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[Lightskinsmurf]

Pierce has clearly gotten worse over the last 2 years or so. Without even looking at the numbers i can see that myself by just watching the games. Yes he has those games where he looks like himself but overall hes been inconsistent with his shot and a step slower on defense.

He has been pretty consistent with getting points one way or another. I don't want pierce shooting 25 shots a game tho. I like what he did the other day. I think he only shot 11 shots.

For people who can't comprehend this post was mainly to give pierce a day off after playing 45mins the previous night. The bonus was just to be able to see green in the starting linuep. This post wasn't calling for pierce to be benched for good.

I know alot of you saw the title of the thread and before even reading you made up your mind you were gonna defend paul pierce. Pierce needs to keep his shots down and stop jacking up 3's.

It's not an issue of comprehension, it's an issue of disagreement.  I would love to see Paul Pierce kept down to around thirty minutes a game, but he is, and should absolutely be, our starting small forward.  We needed the win last night, and it would have been crazy to rest one of our best players just because he played big minutes the night before.

I know Greg Popovich does it, but even though he is a great coach, that guy is slightly crazy.

No it wouldn't have been crazy at all. No win right now is a MUST WIN. Unless we go on some crazy losing streak its too early in the season to be declaring any win a must win. Health is far more important and this is why i love pop, he gets that. And yet he still winds up with one of the best records in basketball every year.

[JSD]

Well, not actuallyBENCH..PP, just start jeff...i think every guy on our team should get a chance to start during the season....it brings them into the fold faster...! TEAM, starts at the top, the players usually always want to be a part....so bring them in..! If you bruise an ego, so what...growing up is hard to do...at first.....esp if you have a too big ego...!

Agreed, TP

This isn't high school ball or some summer rec league. This is professional basketball. You coach like a professional by treating the players on your team like professionals.

And you do that by defining a role for each player and making that player fill that role to the best of their capabilities. You earn the players respect by giving it respect to them. You do that by

- Not disrespecting the stars of your team
- Not jerking starters in and out of lineups for no reason
- Making players that haven't proven anything prove they deserve playing time before giving them playing time.
-Being as consistent in your decision making and management of your players as you possibly can.

Benching Pierce to give Green a start is violating every tenet of that philosophy. Green's JOB is to come off the bench, rebound, play great defense and score this year. Its not to start. He's has only been doing that job well for 3-4 games at best all year. He's only now starting to show any consistent scoring punch.

Pierce is this team's captain and leader. He's earned the respect and right to play in the starters role as long as he wants.

That's all good basketball coaching. Anything else is just plain bad basketball coaching and quite honestly, not in the best interest of this team as a whole.

So enough with the ridiculous calls for starting Green. He's a bench player. Let him start getting used to that and excelling at that role. That's what this team needs. That and for Bradley and his exceptional defense to return.

This is a great post because it sums up quite nicely how Doc manages this team when it comes to roles. That being said I disagree with your conclusion. At what point do we revaluate a player who is not working out in their current role? Going by this logic it just wouldn't happen.

[Celtics18]

Pierce has clearly gotten worse over the last 2 years or so. Without even looking at the numbers i can see that myself by just watching the games. Yes he has those games where he looks like himself but overall hes been inconsistent with his shot and a step slower on defense.

He has been pretty consistent with getting points one way or another. I don't want pierce shooting 25 shots a game tho. I like what he did the other day. I think he only shot 11 shots.

For people who can't comprehend this post was mainly to give pierce a day off after playing 45mins the previous night. The bonus was just to be able to see green in the starting linuep. This post wasn't calling for pierce to be benched for good.

I know alot of you saw the title of the thread and before even reading you made up your mind you were gonna defend paul pierce. Pierce needs to keep his shots down and stop jacking up 3's.

It's not an issue of comprehension, it's an issue of disagreement.  I would love to see Paul Pierce kept down to around thirty minutes a game, but he is, and should absolutely be, our starting small forward.  We needed the win last night, and it would have been crazy to rest one of our best players just because he played big minutes the night before.

I know Greg Popovich does it, but even though he is a great coach, that guy is slightly crazy.

No it wouldn't have been crazy at all. No win right now is a MUST WIN. Unless we go on some crazy losing streak its too early in the season to be declaring any win a must win. Health is far more important and this is why i love pop, he gets that. And yet he still winds up with one of the best records in basketball every year.

It may not have been a must win, it being in early December and all, but it was certainly a game that the team really, really wanted.  We were coming off a loss to the same team--a division rival--the night before, the team's hovering around .500, and the fans are getting extremely restless.  When Pop gave his guys the night off they had the best record in the league and were playing really well.  The night off was as much a reward for the early season success as anything else.
 
No one on our roster deserved to be rewarded with a night off last night.  If Paul Pierce had gotten the night off, I guarantee he wouldn't have seen it as a reward anyway. 

Anyway, Paul had 9 assists last night with only one turnover, and he only took eleven shots, hitting a respectable five of those for fifteen points.  He must have been reading a lot of the posts on these forums, and heeded our advice about efficiency.

I'm glad he played last night.  Without him we risked back-to-back losses to Philly and a .500 record.  Celtics fans would have been screaming to trade and fire everybody.  They might even have requested to move the team out of New England.

Now we can all breathe 'till Wednesday. 

[alajet]

Pierce has clearly gotten worse over the last 2 years or so. Without even looking at the numbers i can see that myself by just watching the games. Yes he has those games where he looks like himself but overall hes been inconsistent with his shot and a step slower on defense.

He has been pretty consistent with getting points one way or another. I don't want pierce shooting 25 shots a game tho. I like what he did the other day. I think he only shot 11 shots.

For people who can't comprehend this post was mainly to give pierce a day off after playing 45mins the previous night. The bonus was just to be able to see green in the starting linuep. This post wasn't calling for pierce to be benched for good.

I know alot of you saw the title of the thread and before even reading you made up your mind you were gonna defend paul pierce. Pierce needs to keep his shots down and stop jacking up 3's.

He came into last night's game averaging 14.8 shots per game, pretty much identical to his previous season mark of 14.5 shots. That 24 shots was an exceptional case.
Plus, he's a volume scorer. With him taking around 10 shots or so, for a win, we must play more than solid defense and it hasn't been happening so far this season.

When you can't defend well as a team, you force your way through winning by offense and it causes a downfall on efficiency.

[LooseCannon]

For people who can't comprehend this post was mainly to give pierce a day off after playing 45mins the previous night. The bonus was just to be able to see green in the starting linuep. This post wasn't calling for pierce to be benched for good.

Doc should wait until the Celtics have a nationally televised game before giving Pierce the night off.