NBA Weekly: Stephon Marbury To The Celtics?, Orlando Magic, Could The Pistons Miss The Playoffs?, & More

Boston Celtics: It looks like the Celtics have made their playoff moves, first by adding big man Mikki Moore and now they are looking to add Stephon Marbury as their backup PG. Both of these additions would improve the Celtics bench greatly. Moore is 6'11, but he weighs only 225 pounds, so I'm not sure how helpful he will be on defense or if he is even any good on defense. His defensive rating for his career is 108, which means he gives up 108 points per 100 possessions, and his rating has been getting worse as he gets older. Now that could partly be because the Kings are so bad on defense that no one individual defender is going to look good statistically on defense. The Celtics as a team have a defensive rating of 100.3, which means Moore is about 8 points worse than the Celtics per 100 possessions. Considering he'll probably only play 20-30 possession a game maximum, it shouldn't be too big of a deal. What he does provide is another big man who can hit jump shots, which is something Leon Powe and Big Baby can't do on a consistent basis. This should help spread the floor out some for the second unit. Yahoo Sports says this about Moore: Moore’s a hard worker and has some length, but isn’t a big rebounder/shot blocker type of power forward and he gets overpowered by bigger bodies. Guess that clears up the defensive part.

As for Marbury, well I don't think anyone would deny that having Marbury as your backup PG is going to help your team. Marbury can still score and should be able to create shots for the second unit as well. He also gives the Celtics another option if Rondo goes on a cold streak at the end of games or if the Celtics just want another 3-point shooter on the floor. I have no doubt that the Celtics will get the best out of Marbury, since KG alone should be able to motivate him. Now Marbury isn't guaranteed to go to the Celtics, because he still has to clear waivers I believe and it's possible someone like Miami might want to pick him up, but I'm pretty sure Marbury will choose the Celtics when all is said and done.

Orlando Magic: Unfortunately for NBA fans, Jameer Nelson is now officially done for the season, which means the Magic will not be 100% healthy to challenge the Celtics and Cavs in the East. However, they did trade for Rafer Alston to help ease the loss of Nelson and so far Alston has been playing well. The main thing Orlando needs Alston to do is distribute the ball and he is doing that for the Magic averaging 7.3 assists in 3 games. However, Alston is a terrible shooter from the floor percentage wise and typically shoots under 40% from the floor, so the Magic would do best to advise him to not shoot too much. He can knock down some open 3's, but even then he is just a 35.5% shooter from three for his career. The play of Alston, along with Courtney Lee and Anthony Johnson, will play a big part in just how deep this Orlando team can go in the playoffs.

Detroit Pistons: I mentioned a few weeks back that the Pistons were finished as a contender and you could write them off for this season. Since then, they have gone 1-7 after having lost their last 7 games, including 4 straight at home. Ouch, even I didn't think they would fall off THAT bad. Right now they are only two games up on Chicago who is in 9th place in the East, which means there's a very realistic chance that Detroit might not even make the playoffs. Things don't look like they will get better for the Pistons anytime soon either, since they have 3 straight road games against New Orleans, Orlando, and Boston.

Other NBA News:

- Bad news for anyone who picked the Nuggets to win the NBA Finals: Nene will out at least two weeks with a right knee contusion. By the time he comes back, the Nuggets might have slipped out of having home court in the West for the first round.

- The Cavs could be adding Robert Horry, who could possibly help them in the playoffs. He wouldn't be a bad option to try to suck away opposing PF's from the paint and he can guard a few different positions.

- One of my personal favorites, Ryan Gomes, is averaging 20.2 points and 16.2 shots per game while shooting 47.4 percent from the field, since Al Jefferson went down with a knee injury. Nice to see Gomes stepping it up, too bad it hasn't resulted in more victories for the T-Wolves though.

- Head Coach Patrick Ewing? Hell, I'd love to see that and so would he. Imagine the sweat he would work up on the sidelines though.

More: NBA Weekly