The Enigmatic Antoine Walker, Part I

Sticking with the theme of the "good, the bad and the ugly," let's take a closer look at Walker's game. Again, we'll start with the "good." Hall of Famer Tommy Heinsohn won eight championships as a Celtics player, coached Boston to titles in 1974 and 1976 and currently is a color commentator on Celtics broadcasts. Here's what he says about Walker: "Antoine Walker is a very gifted player. He is a very knowledgeable, intelligent player. He has great passing skills and he also has the ability to score from various places on the floor. The first year that he played with the Celtics he showed that he was a terrific inside player and a terrific offensive rebounder. He was among the league leaders in offensive rebounds in his rookie season. Since then, what happened is when the coaching staff changed they relied on his passing skills and made him the guy who initiated the offense, so he played most of the game outside of the foul line. So that element-the rebounding element of his game-really just showed up on the defensive boards. Now what they are asking him to do since he came back is to play more like he played in his first year-to get on the offensive boards and to not shoot threes--or only shoot them when the clock is winding down--and to become a passer out of double teams in the post instead of initiating the offense and getting the ball to Pierce-other people can do that. That's the contribution that he has made and he is adept at adjusting to what they want."

After Walker's great game six performance, Boston Coach Doc Rivers made this assessment: "He's got a quirky game. He makes threes and misses layups and then he makes layups and misses threes. He just plays. He had his head down in the second quarter (after missing several shots) and I told him, 'Toine, the odds are on your side. Just keep playing.' He's playing his heart out, (whether) things are going well for him or they're not going well for him...More importantly, Toine helped us on the defensive end. When they went small he guarded O'Neal down the stretch and hung with him. He lasted a good eight, nine minutes with five fouls. I'm really happy with him. I'm really happy that he made a big shot for us. That was really nice to see."

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