air's Celtics dynasty

[air]

I can finally get my dynasty underway now that my internet connection is working (for the time being).

I'll be playing a 58-game season with the Boston Celtics at 11 minute quarters. I'll be posting a full roster and my sliders soon, but first I'll make a few preseason posts.

I haven't quite decided on how to run this one, the trouble is right now I have a bit too much time on my hands so there might be a couple of two-game or three-game recaps because I don't think it's any use posting three different recaps. Or then I'll just be playing one game per day at most.

I'll try bring this to life with a couple of things, I'm not a good photo editor but maybe I will get better. The following is from my first monthly Celtics Magazine.

[air]

Introducing the starters

Raef LaFrentz, center
LaFrentz is starting his eighth year in the NBA. The veteran center played for two teams before joining the Celtics. He has great range and shooting ability for a center, but he will also have to match up against some of the most powerful players in the league. The pressure will be on the big man to deliver.

"I think there's always been pressure on me to score because I shoot better than most centers", says LaFrentz. "I'm used to the situation so that will make it easier for me to find my shooting touch."

Al Jefferson, power forward
It looks to be a big sophomore season for Jefferson. He started just one game in his rookie year, but this season he will have a chance to make a big impact at starting power forward. He can match anyone in strength, but needs to work on his jump shot and free throw shooting. Other than that, he seems ready to take a big role on the team and we will see very soon how it works out.

"Doc [Rivers] has talked to me a lot and I know he has a lot of faith in me", Jefferson points out. "I feel like I already owe him a lot so I must play hard in return."

Paul Pierce, small forward
Pierce's role in the Celtics team is clear: he is the franchise player who needs to score night after night to bring success to Boston. Other than that, he also needs to get his teammates involved and provide some defensive intensity. It's a lot to ask from any player, but Celtics fans have come to know that Paul Pierce is always up to the task.

"I definitely see myself as a leader", he says. "There's a lot of young players on our team right now and it's my responsibility to help them and lead the team through tough stretches."

Ricky Davis, shooting guard
Last season, basketball fans saw some great performances by Davis, who firmly established his position as a Celtics fan favourite. They will be hoping for more high-flying action from the guard, as well as lots of points to take some pressure off Pierce on the offence. Davis can also score with ease on the fast break.

"Usually, when I'm scoring it also means the team is doing good", Davis explains. "It starts with good defence, then we get our opponent to turn the ball over and get up the floor quickly. That's where I'm at my best."

Dan Dickau, point guard
Dickau came to Boston from the New Orleans Hornets during the offseason, where Chris Paul and Speedy Claxton had him playing only spare minutes. But it won't be easy for Dickau in Boston either, Delonte West and Marcus Banks are both solid point guards and it remains to be seen which one of them will be playing most minutes. Dickau is a good playmaker, but West is quicker and better defensively, while Banks can really provide the team with some energy coming off the bench.

"I want to start, but it's not my decision to make who starts", says Dickau. "All I can do is work to earn the starting spot."

[air]

Boston.com will be bringing you the action after every Celtics game.



CELTICS MAKE POOR FINAL PREPARATION

Boston 88
Washington 105


Gilbert Arenas goes up and draws the foul.

Boston Celtics lost heavily to the Washington Wizards in their final preseason game. They played little defence and turned the ball over countless times, 29 in fact to Washington's 12 turnovers, and taking 14 shots less than their opponents due to the turnovers. This meant a Celtics win never looked likely, as they were always a step behind their opponents.

Paul Pierce led the Celtics with 27 points and seven rebounds. Ricky Davis and Raef LaFrentz added 15 points each, and rookie Gerald Green made some spectacular plays to get 11 points. Power forward Al Jefferson scored just two points. Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison both had 18 for the Wizards, but player of the game was Caron Butler with 16 points, three steals and an impressive eight assists.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers was not a happy man.

"You can't win a basketball game if you lose the ball all the time. I know that, the players know that, everyone knows that. It's always easy to point fingers at players who didn't play well but we were a bad team tonight."

"We played difficult basketball. We must focus on the simple things like holding onto the ball and staying with our man on defence", said Paul Pierce.

The Celtics open their regular season with a game against the New Jersey Nets.

Starters:
Boston: C R. LaFrentz, F A. Jefferson, F P. Pierce, G R. Davis, G D. Dickau.
Washington: C B. Haywood, F A. Jamison, F J. Jeffries, G C. Butler, G G. Arenas.

[nbalive744]

Great start, Good luck in this dynasty, tough loss though.

[Blasphemy]

Nice magazine! Great start and keep it up! Good lukc here.

[Its_asdf]

Glad you've finally decided to start a dynasty, air. I'll obviously be following this one.

[Keo]

Great, you're back. Nice magazine and coverage on the starters. Tough loss, you didn't want to start the way that your Live 05 Dynasty was ending up. Hopefully, you can at last turn this around. Good luck next game.

[Mark.]

Nice start dude, I hope to see some good minutes for Green and Greene

[Kemp]

Good to see you are doing a 06 dynasty. I like the Ricky Davis' Cover, it looks good. I hope you can take the Celtics to the playoffs. Have fun and goodluck.

[[C][B]#4]

yah great to see u in the Live 06 dynasty section. Really enjoyed ur Denver and Cleveland Dynasties in 05 Nice Magazine btw..

[air]

Thanks for the responses everyone!!! I've had some real problems with my internet connection, it's only working time to time (and a very short time) so it might not be the best time to start a dynasty... And I also need to go check what's going on in other dynasties.

[air]

Some detailed dynasty info if you're interested or future reference or something

I will NOT be using the pro-hop/power dribble button at all. I mastered a post up move with this and Michael Olowokandi was my top scorer with the Timberwolves with his inside scoring at 5. Increasing charge/block fouls didn't help either because the defender got called for the foul more often.

I also have superstar abilities disabled on other teams than the Celtics, but I will also not be using superstar trigger. So I might as well disable mine too although I'm not sure if this will make players like Paul Pierce too weak.

I played against Miami and Wade scored 9 out of 10 shots in the fourth quarter so I figured there's no need for superstar abilities anyway!

Also, ALL players' offensive rebounds ratings are set to 1. I divided the offensive rebound rating by 10 and added the result to every player's defensive rebound rating. E.g. a player's def. reb. rating is 64 and his off. reb. rating is 52, his off. reb. rating becomes 1 and def. reb. rating becomes 69.

I took away around 20 to 35 points away from my centers and power forwards and small/power forwards' (Justin Reed, Brian Scalabrine, Ryan Gomes) DRIBBLING and INSIDE SCORING ratings and it's worked very well. If I trade for a similar player I'll probably be doing the same, I'll keep you posted.

So these are my sliders:

GLOBAL
Game Speed 44
Free Throw Difficulty 73
Boundary Force Field 60
Injury Frequency 43
Fatigue Effect 55
Charge/Block Foul Frequency 43
Shooting Foul Frequency 5
(otherwise it's too easy to draw fouls with your post players)
Reach-In Foul Frequency 12
In-Air Collision Foul Frequency 68

USER
Steal Ability 14
Interception Ability 12
Shot Block Ability 45
Dunk/Lay-up Block Ability 30
Freestyle Effectiveness 50
Dunk vs. Lay-up 5
Substitution Frequency 50
On-Ball Defence Assist 75
Offensive Rebounds 0
Defensive Rebounds 100
Short Range Shooting 40
Med Range Shooting 45
Long Range Shooting 43
Dunk Pct 50
Lay-up Pct 48
Adjusted Shot Pct 43
On-Ball Physical Defence 50
Poor Release Shot Pct 47
Double Team Effectiveness 50
Pro Hop Effectiveness 0
Drop Step Effectiveness 0
(I won't be using these anyway)

CPU
Steal Ability 50
Interception Ability 23
Shot Block Ability 50
Dunk/Lay-up Block Ability 28
Freestyle Effectiveness 50
Dunk Frequency 20
Substitution Frequency 50
Offensive Rebounds 0
Defensive Rebounds 100
Fakeout Discipline 50
Short Range Shooting 40
Med Range Shooting 44
Long Range Shooting 43
Dunk Pct 50
Lay-up Pct 48
Adjusted Shot Pct 43
Adjusted Shot Frequency 45
On-Ball Physical Defence 90
Poor Release Shot Pct 47
Double Team Effectiveness 100
Pro Hop Effectiveness 70
Drop Step Effectiveness 70

[Null17]

Great start. Everything looks solid. The magazine looks good. The writeups for the starters was a nice read as well

[air]

This is the Celtics roster as it looks before the season. I'm using rosters I made myself with some ratings from another update. This means some rookies are missing. Also, you can only have 15 players on the roster so I could only add one to my team and that is Ryan Gomes (Will Bynum, Orien Greene were cut, sorry).

[nbalive744]

Great sliders, the roster is looking good.

[Rommas]

this has great potential, i wish i has nba on the comp, i hate the digi cam pics with mine

[air]

Sharp-shooting Nets leave Celtics no chance

New Jersey 113, Boston 98
Box score

BOSTON, Oct. 30 (Ticker) -- Boston Celtics lost their season-opener against an impressive New Jersey Nets team. The Nets were always a step ahead, and whenever the Celtics made a great defensive effort, they couldn't follow up with making baskets on the offence. It wasn't such a bad game by the Celtics. They definitely have room for improvement on offence and defence, but the Nets were simply on fire, making nine threes several of them with a hand in the shooter's face.

Raef LaFrentz led the Celtics with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Paul Pierce had 16 and 8, Ricky Davis scored 14 and grabbed six rebounds. Jason Kidd was player of the game with 27 and seven assists, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson followed with 19 and 17 respectively.

"We'll be fine, I think", said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "It wasn't a very good game by us, but not all teams will be making so many contested shots."

"I'm not happy but this is not as bad as the figures show", Paul Pierce pointed out.


With Carter double-teamed, Jason Kidd took over and scored 27.


Determined Celtics dominate against Knicks

New York 98, Boston 118
Box score

BOSTON, Oct. 31 (Ticker) -- Boston Celtics looked a completely different team in their second game of the season. They came out to play and defend hard and were rewarded with a win. The Knicks had no easy shots at any point in the game. By half time, the Celtics had a 15-point lead and their only bump in the road was Stephon Marbury's excellent play. It was Marcus Banks who eventually held Marbury in the fourth quarter and also made the Knicks star work by taking the ball to the rim. The Celtics' lead had been cut to just ten points in the fourth quarter, but in the end they extended it to a comfortable 20-point margin.

Paul Pierce scored 24 and he could have had more, because he missed three open jump shots in the first half. Raef LaFrentz had 17 and Ricky Davis scored 16, Gerald Green and Marcus Banks had 12 each. Stephon Marbury finished with 25 points, and Knicks' shooter Quentin Richardson was limited to just 5 for 18 shooting and 13 points. Player of the game was Celtics' power forward Al Jefferson with 14 points, seven rebounds, three blocks and three assists.

"We played great defence. That's how you win games", declared coach Doc Rivers.

"We had to come out and win this one", said Marcus Banks. "It would have been a big disappointment for our fans to lose two home games to start the season."

The Celtics take on the Nuggets in Denver the day after tomorrow.


Rookie Gerald Green takes Trevor Ariza out on the dribble and finishes.

[air]

Thanks for your responses. You can give me feedback on the recaps if you want. I'll try to keep them quite short because as you can see I might be doing two recaps in the same post, at least during this 58-game season.

I'll also be doing another Celtics Magazine at the end of the month and some articles supposedly at Boston.com.

[Gator]

Awesome game! Nice graphics.

[cklitsie]

nice start, any trades planned?

[ShAuN]

nasty dynasty Good job

[Keo]

Tough loss to the Nets but really glad to see you beat the Knicks. Nice pic of Gerald Green.

[nbalive744]

Great job on the Boston win, nice pics.

[[C][B]#4]

good win against the knicks good luck against ur former team..denver

[Kemp]

Balance attacks by the Celtics, good blown out win against the Knicks. Al Jefferson is really playing well, especially on the defensive ends, 3 blocks.