HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Peter May

Kendrick Perkins leads the NBA in technical fouls. He has nine, or as many in 24 games this year as he accrued all last season. Two teammates (Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce) have three apiece, putting three members of the defending champs among the top 10 involuntary contributors to David Stern’s coffers. Sam Cassell has two technicals and one ejection. The next minute he plays this season will be his first.

They’re not alone. Their coach, Doc Rivers, is tied with Charlotte’s Larry Brown among coaches who have been whistled for the most technical fouls: each has four. (The numbers are based on information from the NBA and are through Dec. 4).

But as much as the Celtics are piling up technicals at a somewhat alarming rate – particularly for the combustible Perkins – there’s also been at least two instances this season where the always voluble, demonstrative Garnett seemed to be taunting or egging on an opponent – in other words, on the verge of a technical - and came away unscathed.

The first was when he clapped at the Raptors’ Jose Calderon all the way up the court in a Nov. 10 game in Boston. Nothing happened, save for some spirited jawing, of which Garnett is the undisputed league champion. The other came Dec. 5 in a nationally televised game against Portland, in which he got down on all fours in front of Blazers’ rookie Jerryd Bayless as Bayless began to bring the ball up the floor with just under five minutes remaining in the game.

“I have never seen anything like that before in my life,’’ said the ESPN analyst for the game, former NBA player Mark Jackson.

Actually, Garnett has done it before. More than once. Rivers admitted that if Garnett had tried to do that to him when he was playing, “I would have run him over. Legally of course.”

But now that he coaches the defending Defensive Player of the Year, he sees it as well, veteran exuberance, which should be applauded, not criticized.

And certainly not penalized.

“He does it all the time,’’ Rivers said of Garnett going to the floor on all fours. “And I bet he doesn’t even know it half the time because he gets so caught up in the game. But I look at that and say, ‘isn’t that great?’

“One referee said to me, ‘you better watch Kevin.’ And I said, ‘no, you guys should watch Kevin - and tell the rest of the league to do it.’ Wouldn’t every coach want their guy to get down low on defense, pound his hands on the floor, and be so into the game? When Duke does it, everyone starts clapping. When Kevin does it, people want to give him a tech. He’s so wrapped up in the game. I don’t have a problem with it.”’

The officials didn’t either, at least not in those two instances. Rivers said he thinks it’s because the officials can hear what the fans can’t hear.

“The reason I think a lot of the officials don’t T up Kevin is that it’s not a personal thing with him,’’ Rivers said of Garnett. “Heck, half the time, he’s talking to himself. They hear what Kevin is saying and they know it doesn’t lead to anything. With others, it’s more direct and personal. He has done that his whole career.”

And Garnett is indiscriminate. He barked at teammate Glen Davis in that same Portland game, so much so that Davis retreated to the end of the bench and put a towel over his face. Garnett had not been happy that the Celtics reserves had let Portland back into the game, necessitating the return of the starters (and the down-on-all-fours move against Bayless).

Nonetheless, Garnett’s in-your-face style – and the Celtics’ new hubris – have made them unappealing to many others around the league. That’s being charitable. The Blazers’ Channing Frye told the Oregonian, “the Celtics – they irritate everybody.” But, he quickly added, the Celtics also can afford to be arrogant because they have what 29 other teams want.

And that fact, Rivers thinks, is why there is more attention on his players (and himself). He noted that Garnett hasn’t morphed into this personality since coming to Boston. It’s just that it’s more noticed because the Celtics are the defending NBA champs and on every team’s hit list this season.

“Our games are on more of an edge than most games,’’ Rivers said. “We’re the champions. Teams are really going after us, not just physically, but verbally and emotionally as well.”

Perkins, so far, has been most penalized of the defending champs. In the NBA most recently compiled NBA statistics, Perkins had three more technicals than anyone else in the league. And Rivers, who had only seven technicals last season, is more than halfway to that number with more than two-thirds of the season left to be played.

The coach defended Perkins, his big, physical, center.

“In Perk’s case, I think up to five techs have been double techs,’’ Rivers said. “That’s where I have a problem. I wish the refs would do their jobs better. They know who instigated it. They know who was talking. Give him the tech. The easy way out is to placate both coaches by handing out double techs. I’ve always thought that’s the lazy way of doing it. And I’ll bet that seven out of 10 times, they know who perpetrated it.”

Rivers is concerned that Perkins might get too close to the Rasheed Line, where a technical foul would result in an automatic one-game suspension. But he’s a bit away from that number yet (16) although there are still a lot of games to be played.

“Perk has to be careful because I’m sure he’s a targeted guy,’’ Rivers said.

The Celtics expected everyone’s ‘A’ Game when the season started. That goes with the territory of being the defending champion. In their first 24 games, they won 22 of them. So, in their view, whatever Perkins and Garnett are doing, it doesn’t seem to have had much impact in the standings.

And at the end of the day, that is what matters to them.

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I never was much of a math expert, but I know the difference between 4-0 and 7-8. One conveys dominance. The other conveys mediocrity.

Added together, they pretty much convey the current state of the Detroit Pistons, no longer dominant, or close to it, and bordering on that untenable state of being average in a league where it helps to be really good or really bad.

It’s sort of like applying to college. If you’ve got the money (really good), you can afford it. If you don’t (really bad), there’s scholarship money. But if you’re stick in the middle (going nowhere), you are toast.

This is not to imply that the newly reconfigured Pistons, with Allen Iverson and without Chauncey Billups, are toast. They’re more like zwieback. While we will continue to cut them some slack because of their big deal, they nonetheless appear to be a team that has recognized it has run its course and needs to retool.

I’ve always put Joe Dumars on the Mt. Rushmore of current GMs, where he trades top spots with San Antonio’s RC Buford. Detroit has made six straight trips to the conference finals. It has had seven straight 50-win seasons. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself. And, chances are, the Pistons would have rattled off another 50-plus wins this season had Dumars not pulled the trigger on the Iverson-Billups trade last month.

But my guess is that if you convinced Dumars to swallow some truth serum, he’d admit that he didn’t think the group that left training camp had enough to overtake the Celtics (or, maybe, even the Cavaliers) to get to the NBA Finals. Let’s face it, that group, one way or another, already had coughed up golden opportunities in 2006 (losing to Miami with the homecourt advantage), in 2007 (losing to Cleveland with the homecourt advantage and after taking a 2-0 lead) and in 2008 (losing to Boston after beating the Celtics on the road in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals.)

Doing that again, or even failing to even get that far, was a distinct possibility this season for the Pistons, who have twice been flogged by the Celtics already (although, to their credit, they’ve also beaten the Lakers in Los Angeles, the Spurs in San Antonio, and the Cavs). They’ve already lost four home games – including one unmentionable, a 26-point humiliation to the hapless Timberwolves. They didn’t lose their fourth home game last year until Jan. 18 - and they lost only seven all season at the Palace.

Who knows how Dumars reached that decision, but I think it’s the right one. I don’t think the Pistons, even with Rodney Stuckey improving and Antonio McDyess back in the fold, had enough to beat the Celtics. I’m not sure they have enough to beat the Cavs, either. And given the height of the bar in Detroit, that prompted Dumars to do what he did.

He didn’t Knicks/Nets/Everyone Else it and pack it in with a big circle on 2010. He acquired a future Hall of Famer and financial flexibility down the road. In the meantime, he still has a competitive roster with possibilities, so that’s what makes the Pistons impossible to dismiss or ignore.

On the other hand… Iverson hasn’t been on a team which won a playoff series since 2003 and remains a difficult guy to accommodate. There simply is no one else like him, which can be good and bad… Rasheed Wallace appears to be putting a 42-cent stamp on more games than ever; this from a guy who submitted the ultimate no-show in critical Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2008 (4 points, 5 fouls, 2-of-12 shooting). History may show that Larry Brown was the only coach who could penetrate the Inner Sheed. With Wallace’s contract up at the end of the season, you’d think he’d put the stamps in the drawer and just play.

But that makes sense. And, let’s face it, Michael Curry is a rookie head coach, with no previous head coaching experience, taking on a savvy group of veterans who know the drill. When’s the last time that worked? (OK, it almost worked for Dallas, but Avery Johnson wasn’t a real rookie).

The Pistons fell to 7-8 with Iverson following an embarrassing Sunday afternoon loss to the Knicks in New York, a game in which they fell behind by an astonishing 29 points. NBA rules dictated that Detroit be in the Big Apple the night before the game. Other than Atlanta, and possibly Golden State, there is no more worrisome city in which to arrive the night before a game than New York. Even more worrisome was the fact that the teams played a matinee.

But that was one loss. Let’s face it, the Pistons are a team in transition. You can’t write them off. But they’re also a team with options, which is what the Iverson-Billups deal was all about. Better to trade a player while he still has value, even if it might mean taking a step back before you go forward again. Just ask the Celtics or the Bulls how it works when everyone of import says good-bye at about the same time.

The Pistons no longer loom as the toughest test for the Celtics. That role, right now, belongs exclusively to the Cavaliers. By May, it could all be different, which is what Dumars might be hoping. But, either way, he’ll be in a position of strength when the season is over with both Iverson and Wallace potentially off the books.

And with what he has remaining on his roster, well, let’s just say it’s probably going to be a lot more than most anyone else will have in 2009 to offer marquee free agents. Or, perhaps, in 2010. As someone once noted, “you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet.” In other words, Dumars might end up losing the battle, a battle he really had no shot of winning anyway, but, in the end, he also just might end up winning the war.

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