Knicks flip-flop on doubling Pierce in Game 4
The biggest head scratching move on what hopefully will turn out to be a series swinging Celtics game 4 win, was the Knicks deciding to no longer double Paul Pierce and Jeff Green. The Knicks went away from throwing two guys on them for every first catch, but why? Clearly it had been working in the first three games and inexplicably they decided to stop doing that in the first half. Per Gary Dzen from the Boston Globe’s twitter account, Pierce’s thoughts on not being doubled:
Pierce on not being doubled: "Yeah it was sort of surprising. Usually they get the ball out of my hands a little bit earlier."What an interesting move by Mike Woodson, who had arguably been winning the coaching battle to this point in the series. Maybe he was just outcoaching himself, but he realized his blunder and went back to doubling Pierce in the second half and the Knicks made up the 20-point deficit. In the first half the captain was 6 of 9 for 17 points and 1 turnover, but in the second half when they resumed trapping him he was 3 of 11 with 5 turnovers.
— Gary Dzen (@GlobeGaryDzen) April 29, 2013
Hopefully this game four win will swing some momentum in our favor or at the very least give Jason Terry some extreme confidence and give the bench a boost. The Celtics needs to build upon the good and bad of this win, and find a way to beat the trapping. Make the Knicks play us straight up, and we can beat them! When the Red Sox made their amazing comeback from 3 games down to the Yankees in 2004, before game 4 Kevin Millar said ‘Don’t let us win this game tonight’. I feel this win on Sunday will help us turn this series around, you gotta keep the faith you guys!
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