Your Morning Dump... Where it's all about the post defense

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here... highlighting the big storyline.  Because there's nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

“There’s not a better low-post defensive team in the league than Boston,” Van Gundy said. “I think they’ve got three of the premier interior defenders in the league, with Perkins and Rasheed Wallace and Garnett in there. They don’t really drop off when they have to go to the bench. (They’re) all big strong guys with good defensive technique, and they have played (Howard) very, very well.”

Said Howard of Perkins, “He’s a big body, but I can’t allow what he does on the floor to affect my game.”

When Perkins’ physical play was mentioned, Howard sniffed, “A lot of guys are physical. Just certain guys get away with physical play.”

Herald - Magic Still Green from Xmas

Anyone else enjoy watching Dwight Howard lay brick after brick against the Celtics? In his last two games against the Cs, Howard is a combined 3-for-11 from the field for 14 points.

While the Celts have mucked their way through January at a 6-5 clip, Orlando has been a notch worse with a 6-8 record.

Vince Carter, who has played well against the Celtics (26.5 ppg) this season, has been downright awful. Check out his numbers for January: 9.8 ppg, 30%FG, 22% 3FG.

On Page 2, Danny Ainge addresses the Ray Allen/Monta Ellis trade rumor on WEEI.

I’ve been reading a lot of Ray Allen stories…

You’ve been reading one Ray Allen story.

Let me rephrase it: I’ve read a lot of different stories about one Ray Allen rumor. How’s that?

There you go. That’s my point. There’s one little rumor, that’s made up by the way, that gets reported that actually ends up being a story every day for a couple of weeks. That’s the point I’m trying to make.

You know how it works. The question then is: Have you talked to Ray Allen or is this so preposterous that you don’t feel a need to talk to him?

No, I did talk to Ray. Ray gets it. He’s been in the business a long time. He knows there’s no such thing as players being untradeable. He knows he’s 34 years old and at the end of his contract. At the same time he knows that he is a very valuable piece to what we’re trying to do right now, which is win a championship, and he’s one of our key components. So, he gets all of it and he understands the business. It’s unfortunate that someone says something and then players have to respond and coaches have to respond for weeks at a time sometimes, with no validity to it. But, at the same time they’re big boys and they’ve been through it.

WEEI - Danny Ainge on the Big Show

The rest of the links:

Globe - All-Star Turn for Rondo? | Herald - Accountability? Doc Runs To It | ESPN Boston - Dwight Howard Ranks Perk | Quis the new Posey? | Up for the Challenge | CSNNE - Cs look to bottle up Magic | Celtics by the Numbers | WEEI - Picking the All-Stars | Celtics Blog - Stopping Dwight Howard