I guess myself, espn.com, and common sense weren't enough to sway Doc Rivers. He started BRIAN SCALABRINE tonight! He played in the first 6 minutes with Garnett suspended and did jack squat. Leon mercifully came in to replace him and this better be one of those things like Doc pulled last year. Start someone and have them play roughly half of the first quarter and sit them on the bench for the rest of the game. There is no excuse for Leon to not start and as long as he doesn't get into foul trouble tonight, there is no reason why he shouldn't get upwards of 28-30 minutes. You can even make the lame argument that Leon is more effective because he comes off the bench and provides a spark but that doesn't fly after what he accomplished in the finals last year. That's the biggest stage there is, coming off the bench or not. And it's his third year in the league. Further proof that Doc is going to bail after the Big Three move along and has no interest in grooming the young guys for future success. Honestly Doc, just because your team is 9-2 and are the defending World Champs doesn't mean you can pull crap like this. Prove me wrong buddy.
Oh yeah, I just checked the play by play. Leon scored 6 points in the final minute of the quarter on two jump shots and two free throws.
P.S. If someone can come across an actual, real reason that Doc provided to start Scalabrine, holla.
EDIT: According to Boston.com, Doc wanted to "keep the second unit in tact." Yeah, a good way to do that is by putting a guy in who is below the second unit. They also reference the whopping 13 minutes Scalabrine played against the Bucks where he went 2-2 and had 1 assist. Great. The website also provided this gem that I addressed during the finals:
"After a 21-point effort in Game 2 of last year's NBA Finals, Powe put up a dud when he started Game 5 in place of Kendrick Perkins, going scoreless in 5 minutes of play."
Ugh.
Anyway, with 1:45 left in the 3rd quarter, Leon is leading the team with 14 points in just 15 minutes.
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2 comments:
Yeah, I almost fell out of my chair when I looked at the box score and saw Scals in the starting lineup. At least he still got more minutes than my brother-in-law's body double. 14 pts, 7 asts, a block and an assist... good day at the office.
The Globe had a totally unironic article the other day about how Scalabrine doesn't like when fans chant his name, because it flys in the face of Ubuntu to be cheering for a certain player to come into the game. They even had quotes from Doc saying how he notices the chants for Scals "throw off his game" because he knows so many fans are rooting for him.
Yeah.. it's the chants..
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