Old School Celtics Seek New Identity

Nice article by David Aldridge of NBA.com, who is NOT a Celtic beat writer. I absolutely LOVE that Sully isn't intimidated by KG. If KG can't intimidate you, nobody can.



http://www.nba.com/2012/news/features/david_aldridge/10/22/morning-tip-old-school-celtics/



Old-school Celtics seek fresh identity for another title run


Posted Oct 22, 2012 9:39 AM - Updated Oct 22, 2012 4:48 PM





They had Jason Terry at HealthPoint.

That's the Celtics' practice facility, about 10 miles from downtown
Boston. And in July, when Terry first walked into the building, after
signing a free-agent deal with the Cs, he understood how his one title
in Dallas was trumped by 17 Boston banners.

"A couple of them had old fire, smoke stains on it," he recalled. "I was like, 'Wow, yeah,
it's real old school around here.' And then just going out amongst the
people in the town. 'Welcome to Boston,' that's what I kept getting.
With that accent. It was just letting me know that it was a sports town,
and they were for the Celtics. And I knew I was home."


There will be understandable talk of the budding dynasty in Miami this
season, and there will be understandable talk of the mix in Los Angeles,
and whether the Thunder can win a few titles before they may have to
break up the band. But Old Guys always hang around. The Celtics may have
some fresh legs in their mix this year, but at heart they're Old Guys,
with old souls, the mirror image in the east of what San Antonio is in
the west -- the aging heavyweight looking for one more title shot, led
by crusty manager/coaches.


There are, of course, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, now 36 and 35, respectively, Garnett looking ornerier
than ever after re-upping for one last run this summer, and Pierce much
healthier after struggling through the playoffs with a knee strain.

Most importantly -- you read that right -- there is Rajon Rondo, the
now-permanent third leg of the next Big Three. The Celtics do not work
without KG's barking and the Captain's clutch shot-making, of course,
but it is time for Rondo to be the best player on the team. That's the
best line of attack to beating the Heat.


The Heat. The Heat. The Celtics still think they were the better team after losing to Miami in
Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in June. But the Heat won the
game and went on to win the title.



"It's in the back of our heads," Rondo said last week.

"There's only about three or four guys that were here last year, and the new
guys know what we have to do. They're the team to beat. They're the
champions. So you've got to give them respect and you've got to go out
there and put it to them. And not just them, any team. It's not just
about the Heat."


They have completed their divorce from Ray Allen, now famously in Miami, and like many divorces, it's gotten uglier
in the retelling, with each side claiming it was the aggrieved party.
(No word yet on which side will get Heinsohn in the settlement.) With
Allen now in thrall to his younger, hotter team with the South Beach
condo, the Celtics have gone on a journey of self discovery.


"I don't know who we are yet," Doc Rivers said last week.


It may take Boston half of the season to figure that out. They had the
makings of a great defensive team the second half of last season with
Garnett playing center and Avery Bradley replacing Allen -- then injured
-- in the starting lineup. Bradley, though, is out at least until
December after offseason shoulder surgery, and there are eight new faces
that are likely to be part of the rotation. But Danny Ainge has given
Rivers a lot of options.


Terry, who signed a three-year deal with Boston, is still hot that Mark Cuban never gave the Mavericks a
real chance to defend their title. "March 14th. Going back to Dallas,"
he says. "The Jet will be on the runway. I'm definitely going to fly by
Cuban, my old buddy, and give him a little love."


But the 2009 Sixth Man of the Year will have some of the creature comforts from his
former home in Dallas with him in Boston, courtesy of Rivers.


"Early on he sent me films of Ray Allen, where he was getting the ball
and where he liked it at," Terry said. "Then he shot me a text -- 'If
the game was on the line, and we needed a shot, and you were going to
take the shot, what would it be -- catch and shoot, or pick and roll?'
And he basically left it open to me. I told him what I wanted -- I'm not
gonna tell you, but everybody knows -- and he put the play in
immediately."


Despite having next to no budget, Ainge also managed to trade for Courtney Lee, who will probably start at shooting
guard until Bradley returns. He re-signed Jeff Green, who missed all of
last season after undergoing heart surgery, along with Brandon Bass, and
added minimum vets like Darko Milicic, Chris Wilcox and Jason Collins
to provide big man depth. Last week, Boston added Leandro Barbosa to
back up Rondo after veteran Keyon Dooling's surprise retirement.


Green's return after coming from Oklahoma City in 2011 gives Boston a
new dimension at power forward. He's still a 'tweener at that position,
but it's probably the best way to utilize his speed and length, and
allow Boston to bring Bass off the bench, where the Celtics struggled to
find points last season. Now, Boston will have Bass, Barbosa and Terry
firing away.


But, like the Spurs, Boston has to get its core
guys to the playoffs healthy. In each of the last four postseasons,
Boston has been waylaid by a key injury.




They had to try to defend their 2008 title without Garnett in the 2009
playoffs after his midseason knee injury. Kendrick Perkins' torn ACL in
the opening minutes of Game 6 of the Finals against the Lakers may have
cost them title number 18. In 2011, Rondo gamely tried to play through a
dislocated elbow against Miami in the Eastern semis, and last year,
Allen's ankles and Pierce's knee made them shells of what they should
have been.


The Celtics and Garnett have figured out how to spread out his 30 minutes most effectively every night -- by what is
known in Boston as the "5-5-5" plan. Garnett starts the first and third
quarters and plays the first five minutes of each, then comes out. He
comes back in just before the end of the first and third, plays through
the first few minutes of the second and fourth, then comes out again.
And he plays the final five minutes of the second and fourth quarters.


That allows Garnett to blow out his furnace every time he's on the
floor, which is the only way he knows how to play and practice, anyway.


With Pierce, the Celtics want to hit that sweet spot between maxing out
what Pierce can give them and putting him out there when he's fatigued.
Injuries can and do happen anytime, to 22-year-olds and 32-year-olds.
But they don't want Pierce out there tired.


"He never misses practices," Rivers said of Pierce. "But there's days when you can see
he's clearly not playing right, and it's too late already, that game.
You start to think as a coach, we probably should have done something
the game before. And that's what we have our whole staff on the lookout
for, what the right number is."


Rivers may use different lineups during the season as he tries to figure things out.


"I do think you have to play a certain amount of minutes," Rivers said.
"The one thing I don't want to do is sit them down. I think players
lose their rhythm too quick. So you know, with Kevin, we've got to find
the right amount of minutes where he can get rest and still be sharp.
Same thing with Paul. Paul's a tough one, because he really wants to
play all the time. But there's a number that we probably shouldn't go
over, and I don't know what it is yet. I have to figure that out."


The Celtics were an odd mix on the court last season. While they were
an efficient shooting team -- Boston was seventh in the league in true
shooting percentage, which includes three pointers and free throws (53.5
percent), and 10th in effective field goal percentage (49.6 percent) --
the Celtics were a turnover machine. They were tied for 25th in the
league in turnover ratio (25.7/game). That's almost all on Rondo, whose
turnovers have gone up each year he's been in the league.




But Rondo's pluses so overwhelm his drawbacks. No point guard can
control a game so completely without ever taking a shot, and no one is
as lethal in transition.


"Rajon, to me, is a younger Jason Kidd," Terry said. "Early on in Jason's career, they questioned whether
he could shoot the ball. But he was constantly in the lane, he was
constantly pushing tempo, he was a floor general. Rajon's the same guy,
with a little more attitude."


And Rondo has taken over the leadership role off the court. Longtime Boston scribe Jackie MacMullen detailed last week how respected Rondo is in the Boston locker room, and just how fractured his relationship with Allen really was. He also
seems to be making more of an effort to handle the necessary if tedious
role of being a spokesman to the media.


Last week in Brooklyn, after an exhibition game with the Nets, Rondo was walking out of the
Celtics' locker room. In previous years, he may have well kept going, or
stayed in the trainer's room. This time, knowing reporters wanted to
speak with him, Rondo turned around.


"I'll be right back," he said. And he was.


"Off the court, we're so close," Rondo said when he returned. "It's
crazy, our chemistry. You can say it was [the preseason trip to Turkey]
overseas, but regardless, I think we've been close since day one. Each
of us leans on one another. We always call and check up on each other
off the court and when we get to hotels we always do things together. So
the trust is already there."


There are budding mentor/mentee relationships all over the locker room. Terry first saw Bradley at a
Reebok all-American camp when Bradley was in high school in Tacoma,
about 20 minutes from where Terry grew up in Seattle. Garnett is already
working on, and with, first-round pick Jared Sullinger. The rookie
doesn't play like a rookie. He plays like he's been in the NBA for six
years already.


"You've got Kevin Garnett in your ear, doing this [Sullinger puts his hand next to his head, pantomiming KG yapping] all
the time," he said. "You see him moving, you see him tapping me. I'm
learning. Every day. Every day. It's like that every day. You've got
Kevin just constantly moving his hands, talking, and you're just
listening, and you're learning every day. And as you're seeing what he's
seeing, the game slows down, tremendously."


Sullinger doesn't take KG's noise personally -- "cause I had Satch Sullinger as a coach,"
Jared Sullinger says, referring to his father, James, who demanded more,
and then more, from his growing son as he taught him the game. "So I
learned early that it's not how loud he's saying it, it's what he's
saying ... I was blessed to have an angry coach."


Rivers is only occasionally angry. But he spent much of training camp putting one
thought in his team's head: Miami. Miami. Miami. To beat the Heat's
Fifteen Strong (yes, I know that was the '06 motto) ... and Indiana's
... and Chicago's, once they get D Rose back ... it will take a
commitment of at least that many Celtics -- healthy ones. Not to mention
the undefeated, undisputed Father Time.


They assemble, for one more assault on the mountain, with Rivers in charge.


"It's one thing to have talented players; it's another to get the best
out of them, get everybody on the same page," said Collins, who played
against the Celtics for the Hawks last season. "He seemed to, from afar,
always to do it. And now that I'm here, a great job of pulling the
strings, really orchestrating everything so that everybody buys into
[the idea that] we're here to win a title. And that's the main reason I
came here, because I want to win a title. Whatever it takes."



bob



.

Bob

Question on this quote from above....


They have completed their divorce from Ray Allen, now famously in Miami, and like many divorces, it's gotten uglier
in the retelling, with each side claiming it was the aggrieved party.
(No word yet on which side will get Heinsohn in the settlement.) With
Allen now in thrall to his younger, hotter team with the South Beach
condo, the Celtics have gone on a journey of self discovery.

really YOUNGER? Don't think so.

I checked the ages of the 12 most likely players to get minutes from each roster ..... the heat are 30.4 we are 27.8 (now I did include Bradley for this)

might schuffle a player or two but even so we'd still come out in good shape agewise vs. them. And even though Wade is 30... his knees are a whole lot older than that.

Just Ray moving make us younger and them older!

beat

beat wrote:Bob

Question on this quote from above....


They have completed their divorce from Ray Allen, now famously in Miami, and like many divorces, it's gotten uglier
in the retelling, with each side claiming it was the aggrieved party.
(No word yet on which side will get Heinsohn in the settlement.) With
Allen now in thrall to his younger, hotter team with the South Beach
condo, the Celtics have gone on a journey of self discovery.

really YOUNGER? Don't think so.

I checked the ages of the 12 most likely players to get minutes from each roster ..... the heat are 30.4 we are 27.8 (now I did include Bradley for this)

might schuffle a player or two but even so we'd still come out in good shape agewise vs. them. And even though Wade is 30... his knees are a whole lot older than that.

Just Ray moving make us younger and them older!

beat

beat,

Just replacing Allen with Terry made us younger. Throw in Lee and we're a lot younger at the guard positions.

Nothing against Ray, but he's a player who relies almost exclusively on motion. Not north/south motion, like Barbosa or even Bradley, but east/west. Curling around a couple of screens to the other sideline and a quick pop-out. That's tough on the ankles, which is perhaps why his ankles are what's going and not his knees.

I'm happy Ray's happy. It'll make me feel that much better when we break his heart.


bob


.

beat wrote:Bob

really YOUNGER? Don't think so.

I checked the ages of the 12 most likely players to get minutes from each roster ..... the heat are 30.4 we are 27.8 (now I did include Bradley for this)

might schuffle a player or two but even so we'd still come out in good shape agewise vs. them. And even though Wade is 30... his knees are a whole lot older than that.

Just Ray moving make us younger and them older!

beat

beat I did the same thing recently and posted the results
https://samcelt.forumotion.net/t3994-oct-30th-where-the-young-meet-the-old

we;ve actual got only 4 players 30+ on our team kg/peirce/wilcox/terry while Miami has 6
allen/anthoney/haslom/battier/lewis/wade/


and to top it off, our only health issue with our 30 or older guys is Wilcox's back, which will soon be a thing of the past, whereas Miami is dealing with issues to Wade knee and Allens ankles..

Hey Yo Miami, old age is a b*tch aint it??

The Celtics and Garnett have figured out how to spread out his 30 minutes most effectively every night -- by what is known in Boston as the "5-5-5" plan. Garnett starts the first and third quarters and plays the first five minutes of each, then comes out. He comes back in just before the end of the first and third, plays through the first few minutes of the second and fourth, then comes out again. And he plays the final five minutes of the second and fourth quarters.

Perhaps Pierce can match Garnett in the 5-5-5 thing. That makes it 30 minutes each. That starts Green off with the other 18 minutes at the three and then add 8-10 minutes more when both Green and Pierce are on the floor at the same time.

Green and Pierce can both be on the foor for both a big lineup and a small lineup; PP-2 with JG-3 or PP-3 with JG-4.

Mix and match, you gotta love it!!!

I can't see Paul doing the 555 thing. Paul is different than KG. Paul has to to himself in a groove. KG is more of a come in the game,get a block and he is good to go. Paul on the other hand is a scorer, if he isn't touching the ball a lot I don't think he is going to be effective like KG is. Paul scores in bunches.

We and most articles have pretty talked a lot about every player on the team except Paul. He has kind of been laying low. Have the feeling he is going to have a very effective season.. JT if going to relieve the end of game shot that has been Paul most of his career. Guess what JT can do the same thing. Then you have that safety valve called KG

tardust,

I understand what you are saying about Paul needing to get himself in a groove. I have read that he is a rhythm player, as in he has to get into a rhythm to be affective. Rhythm, groove, same thing, I guess.

My only point here is that Paul cannot average 40 minutes per game for the whole regular season. I think a better number to aim for is 30. Perhaps the Celtics could stretch out one of the 5 minute cycles if he appears to be in the groove. To make up for those extended minutes in that 5 minute cycle, they could shorten his minutes in the next cycle. The key to the 5-5-5 thing (IMO) is actually the 5 minutes that the player is off the court. That extended rest period allows KG to go full tilt at both ends while he is in. It also allows KG to have something left at the end of the 4th quarter in a close game. Perhaps a flex 5-5-5 system could work for Paul. The whole thing is to get Paul (and KG) through the long season, healthy and rested going into the playoffs. Then they can extend their minutes when it really matters.

This whole issue would go away if the Celtics could just go into the 4th quarter with a 20 point lead every game and both Paul and KG could sit out the 4th. (LOL) I hear KG loves Gino!!

gyso

PS: This thing (having Paul and KG both doing the 5-5-5 method at the same time) reminds me of a line change in hockey. The current Celtics have enough quality backups in positions 2-5 to make the line change concept work to our advantage.

To no one in particular:

This is an interesting conversation, which is obviously related to the game-ending, or even quarter-ending lineups. (There must be some cool name for the lineup in that situation; but, if there is, it's eluding me. For now, I'll call it the "closeout lineup.")

I believe there should be an "offensive closeout lineup" and a "defensive closeout lineup." And my opinion (at this early stage) is that both llineups should include: KG (center), Green (PF), Pierce (SF) and Rondo (PG).

For the fifth slot, I'd play Terry if I wanted to emphasize offense and Lee if I wanted to emphasize defense; and I'd alternate the two if I were playing offense/defense in the last minute or two of games.

If I had to go with one all-purpose "closeout" lineup it would be the defensive one (KG, Green, Pierce, Lee Rondo) because Lee could contribute more on offense than Terry could contribute on defense.

Hopefully, Doc will settle on combinations he prefers for various situations sooner rather than later. At some point, it will be important for a few combinations to get lots of repetitions rather than using so many combinations that their continuity suffers.

Sam