Scalabrine: Celtics need to improve pick-and-roll defense

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You could point to a number of reasons why the Celtics got blown away in Philadelphia, but CSNNE's Brian Scalabrine knows that a major one has to do with Boston's pick-and-roll coverage.

"When you watched the 76ers tonight they were getting to the middle of the floor almost on every pick and roll. A lot of that has to do with the lack of practice and during this time they're going to be able to work through that," Scalabrine said.

The C's didn't get a ton of practice in over in Europe, and with their stretch of five games in seven nights, you won't see much if any practice then either. Eventually though, Boston will work on it morethey'll have to to prepare for Miami on Opening Night.

"But Doc talked about Miami'This is our first game, this is what we're preparing for'well, Miami has two very good pick-and-roll players and you're going to see 70 of those a night," Scalabrine said. "So the Celtics need to kind of sure up their pick-and-roll coverage and when they do thatand they'll have that little gap before that first Miami gamelook for them to tighten up the defense a little bit more."

Boston will have eight days of no games to prepare for Miami. They'll have plenty of time to work out the kinks, but will that super-long stretch between games prove to actually be a bad thing?

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