The Bench Speaks In Its Modest Volumes

When not contemplating my increasing misgivings about Red Sox success, or reveling in Randy Moss' paramount greatness, this is what I've been thinking about:

-I'm kind of glad the Triumvirate are taking some time off from playing together; it was more interesting watching Ray out there with different combos on the floor. At this point in preseason it may be more important to mix and match the starters with reserves. I wonder who of the three won't play tonight.

-The C's bench is basically gonna be the main thing to watch the rest of the exhibition season, and whether they can cut it at all. I was mildly impressed with them the other night, they did some good things against an upstart Sixers team. Obviously soon the debate is going to arise whether one of the Triumvirate should always be on the floor, thus guaranteeing some kind of moderate offensive success. For those of us who have watched Glenn's second units the past few years, this seems like a pretty good idea. Glenn has consistently managed to make his second unit be completely flaccid offensively. I blame Glenn for this because often there has been some offensive talent out there in the second unit (ie Jefferson, Gomes, Tony Allen all came off the bench at times) and it just hasn't mattered. The bench offense sputters terribly and there is no flow. Now that we don't have such good offensive firepower coming off the bench it might be even more important to have an All Star in there who can take control. Conversely one can hope that because our bench is now full of veterans, this offensive impotence might not be as bad as it has been the last few seasons. But there have been many moments in all the exhibition games where the second unit has been in there and looks lousy, and "here we go again" whistles through my head.

-Tony Allen looks really good. He's attacking, he's not committing too many turnovers, and if there is one guy who could really instigate the second unit it might be him. He could definitely be a key, as Jack hoped for last month.

-Scal is going to play alot. This hardly comes as a surprise, unfortunately. As Hubie Brown noted, Scal has to hit threes to make his longer stays on the court worthwhile. If he plays only five minutes a game and just hustles around that can be beneficial to the team. But if he is playing between 15-20 minutes a night just hustling ain't gonna cut it. He has to do something offensively, otherwise he is a liability out there. Right now it appears our second unit front line is Posey-Scal-Powe. I'm not exactly excited by that. Hopefully Baby finds some time, and if we play a bigger opponent there is no way it's gonna work unless Garnett puts some considerable time in at center. I don't want to talk about Pollard right now, it seems extraneous.

-Randy Moss is an archangel on the football field...sorry. It's easy to think about other Boston sports these days.