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About Paul Flannery

Paul Flannery began his journalism career answering phones at the Herald, which led him on a cross-country odyssey that included stops in Oregon, Virginia and Philadelphia, before coming home to Boston where he is now the online editor at Boston magazine.

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MOST RECENT COLUMNS
The Three-Pointer: C's Making It Look Easy
11/03/09 11:07 EST
This is how good it’s been for the Celtics this young season: They beat Philadelphia, on the road no less, by 31 points Tuesday night (105-74 — check out the game recap here) and they did it despite turning in perhaps their worst quarter of the season with a 12-minute blah-fest to open the game. Turnovers, missed shots, zero ball movement. These all are hallmarks of bad Boston offense and they were in abundance early against the Sixers. And the C's still won by 31 points. Here’s the scary part for the rest of the NBA. Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins never did get going, shooting a combined 4-for-18. The rest of the team shot 37-for-54 and was an unconscious 14-for-20 from behind the arc. The Celtics were so good that even though they led 69-54 after three quarters, you could make a very convincing argument that they really weren’t playing that well. They’re making it look very easy. Here are three more things we learned Tuesday
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The Price Was Right (Or At Least Not Wrong) For Rondo
11/02/09 05:51 EST
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In the end, the Celtics got Rajon Rondo for somewhere between their price and Rondo’s reported price, but here’s the important thing: They didn’t have to get him for someone else’s price. Had Rondo been allowed to hit the free agent market, even as a restricted player, there’s no telling who might have thrown a huge front-loaded contract at him, which would have forced the Celtics to go even higher for his services. Instead the Celtics locked up their 23-year-old point guard for a reported five years and an average of $11 million per season. That’s at a rate commensurate with (if not a tick or two below) the other top point guards in the NBA for what should be his prime seasons. If you had already come to the conclusion that Rondo was in that echelon of players, then this deal is essentially a no-brainer. Still, there are those who have their doubts about Rondo. A smattering of the diverse opinions about the young point guard: He can’t shoot.
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The Three-Pointer: The Celtics' Quest For Perfection
10/31/09 08:46 EST
The other night the Celtics were lamenting how much further they had to go before they could say that they had played a complete game. The offense was a step or two behind the defense, they said, and not yet operating at peak efficiency. Perfection may be a Quixotic notion for the Celtics, or any other basketball team, but on Friday night in a 118-90 win against a Chicago Bulls team that pushed them to their absolute physical and mental limits in the playoffs last season they played about as close to perfect as anyone has a right to expect. The numbers were simply staggering: * The Bulls shot 29 percent in the first half and scored just 35 points. * The Celtics opened the second half making six straight 3-pointers to open up a lead that reached 31 points. * On their 43 successful field goal attempts, the Celtics racked up 33 assists. Now, the Bulls of October are not the Bulls of last April and the Celtics are a far cry from the walking MASH unit they rolled out on the floor last
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The NBA's Donaghy Problem
10/30/09 04:06 EST
Having had 48 hours to digest the excerpts from the unpublished manuscript of jailed former ref Tim Donaghy that were leaked to Deadspinand the reaction to said leaks, a few patterns have emerged: 1. Nothing in the excerpt is really shocking to people who watch the NBA on a regular basis. 2. Those who already believe the NBA is rigged immediately believed everything Donaghy wrote. 3. People in the first group will continue to watch the late game on TNT. People in the second group probably never have. So, from a certain perspective nothing much has really changed. (Although, as an aside I did take perverse glee in watching ESPN anchors have to utter the word, “Deadspin” on the air after AJ Delaurio’s unholy broadside against the network last week. Somewhere Will Leitch is laughing. Whatever happened to that guy?) The problem for the NBA, though, is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re inclined to take everything Donaghy says at face value, or whether you
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