via Boston Globe:

The Celtics are going to announce the acquisition of veteran point guard Keyon Dooling from the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday, the first day of training camp and trades can become official, according to a league source.

The deal is expected to include a second-round draft pick headed to Milwaukee and it gives the Celtics a veteran backup point guard behind Rajon Rondo, who remains a Celtic after Chris Paul was dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers. The deal is somewhat complicated because the Celtics are over the salary cap.

I’m glad the Chris Paul trade was called off. Not just because the league’s (outrageously unpredictable and kooky) decision saved the world from eight consecutive LA-Miami NBA Finals, but also because we won’t view Keyon Dooling as a punchline anymore.

Now that Dooling is no longer a consolation prize Danny Ainge settled on after hunting down Paul with the ferocity of a tiger that hasn’t eaten in three weeks, we can see the acquisition for what it really is: a sneaky-good maneuver by Ainge.

Dooling will never be considered a superstar. He shot less than 40 percent during each of the last two seasons. He’s a decent three-point shooter (34.5 percent, a tick more than one make per game), but not a great one. He won’t light the world on fire with court vision, and nothing about his game makes basketball purists want to do break down and do the macarena. But here’s the catch:

Dooling led the Bucks in on-court/off-court differential last season. He led the New Jersey Nets in the same statistic the year before. If Jeff Green is an anti-gravitational force who looks talented while making his teams play worse whenever he steps on the court, Dooling is the opposite. The best guess for Dooling’s weird (and recent: the trend only dates back the last two seasons) tendency of improving his teams is that his defensive abilities are game-changing. Two seasons ago, New Jersey’s defense was 10.7 points per 100 possessions better when Dooling played. Last year, Milwaukee’s defense was 3.0 points better with Dooling on the court. He stops his own man, too: Dooling’s opponents had a well-below-average PER each of the past two seasons.

Danny Ainge needs to fill seven spots. He has no cash with which to do it. Dooling is a veteran who can contribute, and Ainge acquired him for a second-round pick. I’d say that’s a coup.

P.S. — Wait. The Celtics needed to upgrade their offense, not their defense? And Dooling shot 39.7 percent last season and 39.8 percent the season before? Doh.

P.P.S. — Spending a second-round pick to acquire a combo guard can’t be a good sign regarding Boston’s confidence in Avery Bradley. Maybe he should ask to stay at Doc’s house during training camp and be sure to do all the household chores this time around?

(h/t Dime Magazine)

It takes two to tango, or in this case, it takes two to contribute to historically bad offense. The Celtics were everywhere, making the same rotations they had missed lately. They defended like pitbulls, like a team (rightfully) pissed off after two straight bad losses, like a team desperately trying to hold onto the East’s number one seed. No shots came easy tonight, for Milwaukee. And the Bucks did not make very many tough ones.

In basically every way, the Celtics dominated. On the glass, Boston led 50-32. Assists? 19-13. The Celtics shot better, made more free throws, blocked more shots, and stole the ball more often. At halftime, the Celtics had scored only 39 points. Still, they led by 17 points. Yes, the Bucks had scored 22 points at halftime, while shooting 22.9%. All those misses left a whole lot of rebounds for the taking. But one Celtic rebounded the most. That would be Nenad Krstic.

Does playing alongside Kevin Garnett immediately make a center more feisty? I ask this question, of course, because Krstic continues to rebound the ball like an oddly-mustached, somewhat-balding version of Kevin Love. Do you want to know how many times Krstic reached double figure rebounds while playing for the Thunder this season? Exactly once. Now, he’s gobbled up 29 rebounds in the past two games, a stat sure to confound Krstic’s former coach, Scott Brooks, when he reads the box score tomorrow morning.

That box score will not prove be kind to the Bucks. At least, they can take solace in collectively beating Jimmer Fredette’s career high. In Fredette’s 52-point explosion against New Mexico on Friday, he shot 22-37 from the field. The Bucks, while scoring 56 points tonight (or, the least points in Bucks franchise history and the least points ever allowed in Celtics franchise history), shot 22-70. That’s a scorching 31.4%. Milwaukee’s leading scorer for the game, Earl Barron, scored ten points. Nobody else scored in double figures. It was as if the Bucks were the Space Jam Monstars, and they stole Adam Morrison’s, ahem, talent.

While the Bucks busied themselves throwing bricks, Jeff Green (again) looked impressive. He only shot 4-10 on his way to 11 points, so he wasn’t perfect. But he makes the game look easy, in ways sixth men can’t normally do. I know Green’s flaws, and I understand them. He’s not a great rebounder (read: he really sucks at rebounding), and he’s not exactly known as a devastating defender. Yet he has a rare ability to make basketball look simple. Talent oozes out of his pores, even when he doesn’t always play with perfect efficiency.

At some point in the first half, Tommy Heinsohn said something like, “Remember the championship season in 2008? The Celtics had a sixth man that year who played great defense.” Mike Gorman interjected something to the affect of, “His name was James Posey, Tommy. You bumbling idiot.” Without missing a beat, Tommy next became the first person in world history to make a Sasha Pavlovic-James Posey comparison. I imagine Posey has never been so deeply insulted.

Speaking of insults, Carlos Arroyo was cut from the Miami Heat. One man’s loss is another’s gain, as Arroyo has run the offense like no other backup point guard in the Big Three era. It’s early, I know. But in Sam Cassell, Eddie House (though I love him), Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson, Arroyo doesn’t have much competition. He didn’t play perfectly tonight — hell, he missed four of the five shots he took. Still, he’s a true point guard. He runs the offense. He quarterbacks the squad. He pushes the pace in transition, and finds his open teammates.

Arroyo finished with six assists, which, oddly enough, was twice the amount Rajon Rondo passed for. That makes eight assists for Rondo during his last two games combined, and he does seem a step slower than he did at the season’s beginning. He did receive quite a bit of rest today, playing only 23 minutes. All the starters, actually, got some nice time on the pine — nobody in Boston’s starting lineup even played thirty minutes.

Paul Pierce continues to have springs in his sneakers that weren’t there last season. Ray Allen can still shoot. Glen Davis returned, and played well. Troy Murphy balled out, providing hope. And Kevin Garnett still plays both ends of the floor quite well.

Every Celtic finished with a positive plus/minus. Every Buck finished with a negative plus/minus. At one point, Davis and Jon Brockman collided in the paint. “Which is like banging two Coke machines against each other,” said Gorman.

56 points. Wow.

Rajon Rondo has rarely played so poorly, Troy Murphy still hasn’t made a field goal in his brief Celtics career, and Avery Bradley continues to display the point guard skills of Kwame Brown. But the Celtics were in Milwaukee, playing a Bucks team that always seems to give them trouble, and shook off a miserably slow start to win, 89-83. Things could be a lot worse.

With the win, Boston now stands 5-0 in the Nenad Krstic/Jeff Green era. Krstic, again, was who we thought he was. He shot 7-8, making an assortment of layups and jumpers that all shouted “I’m infinitely more skilled than Kendrick Perkins.” But he also pulled down only three rebounds (in thirty minutes), seemed a step slow on quite a few rotations, and hardly made his presence known in the paint. I compare Krstic to Perkins only because he took Perk’s spot, and not because I’m still dwelling on the trade. Krstic is here, and he offers quite a few things the Celtics haven’t had during the Big Three era. But just as Krstic giveth, Krstic taketh away.

Green continued to impress offensively, proving himself as a weapon the Celtics can use in so many different ways. He again played shooting guard alongside Paul Pierce, in a lineup that causes mismatches everywhere. (Speaking of Pierce, he’s not supposed to have dunk-on-your-head athleticism anymore. He’s just not. He never had it last year, and I was 93% sure his career was in decline. Now, he looks like he’s back at Kansas, encouraging the student section to chant “Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk.” There’s a lot to be said for good health, and the motivation of losing Game 7.)

When watching Green play, he can obviously score with greater ease, and in a larger variety of ways, than most players. He hit a pull-up jumper. A hook shot. A tough, off-the-wrong-foot scoop in transition, after blurring down-court. He’s a walking mismatch, and, best yet, has taken only four three-pointers during his five games as a Celtic. For reference, Green averaged almost four three-point attempts per game with the Thunder (despite hitting only 30.4%). I’m not saying Green’s perfect. He still has to prove he can maintain his so-far-efficient play, and it would be nice if he’d look to crash the glass every once in a while. But, for now, his scoring’s enough to make the Celtics’ second unit significantly better, and its first unit far more flexible.

Kevin Garnett grabbed 33% of Boston’s rebounds, while notching his seventh double-double in the past eight games. That streak correlates loosely with Perk’s departure (combined with the O’Neal’s injuries), as the Celtics now need Garnett’s activity on the boards more than ever. Besides Garnett, Pierce corralled five rebounds and no other Celtics earned more than four.

I’m not going to fully discuss Rajon Rondo (mostly because he was quite obviously sleep-walking), but I will discuss his backup situation. As sad as it sounds, and it sounds as sad as Brian’s Song, the Celtics need Carlos Arroyo. Arroyo’s not a great point guard, or anywhere close to it. But, at this stage of Avery Bradley’s career, Arroyo represents a giant upgrade over Bradley.

In the oddest comparison you’ll hear today, I liken Bradley to the JaVale McGee of point guards. By that, I don’t mean Bradley can dunk on two separate hoops at once, nor can he dunk three balls during one leap. But, like McGee, Bradley possess few (no?) basketball instincts, as if he was born with all the physical talent in the world but none of the court awareness. Bradley often takes ten to twelve seconds just to get the Celtics into a set. Despite his great quickness, he never breaks down his defender to go to the hoop. He can make great plays that remind you of his potential (such as ripping Brandon Jennings’ dribble tonight), but he also repeatedly reveals how painfully far he is from truly learning the game of basketball.

Sasha Pavlovic would later hit a semi-important three-pointer, so I feel bad insulting his first shot. But did you see that thing? Employee Number 77 started dribbling left, turning back to his right, a swift and gorgeous move that lost his defender. All alone, Pavlovic had all the time in the world to release his shot. Of course, the shot would fall two Kevin Garnett wingspans short, and the possession would result in a shot clock violation.

Ladies and gentleman, your first introduction to Sasha Pavlovic. Enjoy him while you can.

The Morning Walkthrough is a set of links to Boston Celtics articles throughout the internet, designed to get your day started the right way.

Peter May, ESPN Boston – “He knew. The game was in overtime, every possession was magnified, focus was at a premium — and Paul Pierce knew. He dropped a free throw with 13.3 seconds remaining, then raised his arms as the TD Garden crowd gave him a standing ovation. Twenty-thousand points. He knew he needed 23 to get there, and this was No. 23. Somehow, amidst all the clamor, he knew. Don’t think for a minute these guys don’t know what they need to reach a certain milestone, be it 20,000 points or a triple-double. They do. … But this was a night for Pierce, a night he knew was coming but one that, not that long ago, he had every reason to believe would never happen in Boston. He’s now in the company of Bird and Havlicek, and, as he noted afterward, ‘Just to be mentioned in the same sentence with them is pretty special.’ He’s had a long, sometimes painful and occasionally bizarre history in Boston. But he belongs in any conversation of Celtics all-time greats. He did it the old-fashioned way. He earned it. Maybe that’s why he knew after all.” Read more »

Most people saw the Milwaukee Bucks’s offseason additions (Corey Maggette, Drew Gooden, Larry Sanders, Keyon Dooling, Jon Brockman, and Chris Douglas-Roberts) and figured the Bucks had improved. Maggette and Gooden presumably helped in areas the Bucks needed to improve: namely scoring, rebounding and accumulating copious amounts of free throw attempts.

Not me. Oh no way, not me. I realized just what the Bucks had actually done. They overspent on middling talents who impress with their physical abilities but lack the required basketball IQ and teamwork to utilize said abilities. Corey Maggete and Drew Gooden, on paper and in name, aren’t bad players. But if you ever sit and watch them, you’ll inevitably come away with the same impression: umm, are you sure those guys have been playing basketball all their lives?

Drew Gooden, if you look at his stats and production, ain’t bad. In fact, looking at only stats and then comparing him to fellow overpaid big men like Darko Milicic or Brendan Haywood, one might think Gooden is a steal. (I laugh at the thought.) But anyone who has ever watched Gooden for an extended period of time knows how much truth the following paragraph holds (by John Krolik at Cavs the Blog):

Gooden was an excellent rebounder, had a decent touch from mid-range, could occasionally score in the post, and could attack off the dribble. On paper, Drew Gooden was and is a very passable NBA power forward. However, Drew was always far worse than his package of skills would suggest he was. He was never a very efficient scorer, wasn’t very tough around the basket, would settle for too many midrange jumpers, and would often start dribbling towards the basket without any sort of plan. Defensively, he never had any clue what was going on, and would regularly miss rotations. He was a tentative finisher around the basket, often pivoting a few times and tossing up an oddly angled hook instead of just catching the ball and dunking.

Maggete’s very similar. He posts big scoring totals and gets to the free throw line far more often than a mediocre player should. He shoots a great true shooting percentage (61.5% last year), mostly because of his ability to draw fouls but also because he shoots a damn good percentage from the field (51.6% last year). That high shooting percentage helps Maggette shoot a very solid effective shooting percentage (52.3% last year), which does not account for his obscene ability to draw fouls. But Maggette is also a chemistry killer and — for lack of a better term — a ball hog.

If I had to use one sentence to describe Corey Maggette, it would be this: “He’s the man where ball movement comes to rest.” Maggette catches the ball and puts his head down, charging toward the rim like an angry bull on steroids. He draws an insane amount of fouls and scores at an efficient rate, but when I watch Maggette play I come to one conclusion: he’s one of the very last NBA players I’d want to play with.

Which brings me to my next point: The Bucks acquired two paper champions (okay, not champions) who have never shown a real ability to improve teams. And not only that, but they will pay the two players $49 million over the next three years (and Gooden an additional $13 million for the two years after that). To top it off, they spent another $40 million this summer to re-sign John Salmons — another mediocre player in his own right. Salmons at least fits into what they Bucks are trying to accomplish, but when you commit $24 million per year to that trio it’s tough to field a contender.

If the Bucks were looking to field a competitive team, to remain a mediocre 5th- or 6th-seed in the playoffs every year, they likely accomplished their goal. But if they were looking to contend for a championship at some point in the near future, I don’t see it.

And about the Bucks’ latest acquisitions, the ones that were supposed to bolster their chances of becoming a top-four seed in the East? The following quote might be telling.

“I think team chemistry in the NBA is very underrated,” said Bucks coach Scott Skiles. “You need chemistry to be successful and we don’t have that at the moment, but we’ll get it hopefully.”

Paul Pierce 23 points shy of 20,000

Do you know how many points 20,000 happens to be? Yeah, me too. A lot.

If (when?) Pierce scores 23 more points, he will join three current Celtics on the 20,000 point list. Pierce would be the 36th player in NBA history to accomplish the feat. Besides the current Celtics who already have 20,000 points (Shaq, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett), three former Celtics have scored 20,000: Larry Bird, John Havlicek and Robert Parish. (Note: Apologies go out to Gary Payton and Dominique Wilkins, who also scored 20,000 points. No, I cannot consider you guys Celtics.)

Clearly, Pierce will be in elite company.