Doc Rivers wants Celtics to speed up the tempo

BOSTON.COM
By Frank Dell'Apa

WALTHAM — Coach Doc Rivers is telling the Celtics to speed things up. And Kevin Garnett echoed the message during practice Sunday.

“He was like, we didn’t get a lot of easy points, easy buckets,” guard Courtney Lee said of Garnett’s speech to the team. “We had to work for everything.

“So that’s the one thing I’m going to try to do on the offensive end, is to get out and run. If we can get 10, 12 points a game on transition, that’s huge.”

Lee and Jason Terry will be important to the Celtics’ intentions to increase the offensive tempo. Both will be expected to threaten from the perimeter, setting themselves up off the dribble, as well as running off screens.

“We really need to increase our pace,” Rivers said. “But we turned the ball over too much last year and that hampered our offense. When you look at our efficiency, when we actually got a shot up at the basket we were pretty good.

“I’d like to increase the pace. I just think we are a team that can run more pick-and-rolls for guys. We have more guys who can put the ball on the floor. We haven’t had guys who wanted to run, and now I think we have more of those guys, and that helps.”

The Celtics slowed noticeably after losing Avery Bradley (shoulders) and Chris Wilcox (heart surgery) last season. Wilcox and Jeff Green — who missed last season, also because of heart surgery — along with the newcomers, are expected to accelerate the pace this season.

“Now, you have guys like myself and Courtney, who can also handle the ball in pick-and-roll situations and can make it a lot easier on these guys,” Terry said. “Usually, [Rajon] Rondo has to get everybody involved and get everybody shots, whereas now he penetrates the lane, kicks it to us, and now we can also create. It won’t just be a catch-and-shoot situation.”

Lee could be in the starting lineup, with Terry retaining his sixth-man role, when the Celtics open the season at Miami Oct. 30.

“What I’m expecting to see is all-around play,” Rivers said of Lee. “I think he does a lot of things well, and that helps our team.”

Rivers said he began recruiting Lee shortly after the free agent signing period began.

“That made the free agent period easier, knowing the Celtics were one of the teams coming after me,” Lee said. “Boston has the tradition. For everybody, it’s all about getting back to the Finals and winning the championship. You only want to be a part of that. Winning matters the most, and that makes the transition a lot easier for me.”

Lee has been consistently productive as a professional, but this will be his fourth team since being drafted by Orlando in 2008.

“It’s the NBA, it’s a business,” Lee said. “Here today, gone tomorrow. The only thing is to continue to be professional about it, work hard every day, control what you can control.

“Everything happens off the court for a reason. There’s teams that want to go after you, there’s teams that want to make trades to better their team. I happened to be a part of that. It doesn’t discourage me at all. I’m on this team. I’m here to win and come in here and play hard every day.

“My role for this team is on the defensive end, first and foremost. Make it tough on the opposing team, try to get a couple steals, pressure the ball. On offense, speed the pace, up the tempo of the game, running the lanes for Rondo. With Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, with all those double teams, I need to be the guy on the outside with the open shot.”

112288

As everyone knows, speeding up the tempo has been my constant hope for this team. (Dboss and I have been running with that idea for a long time.) But the personnel haven't been suited to the task. And I'm not just talking about running in transition.

There are ways in which the halfcourt game (which has been almost moribund in unfortunate stretches) can benefit from pace, and Doc has hinted at some of the factors involved. Playing primarily a catch-and-shoot game meant having to wait for picks to be set, curls to be run, openings to arise. And, except for the guy guarding the curl, it didn't move the defense around much. This resulted in a lot of high-risk passes on the part of the Celtics, as well as predictable sets in which opponents were waiting like vultures to pounce into the passing lanes for the steal.

Now, with multiple perimeter options, better pick-and-roll options, and more dribble-drive options, the Celtics' half-court offense should be highly diversified and energized. Opponents will be less able to anticipate so easily. Passes should be much more of the high-percentage variety. And, if the Celtics can average less shot clock time per shot, they'll get more buckets before defenses are set, and passing lanes will be less vulnerable to steals.

The advantages of more up-tempo transition ball are more obvious. But the challenges could actually be more severe than in the half-court game. The reason is that persistent up-tempo transition ball requires defensive rebounding and outlet excellence. It might surprise people to learn that the Celtics ranked as high as #15 in defensive rebounds last season, gathering only 19 fewer defensive boards than opponents over the course of the entire regular season.

But, in order to pose a superior transition threat, they need to do better than break even in terms of defensive rebounds Last season, the Celtics grabbed 71.9% of all available rebounds on their defensive boards. In order to mount a serious transition threat, they'll probably have to increase that percentage by a couple of points. I wouldn't expect them to approach last year's figures for the Lakers (74.8% or Heat 73.9), but even getting as many as 73.0% of the available defensive boards would represent a major advance. (Hear that, Sully? Hear that, Jeff?) This will be one of the stats I'll be watching closely as the season progresses.

Sam

Rebounding certainly needs to improve to run better BUT even after a make we can still uptempo. I sure Sam and Bob are with me that we begin to feel chest pains when we see a green clad player WALK the ball up the court.

The rebound, outlet, fill the lane break is nice but it can also be done by getting the freaking ball out of the net stepping out of bounds and treating it now just like an outlet pass.

It's a mindset that the players all need to buy into.

Wouldn't it be nice to get 20-30 easy points (or more) off a well run break. We just seem in the past to work so darn hard for points in the past.

beat

beat

The Celtics now have some of the fastest players in the league: Bradley, Rondo, and Green, to name three. And all they're thinking about is getting some easy baskets. It doesn't even occur to them that they can wear other teams out by the fourth quarter. That other teams' offenses are going to be hampered by their fear that one of the fleet Cs is going to break away. That they can intimidate opponents with their speed. Even Doc doesn't seem to know.

Doc said you don't play defense on offense. Sorry, Doc. You didn't watch the old Celtics. Talk to Tommy. It's already happening right before Doc's eyes. If you're covering Avery Bradley, you better forget about driving or crashing the boards. You better be backpedaling before the shot goes up. If all four of Bradley's mates on the floor also decide to take off on every play, it could be basketball Armageddon.

The league is no longer ready or equipped to cope with a running team. Teams don't have that kind of depth. They aren't physically or mentally capable of stopping a running team that uses defense to spur the break. A few years back, Phoenix was running other teams off the floor but couldn't keep it up. Now Nash is in Showtime and Rondo has all the reason in the world to run, Rondo, run.

Alluding to Sam's post earlier about rebounding, the Celtic speed will induce other teams to move quickly to defense so as to counter Celtic fast breaks. This will cause teams not to hang back trying for offensive rebounds after putting up a shot.

Result, Celtics will keep more teams on their heels defensively.........and....and....
because of the Celtic's speed......they may cheat on offense going for more offensive rebounds knowing they can get back quickly and cover! Look for the Celtics Offensive Rebounds to go up this year and not being the last team in the league in this category.

112288

All great observations, 112288. The term "on their heels" is perfect to describe the defensive fits the Celtics could give opponents. Now let's see if they can do it. Wouldn't it be great to see the tables turned and the opponents be the ones who have to desert their offensive boards in order to counter the Celtics' fast break.

I've always thought pace was a very underrated factor in pro basketball. Dictating the pace is of prime importance. It can be used offensively, defensively, as an adjective or a verb or......wait a minute, I'm going a little off track here.

Sam

Pierce will buy into it, with Jeff Green and possibly Kris Joseph backing him up, Pierce won't have to pace himself like all these past years, he won't be burning it up with Rondo every play, but will be many more oppurtunities.