Doc Rivers has found his new closer.
During the championship run two years ago, the Celtics coach had a starting lineup and a fourth-quarter lineup. That fourth-quarter lineup usually involved James Posey coming off the bench and sticking a dagger in opponents with his defense and 3-point shooting. With Posey gone to New Orleans last season, Rivers mixed and matched a bullpen-by-committee at the end of games with varied success.
Now he has Rasheed Wallace. The 15-year NBA veteran is unlikely to start games, and Rivers said he doesn't yet know how many minutes the 35-year-old will get. But what he does know is some of those minutes will be the most important ones at the end of close games.
"Rasheed will be a fourth-quarter guy just like Posey was," Rivers determined at the end of this week's training camp at Salve Regina University. "The difference in some ways, and it's a better difference, is we would go small with Posey, and put him behind the 3(-point line), and a (small forward) would guard him. Now we can stay tall, put Rasheed behind the 3, and a (center) has to guard him.
"Teams will have to do what we're doing in practice and decide whether to put a (forward) or (center) on him. Rasheed is such a smart player that, if you put a forward on him, he'll post. And if you put a center on him, he'll go out and stand behind the 3. It puts you in a defensive dilemma. We haven't even figured out how to defend it in practice."
What Rivers has figured out in just a few days is that the team's prized offseason acquisition will fit right in with the Celtics locker room. Rivers said he'd been told what a great teammate the volatile and often-maligned Wallace was, but that he had to see it in person to be convinced.
So far, even better than expected.
"You never know until you actually get a guy," the coach said. "Even though I'd heard that, he's still been surprising in that he's a terrific teammate.
"As an example, (Thursday) we were playing a scrimmage and the white team (starters) were playing awful. Rasheed busted into their huddle and was like, 'Come on!' He really laid into them, but in a good way. Then he went back over to his green team (reserves). It was really neat to see."
That he has been wearing the green shirt hasn't bothered Wallace a bit. In what should be his final NBA stop, Wallace isn't interested in the green or white designation of being a starter or backup. He is focused on the gold championship trophy he hopes to hoist at the end of the season.
"If Doc tells me I am not going to play more than 20 minutes, then for that 20 minutes I have to go hard," said Wallace, endorsing the notion of being a fourth-quarter closer. "I am not lollygagging around. If you are out there for 40 minutes, there's going to be times when you are not even in the offense. You are not in the defense. That's just a waste of minutes. That's when the younger guys could be playing.
"So I don't mind it at all. If Doc brings me off the bench, cool. If he starts me, cool. Either way, as long as we get it together."
Wallace admits there are things he still has to get together with his new team. With training camp consisting of only four single-session practices and an open scrimmage, Rivers said he has put in a fraction of the offense and Wallace is trying to get his bearings in the limited sets.
"I am still trying to find my niche," he said. "Once I find my niche, I think it will be cool. I just have to keep learning plays from them. They tell me where to be, which is fine. Sooner or later, with all of us, it's going to get to the point where we don't have to run plays. It's just going to be basketball - moving and making the right moves.
"I think we've got three or four sets in so far, which is fine. We can all feed off that. What makes it more simple for (fellow newcomer) Marquis (Daniels) and I is just knowing the game. You have a lot of guys out there (around the league) who don?t know the game. This whole team has a high basketball IQ."
With more than 39,000 minutes on his career odometer, Wallace has embraced his new coach's shorter practices that stress quality workout time over quantity. After starting all but 66 of 1,009 career regular season games, and all 153 in the playoffs, the quality-over-quantity mantra is one Wallace appears ready to embrace however Rivers decides to use him.
"We haven't figured out how we're going to do it," the coach said of determining Wallace's minutes. "Once the games get going, we'll figure it out. He's never done it (come off the bench), so you just don't know until the season starts how he'll adjust. If he's not functioning well enough, then you have to figure out a way to get him more minutes. That would mean going to a three-man rotation (with Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins). Then Baby (Glen Davis), or somebody, would lose minutes."
It's a good problem for Rivers to have. He'll happily deal with trying to find the right mix for the first three quarters knowing he's once again got the final 12 minutes of the game covered.
(Scott Souza is a Daily News staff writer. He can be reached at 781-398-8006 or ssouza@cnc.com. For updates and analysis, check out the "Courtside View" blog at blogs.wickedlocal.com/Celtics.)
