Rondo Has Given Celtics Stability At Point

[baller4life]

On the day before he participated in his very first NBA playoff game, Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics was invited over to Ray Allen’s rather sumptuous suburban digs for food and conversation. Allen’s mom cooked up the meal. Rondo and Allen watched the playoffs, with Rondo zoning in on the Hornets’ Chris Paul.

At one point during the Hornets-Mavericks game, Rondo turned to his host and said, “I’ve got to be better than the guy I’m going to guard.’’ That would be the Hawks’ Mike Bibby, savvy playoff veteran. The next night, Rondo had 15 points, nine assists and two steals in the Celtics’ rather convincing 104-81 victory over Atlanta. Bibby? Five points, one assist.

“Only one game,’’ Rondo said. “I can do better.”


Rondo months ago put to rest any thought or suggestion that he might not be up to the task to be the starting point guard on a potential NBA championship team. He has made what seems to be a seamless transition from questionable shooter/occasional firebrand to calm, cool, assassin who, as he showed Atlanta in Game 1, is an utter pest on defense and, on offense, is to be left alone at one’s own peril.

Rondo’s made believers all over the NBA. Isiah Thomas, in one of his rare moments of lucidity, said of him, “He’s the guy who really makes them go. They don’t have another guy who does what he does. He’s tough. He’s gritty. He rebounds. He’s smart. He’s a perfect complement to those guys. I can’t say enough good things about him.”

Utah point guard Deron Williams is also an admirer. “He’s got the tools to be one of the best defensive point guards in this league – the long arms, the big, quick hands, the great anticipation,’’ Williams said. “And he’s added a lot to his offensive game. You can’t play off of him.”

But what most stands out in watching Rondo is that the kid – and he still is only 22 – never seems to get rattled. Nothing fazes him, be it a bad shooting night, an earful from coach Doc Rivers or a blown defensive assignment which finds Kevin Garnett in his face. “He was always that way,’’ asserts Tubby Smith, Rondo’s coach at Kentucky. “But that’s what you want from a point guard.”

Rondo also has evolved into a leader on the floor who now is unafraid to take shots, order his teammates around and generally play like a point guard is supposed to play. Other than Williams and Paul, there may not be another young point guard in the NBA with as much upside as this kid, who, lest we forget, is just completing his second NBA season with a completely different set of teammates (and circumstances) than he had in his first NBA season.

“He puts so much time into his game so it’s nice to see a guy who works on it and see it come to fruition,’’ Rivers said. “He’s so ahead of the curve. He started last year with a great IQ, which always helps because then you have something to work with. And then he has this self motivation that he wants to be good, that he wants to be the best. And he has the stubborn streak that sometimes gets in his way, but he has learned to move that out of the way and allowed himself to be coached.

“He’s one of the few that I’ve ever had in all my years of coaching that I’ve had to get on to trust his own natural abilities. And he has unbelievable natural instincts.”

Bibby already knew about Rondo long before Game 1. Rondo’s high school coach in Louisville was Doug Bibby and, as Rondo noted, “He’s kin with Mike.” As in, cousins. So Doug Bibby sent Rondo out to work with Mike Bibby in the summer when Mike Bibby was playing for the Sacramento Kings. Mike Bibby mostly remembers a skinny, determined teen-ager, but, he said, he told Rondo that the kid had a chance if he stayed with it.

Staying with it has not been a chore for Rondo. He knew his outside shot was always going to be a question mark (his high field-goal percentage at Kentucky was due mainly to layups and short shots) so he took 500 jump shots a day over the summer. He shot 41.8 percent as a rookie. He shot 49.2 percent this past season and, as he showed against the Hawks, the sight of him nailing an open 15- to 18-footer no longer is accompanied by dropping jaws. He’s a legitimate candidate for Most Improved Player when you think about it; Detroit coach Flip Saunders said he’d pick Rondo if he had a vote.

Rivers also sees an attitude improvement in his young guard. While Rondo projects the image of Mr. Unflappable on the court, he also has an emotional side, the stubborn side that Rivers mentioned.

“We work on that,’’ Rivers said. “He had that problem at Kentucky. Someone would tell him something and he always saw it as criticism, instead of coaching. He’d close down. If there’s a big improvement this year, that’s it. Now, if someone tries to get on him or tell him something, he doesn’t answer with a question anymore. He listens and digests it. It has allowed him to play freer.”

And it goes without saying that adding an offensive dimension to Rondo’s game makes the Celtics that much more unguardable, not to mention practically unbeatable. Opposing coaches are still trying to figure out ways to not have Rondo beat you with his defense, his rebounding (he actually led Kentucky in rebounding in his second season there), his athleticism (he was a high school quarterback), his quickness and his knack for appearing in the right place at the right time. Now, they have to figure out ways to have him not beat you at the other end, where fellows like Allen, Paul Pierce and Garnett are roaming.

“We were trying to match a bigger guy on Rondo, but he made some shots and we have to live with that,” Atlanta coach Mike Woodson said.

The Hawks get another opportunity on Wednesday night in Game 2 before the series shifts to Atlanta over the weekend. Rondo freely admits he may not be able to replicate the impressive offensive game he had in Game 1. But he is determined to surpass the just-as-impressive defensive game he had in Game 1.

The morning after he had abused Bibby, Rondo was back at practice, going over tape with Rivers.

“I was trying to go back and see what I did wrong, how to stop Bibby,” Rondo said.

But he only scored five points!

“I know,’’ Rondo said. “But I want to shut him down. Those five points he had were because of two wide-open looks that I gave him. I can’t settle for that. And I won’t settle for that.”

[Lil Pimp Tell 'Em]

fuck rondo