Eastern Conference Scout: “Without Rondo, Miami wins in five”
Scouts don't like Boston's chances against Miami.
ESPN’s basketball scribe Marc Stein caught up with several NBA scouts on his Weekend Dime, and one Eastern Conference scout didn’t have good things to say about the Boston’s chances against the Heat.
Eastern Conference scout on the ceiling for the Rajon Rondo-less Celtics:
“I’ll buy your [contention] that they’re playing happier without him, but when it comes down to the big games, you need a couple a-holes. And Rondo is the leading a-hole Boston has. He affects the game like nobody else.
“During the regular season, I agree, he plays for stats too much, but when it comes to the playoffs, he’s playing to win the game. He’s definitely a diva and he definitely has his issues, but who does Miami have to game-plan for if Rondo isn’t there? Paul Pierce is a warrior, but he’s only going to be able to play 15 top-level minutes out of 30. [Kevin Garnett] is a defensive specialist at this point in time. The totality of the Heat overtakes the totality of the Celtics when Rondo’s not there, but I still think he’s in Miami’s heads and the Celtics are in the Heat’s heads when the teams are at full strength.
“Without Rondo, Miami wins that series in five.”
Duly noted, Eastern Conference Scout, and you might be right. But given recent history, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.
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Celtics Blog | Tom Westerholm | March 10, 2013
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james you should modify the end of your post to say:go rondo 8===>
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7 game series…no less.
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We can and will beat Miami this year in the playoffs
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We can’t beat the worst team without PP. And you think we can beat Miami w/o RR and JS??? PP would not have reversed the 16 offensive rebs we gave up, but would have maybe cut in half the 19 extra rebs we were crushed by. Go Cs…it’s over kids! Great defense, no offense Cs.
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I agree w/ chris-Celts can & will beat miami! pacers could possibly beat miami but less of a shot than Celts & ny less of a shot than pacers. The media keeps harping on who can beat miami hyping it up, but the real question is when you get right down to the players themselves-miami doesn’t want to face Celts more so than the Celts thoughts on facing them! The Celts are the strongest competition in the east even w/o Rondo & miami knows that-i’ll bet that’s what they would say if u asked them! Go get it Celts!
CELTICS-HORAAH-UBUNTU!!!
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Also the Celts don’t care who they face all thru playoffs-bring on anybody!
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I know you beat the Heat overtine the second time you olayed them, but they got the Celtics the first game pretty good,now remember,Lebron will kick up a few notches at playoff time,surely you know and havw experienced it 2 years already,now Lebron is playing at a much higher level,and he and the Heat will defend with evrything they have,they are the CHAMPS,it won”t be easy, be careful what you wish for.
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