Kelly Olynyk's return should give the Celtics bench a boost

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4722365/bostons-bench-has-held-the-fort-but-kelly-olynyks-return-will-help-the-celtics



Kelly Olynyk's return should give the Celtics bench a boost

1:01 AM ET


Chris Forsberg
ESPN Staff Writer




The Boston Celtics play just two games over the next nine days, an impossibly quiet stretch at a time of year when teams are typically struggling to catch their breath. In fact, Boston is at the tail end of a home-heavy run in which seven of eight games will be played at TD Garden, which means that the Celtics will have slept in their own beds 20 out of a possible 21 nights from Feb. 22 through March 13.

That's quite the luxury for an NBA team and, when you consider the week-long respite the team enjoyed in mid-February for the All-Star break, it's been a very forgiving calendar month for the Celtics, who are 6-3 in that span.

Boston really could have benefitted from this sort of downtime last season while trying to integrate a bunch of in-season additions. This season, with the nucleus of the roster intact from the start, it's simply additional time on the practice floor to tweak and tune-up.



Kelly Olynyk has been out since Feb. 10 because of a shoulder injury. Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images


Maybe the biggest benefit from the upcoming downtime could be an ability to get third-year big man Kelly Olynyk some activity as he works his way back from a shoulder injury that has sidelined him since Feb. 10. Stevens said last week that Olynyk would be reevaluated Monday and hinted that, with sufficient progress, Olynyk might soon be able to ramp up his basketball activities (though he offered no timetable for that).

Boston's second unit has held the fort in Olynyk's absence while leaning a bit more heavily on Tyler Zeller and Jonas Jerebko to fill minutes in the frontcourt. Steven admitted it's not easy to replace a floor-stretching 7-foot big man whose mere presence helps the Celtics.

"Any time you lose a guy, early on you kind of mask it, and then you have to figure out how you mask it and move forward the longer it extends," said Stevens. "The thing Kelly gives you the option of doing is playing with five shooters. We’re not going to do that with as much range, no matter what our lineup."

Olynyk doesn't just own the best net rating on the team this season among regulars at plus-6.4 points per 100 possessions, but Boston's defense is 5.7 points better per 100 possessions with him on the court. One simple number that helps demonstrate Olynyk's impact: The Celtics are plus-206 in plus/minus during his 1,096 minutes of floor time and a mere plus-54 over 1,996 minutes without him.

Quantifying how much the Celtics' bench has missed Olynyk is an inexact science. You could make the case that the primary second-unit pairing has performed well despite his absence. Boston's second-most common five-man lineup over the past nine games has been a combination that features reserves Marcus Smart, Evan Turner, Jerebko and Zeller running with Avery Bradley. That group, in 67 minutes of floor time, owns a net rating of plus-4.8 (104.7 offensive rating, 99.8 defensive). Those are excellent numbers when you consider the starting group has a net rating of minus-3.6 (107 offensive rating, 110.6 defensive) over the same span.

Still, the season numbers bear out that the Celtics are a better team with a healthy and productive Olynyk, and it's hard to fully quantify those periods of overlap when bench players are first rolling in with starters still on the floor. Boston not only needs to get Olynyk healthy, but allow him to shake a month's worth of rust with the playoffs looming in five weeks.

Even with both Olynyk and Smart missing about a month's worth of time at points this season, the Celtics have been fortunate to be pretty healthy. Once Stevens shuffled David Lee out of the rotation in early January, it gave the Celtics the stability that players had been craving through the roller-coaster start to the season. Essentially a .500 team before settling that rotation (19-19 through Jan. 12), Boston is 19-7 since then.

"There comes a time in each season, if you’re lucky as a coach, that [rotation] stuff is really, really well defined in the eyes of the players," said Stevens. "Because it can be as well defined in the coach’s eyes as you want, but it has to be well defined in the eyes of the players. And then you’re coaching basketball, you’re playing basketball, you’re enjoying it. There’s a fun part of it as a team and everything else. That stuff happens over time. That’s why it’s a long year and you just kind of stay the course early on and then you hope you get to a point like this and then you hope it stays like this."


bob
MY ADDITION:

Jay King
@ByJayKing yesterday
Over the last three games, the Celtics have an obscene 124.9 offensive rating with Thomas on the court. 74.0 without him.

Reply Retweet Like


Jay King
@ByJayKing yesterday
Not sure exactly how much of that is caused by Olynyk's absence, but it doesn't help one bit.

Reply Retweet Like




.