Long-Awaited Celtics Practice Integrates Michael Finley Into Team

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Mar 13, 2010

Long-Awaited Celtics Practice Integrates Michael Finley Into Team With the rest of his teammates long gone — showering, packing up, getting ready for their flight to Cleveland — Michael Finley was the last man standing on the Celtics' practice floor Saturday afternoon. He stood at the top of the key, alone save for a couple of assistants feeding him basketballs one by one. One by one, Finley would catch, square up and release. Shot after shot after shot.

With each miss, a grunt or a slight shout borne out of frustration. With each make, a subtle nod of approval. He's still got it.

This, you could see, was exactly why the Celtics took the floor for practice Saturday.

The Celtics are a changing team with a lot of moving pieces, and this was a bad time for them to go a full two weeks without hitting the practice floor at their facility in Waltham. They finally got out there Saturday, their first full practice this month, and the first since Finley was welcomed into the fold a week ago.

"It was good," Finley said. "Different than what I'm used to, but good for more reasons than just myself getting acclimated. It was good for the team to get a chance to work on some things in a non-game situation. From that standpoint, it was good."

After a frustrating start to his season in San Antonio, Finley has adjusted quickly to life in a Celtics uniform. It's not what he expected — there's more trash talk, more aggression on the floor, more playing and less teaching. But Finley's found a good situation in Boston. It had been three months since the last time he saw regular minutes, but he's getting them now with the C's.

"It's just good to be playing again," Finley said. "Playing on a championship-caliber team, and on a team that's already set, so they don't have to wait on me. I'm just trying to fit in where I can, have some good looks at the basket, my teammates are finding me, and the coaches are putting me in positions where I can be effective, and I'm just making the most of that."

Getting a practice in was a good step forward. And for Doc Rivers, it was a relief to finally have some time to work with his revamped second unit, and with Finley in particular.

"It was great," Rivers said. "He was laughing, he said he thinks this was the first practice he could count as a 'real' practice. And I said it might be the last one for a while — look at our schedule. But it really was good … We worked on some things for him."

Doc has had a lot of work to do over the past month, breaking in a new group of bench guys on the fly. Eddie House is gone; Nate Robinson is here in his place. Finley's the new guy in town; Brian Scalabrine has been inactive for the past week to make room. It's been a challenge to make things work with all the personnel changes, but Finley's intelligence has been reason number one that the team has figured everything out.

"Michael is so far, and I don't want to jinx him, but so far he's as good as I've ever had at picking stuff up," Rivers said. "And not only picking it up, but today we ran a play where you're supposed to look for the big to slip, and even guys who have been here haven't thrown that pass yet. But the first time they ran it, Shelden [Williams] got a layup."

No doubt about it — the new guy is a fast learner.

"Maybe it's because he's been in the league long," Rivers said. "I don't know what it is, but his timing is really good."

Finley disagreed. He's trying to learn the system quickly, but he's hard on himself about it.

"I'm my worst critic," Finley said. "I think I'm a step slow on reacting to some of the offensive sets. But I'm going to continue to study the films and the tapes that they've given me, and hopefully by the time playoffs roll around, I'll be very comfortable."

Of course, that's the real goal here. And the Celtics still have a month to go, but right now they look to be right on track. A little extra practice always helps.

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