Strange Things Are Happening !!!

In the 1950s, comedian Red Buttons became famous for his "Ho Ho" song in which one line became the national rage: "Strange things are happening." I looked for Buttons on the Celtics bench last night, even though he's been dead for a while. Of course, he wasn't there, but it appears his legacy lives on in the form of the Boston Celtics.

I've seldom seen such a schizophrenic sports aggregation, and virtually never one with so many veteran players struggling to fit in consistently. Sometimes something works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it goes back and forth even in the same game. It all seems sort of random.

What's going on is almost the antithesis of the word "consistency." Terry looks like he's recapturing his fire fighting skills in one game and disappears in the next two. Barbosa shines in garbage time but comes down to earth as a starter. Pierce does his takeover thing once in a while but is becoming a human turnover who can actually get trapped along the sideline and essentially lose a game to the Bulls. Who cares if he was fouled? You don’t get yourself into jams like that with the game on the line. A junior high school kid could have thrown the ball of one of the Bulls and out of bounds. Bass is up and down. Green can embarrass the other team in one game and embarrass himself in the next one.

The pure and simple fact is that the performances of some teams are greater than the sum of their parts. This team is performing like the whole is less than the sum of the very talented individual parts. And the word “individual” is, I believe, very much at the heart of the problem.

When guys like Terry, Lee, Green, Barbosa and Pierce struggle, their default solution involves what comes most naturally to them—free lance basketball (or as its main feature is sometimes known, “hero ball”). When guys like KG, Rondo, Sully and Bass struggle, their default solution involves better team play. When free lance basketball and team play basketball butt heads (which I think is happening on this team), it’s easier for the “team-oriented” players to play down to the free lance level than it is for the free lance guys to play up to the team-oriented level. And I believe that’s what’s happening on this team.

Just one statistical indicator of what I’m talking about:

• In the first 10 games of the season, regardless of the team’s record, the team-oriented style of play carried over from the past as a lot of the newer guys struggled with it:

….68% of the made field goals were assisted.

• From game 10 through the last game before the recent winning streak, there was more of a tug-of-war between team play and free lance play:

….60% of the made field goals were assisted.

• During the recent winning streak, there was evidence that team play might be starting to take greater hold:

….65% of the made field goals were assisted.

• In the past two losses, free lance play pushed team play right into the dumper:

….51% of the made field goals were assisted.

I would submit that there are stylistic philosophies clashing out there—a sure-fire recipe for dysfunction—especially if, once again, Rajon Rondo is on one “side” and Paul Pierce is on the other. So when Tom Heinsohn very correctly opines that there are many new players struggling to fit in, that’s only half the story. The m.o. of the newer arrivals is not in synch with the Celtics’ traditional way of operating. And Paul Pierce (who has the ability to swing either way) has a certain comfort level with the free lance style, even if he’s physically less able to execute it than earlier in his career.

So what’s the solution to getting everyone on the same page?

My impression is that the paltry number of set plays in the current offense of the Celtics makes Red Auerbach’s basic 7 plays look vast by comparison. Set plays lead to offensive discipline, and offensive discipline leads to instinctive offensive shared habits, and instinctive offensive shared habits lead to a more dynamic offense, and a more dynamic offense gives the players defensive adrenalin as surely as the fans are juiced up by a great offensive play and break into the “DEFENSE” chant. And the set plays don’t have to result in the kind of predictability I’m now seeing in the offense because options are the creative part of the formula.

Perhaps I’m selling Doc short and there really are more plays that I’m just not seeing. If so, they’re not well enough engrained in this team to exert the kind of offensive discipline I’m talking about. I know everyone (including me) is on Rondo’s case for not pushing the ball more regularly. But, frankly, it wouldn’t matter that he pushes it if he’s going to bounce the ball for 10-15 seconds while waiting (along with the defense) for one of his teammates to make a move. A loud fart would result in more movement without the ball than we’re seeing lately.

That’s what the offense has become. They hang around and wait for someone to make a move that I guess is supposed to surprise the opponents. Good luck with that, because the well-entrenched opponents simply stop flossing long enough to double the guy making the move. So, assuming he hasn’t already fired an ill-timed three, either the guy winds up shooting a (usually highly contested) shot or shoots a “hero” jumper or lucks out and finds a teammate with a contested pass. For the offensive production they’re getting, these guys are working harder than Charlie Chaplin in his role as “The Tramp.” In that movie, Charlie winds up eating a shoe. So, if you should see Rondo gnawing on a sneaker, you’ll know he has hit rock bottom.

And as long as I’m talking about offensive plays, I’d like to see more designed plays for Sully down low and Lee. They both have a great nose for the basket, and I believe they’re both far from reaching their peak potential.

Moreover, I believe Rondo should be directed to invest more time getting each teammate into the game. That’s more easily accomplished on offense than on defense because, on offense, you can call the player’s number and execute (e.g. with strong picks) in a way that he gets some relatively easy shots.

I believe the team is well-enough versed in the defensive system so that all they need on that end of the floor (plus another big man) is sufficient motivation, energy and persistence. And I believe that a more dynamic offense would provide the needed inspiration, to say nothing of capitalizing on stops to a far better degree than they have been doing.

An important note: When I assigned each player to either the “free lance” or “team ball” tag, I was obviously generalizing. In particular, I feel Lee has the ability, perseverance, versatility and smarts to embrace any offensive system. Right now, the fact that he unilaterally takes the ball to the hoop is one of the bright spots in their offense, and I’m sure that ability could be heightened if it came more within the context of team play.

Go Celtics!

Sam

Sam,

That was one of your all time best posts. You really get a Tommy Point....OK make that 2 Tommy Points!


112288

Thanks, 112288. I hope it doesn't leave anyone thinking I don't love this team. If I didn't care so much, I just wouldn't bother.

Sam

Sam,

Absolutely not! It was straight from the gut. The stats you used were great in building your case of team ball.

As I said in one of my posts...I am satisfied of watching them compete this year and with a team effort maybe make it to the Eastern Finals. Making some trades with a limited amount of players..i.e. Bass, Terry, Barbosa, Collins...maybe Wilcox....maybe Pierce ........BUT DON'T TOUCH THE REST OF THE PLAYERS!

We are going to have a great nucleus of a team and some summer free agent signings could put us in the path to the finals next year. One player that needs addressing in Pierce. He has to assume a bench position next year or retire. Just think if we had his salary available to us this year.

112288

sam wrote:Thanks, 112288. I hope it doesn't leave anyone thinking I don't love this team. If I didn't care so much, I just wouldn't bother.

Sam

Sam,

There will be a blizzard in Tierra del Fuego the day someone thinks you don't love the Celtics, and I'm not talking about Argentina.

I believe that, while there are numerous contributing factors, we are suffering from one central weakness: we only have one playmaker and he's inconsistent in his delivery.

When Rondo was scoring 10ppg or so but dishing out 11+ assists, our weakness was minimized. When Rondo scores more, he assists less. Not every time, of course, sometimes he scores big and assists big, but there's only one ball and if he's putting it in the hole that means that someone else isn't and it's hard to ask anybody to do both on a nightly basis. This dilutes your assist-to-fgm stat. It also doesn't pump up a movement offense.

When I said Rondo was inconsistent with his delivery what I was referring to was his "now we're a running team, now we're not" performances. It's creating schizofrenia. You can't walk if he runs, you'll stick out like a sore thumb, but why run if he walks?

JET's assists/36mpg rate is about 60% of his career average. His shooting woes aside, he's not playing the role of backup point guard well either. In fact, he's not even playing as good a playmaking role, backup point guard or not, that he has in the rest of his career. Bradley and Lee's assists/36mpg are worse than JET's, but they were never tabbed for the role. They are defensive players. Barbosa's assists/36mpg are better than JET's (3.5 vs 2.9), but his number of minutes have been so limited it's hard to know if that's a true indicator. A good start, though. For what little statistically it's worth, Barbosa's assists/36mpg (based upon limited data) is higher than his career average and is, in fact, currently tied with his season high 4.0ap36m in his rookie year.

So, what we have are a bunch of players that are either looking for someone else to feed them or are going solo, and we really only have one "feeder".

I've gotten on Bryant a lot when he stops being Kobe and starts playing like KoME because when he does that the rest of his team stands around and watches him do his thing. Well, we have a team of KoMEs. Green on the perimeter with the clearout, and everybody stands around and watches when he's doing it. Pierce with the isos and everybody stands around and watches when he's doing it. KG with the shake-and-bake. Sully, Bass, Lee and Bradley are offensive flow players (Sully is also a premier trashman, cleaning up after everybody else), but there's only one player who creates that flow for them. JET can't make up his mind what he is. He knows he's a shooter, sure, but he doesn't know who he is when he's not shooting. Barbosa is still just a hopeful mystery.

Pierce needs to be more of a floor general and less of an iso player and God Knows less of a 3pt shooter. JET needs to be more of a floor general. If he's not coming off a pick for a shot, with or without the ball, he needs to be telling people where to go. We need to find out what kind of a floor general Barbosa can be (he's never been a real point guard, but how much can he do?). Because we don't have a designated backup point guard role player, everybody else must up that part of their game to fill the hole. Floor generalship cannot simply be ignored or shelved just because he's sitting (or, in the case of Rondo, suspended).

The strategy of "point guard by committee" isn't working well. We shouldn't be too surprised about that, we've probably all heard the riddle that goes
Q: "What has 10 legs and no brains?"
A: A committee


bob


.

BobH,

I initially made a Kobe analogy as you did, and then I decided to scrub it because I was concerned that it it would have provoked yet another repetitive argument about Kobe.

I've been saying, for some time, that one of my hopes is that the Celts would sign an experienced ball distributor who might be over-the-hill but could help pull the bench together for 15-20 minutes a game. One could argue that the Celtics' bench can't afford to have a PG without much offense because they're offensively challenged. But that would be exactly the point of acquiring a true backup PG—to accelerate the offense of Green, Sully, and whomever they play at C and SG.

As for JET, he's just doing what comes naturally. When challenges, he defaults to shooting, not to distributing. Once in a while, he makes a nice pass; but, as you suggested, that's a far cry from being a floor general.

Sam