 15 minutes on the court, failing to pick up and assist and only gathering a single board.

Like Theo, Wally probably doesn’t need to kill himself in these games, and is probably focusing first and foremost on remaining healthy and getting back into the swing of things on the basketball court. I can only hope we’ll see Wally more involved--especially on offense--as we get closer to the season.

Honorable mention: Kevin Pittsnogle

Didn’t really have any positive expectations here, so it’s hard to say it was a real big disappointment. But frankly, I was a little embarrassed for him watching his garbage-time minutes. Slow, weak, uncoordinated, likes to shoot three-pointers with limited success... we already have red-haired guy on the team who fulfills that roll. Sorry, ‘Snogle.