Quick Hits from Doc

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4703029/quick-hits-from-doc-2


Quick hits from Doc
March, 7, 2013
MAR 7
2:23
PM ET
By Greg Payne | ESPNBoston.com


Quick hits following Celtics head coach Doc Rivers' appearance on ESPN Radio's SVP & Russillo show Thursday (to listen to the interview, click HERE):

On why the Celtics have played so well (13-4) without Rajon Rondo: "Well I thought we were playing better right before he went out. I actually made that statement. What's funny is we were in the middle of a losing streak and I went out to the media and said, 'I know this sounds crazy, but I think we're about to turn the corner.' Avery was just coming back and we forget Avery missed the first 30 games of our season; Jeff Green missed all of last year, so he was starting to come into shape; Jason Terry's a new player on our team. We just had a lot of moving parts and we were just starting to get it together.

"So, I thought we were about to trend and then we lose Rondo and [Jared] Sullinger, which hurt us as well. But our team kept going. We clearly miss a lot of things without Rondo, especially end-of-the-game situations being one of them. We have to be more creative. But our guys have hung in there and we have two pretty good players. Kevin Garnett's not bad and neither is Paul Pierce. And having those two guys to kind of hold the fort together has been huge for us."

On advancing the ball more without Rondo: "I just know that our guys look for him because they want him to have the ball, and sometimes they probably could have thrown the ball ahead. I'm a big believer in the advance pass and there were times, yeah, I think our bigs, especially, instead of just advancing it up the floor, would wait to get it back to Rondo. Now, because we really don't have a primary ball handler. I've talked to a couple of guys that we've faced, coaching-wise, and they said, 'That's the most difficult thing now.' They're not sure where the heck the ball's going to be. It's funny, I was telling one of my friends, who's a coach in the league, 'I don't either.' We just advance it and we spread it and we move it and we try to let the ball find the open guy. Because, quite honestly, we don't have a guy good enough anymore who can just handle the ball and run the show. So why fight it? And we haven't."

On how long it's been since the NBA has seen a defender like Avery Bradley: "It's been a long time. I know there's been someone else since Scottie Pippen, but I really can't think of him, and I know there has been, I'm just not giving it enough thought. But he does it night-in and night-out, and even when he's guarding a guy that's not a scorer, but he's guarding the ball, what he's done for us is allow us to play defense at shorter times. I think our average now, since Avery's been back, is teams are getting into their offense -- and that means making the first pass to start the play -- at 10 seconds and 12 seconds. To have to just play defense for 12 seconds compared to 18 and 20 seconds just makes a huge difference in our defense. And when you look at our numbers since he's been back, I think we were 23rd defensively and now we're down to ninth or seventh, which means we're really one or two if you just go on the average since he's been back. It's made a huge difference."

On the league-wide struggles on the road: "Well I think a lot of teams are better, number one. It's funny, as a player, I loved the road, because I just loved the silence of the crowd when you win there. I know that was just what I enjoyed. But it does take you out of your norm, out of your comfort zone. And the more new players and the more role players you have, the more difficult it is to win on the road. The more stars you have, the more guys who are great on the night-in and night-out basis, the better you are on the road. I thought with all the changes we made -- early on we were really struggling on the road, now I think we're starting to find ourselves a little bit."


bob
MY NOTE: If the definition of a DPOY isn't "the team is mediocre to shitty defensively without him and is elite with him", I don't know what is. Also, Doc talks about their unpredictability with Rondo out. Rondo needs to listen here. He needs to run without the ball more and worry less about being a control-freak and assist hound.


.

Great observations, unsurprisingly, from Doc.

Regarding advancing the ball more quickly, Doc has a point about rebounders deferring to Rondo instead of advancing the ball, but that begs another question -- why isn't Rondo the guy running up the court to receive the pass in an advance position? Haven't we all seen Rondo content to just stand there or even come back to the rebounder instead of getting in position to receive an outlet pass like Cousy?

Over the past few years, Rondo has embraced the role of being the guy in control of the offense, but seeing how effective it is to push the ball and pass the ball, I think it's incumbent upon Rondo to evolve again and let loose on the reins of control that he has assertively taken. It's a credit to Rondo that he could take control like that when the team had the Big Three, but the team's post-Rondo play has shown that his control went a bit too far and became counterproductive.

It's going to be fascinating to see what happens when Rondo comes back next season.

If Rondo comes back next season...

Outside, much more often than not, Cousy was positioned precisely where you say Rondo is positioned for the outlet or inbounds pass. Cousy might have been in stride a little more often, but he didn't need a head start because of his fabulous ability.

The Russell Celtics probably threw more long passes than today's Celtics, although the gap has been narrowing lately. Either long passes or a series of short passes could be effective in pushing the ball. It was the absence of dribbling that was the key.

One huge difference from the old days that I've never seen mentioned anywhere involved inbounding after the referee handled the ball. In the old days, the ref got the ball to the inbounding team as soon as humanly possible, not waiting for the retreating defensive team to get into place. In cases where the ref delayed even a second or two, the Celtic inbounder would clap his hands a couple of times to signal the ref to hurry up. Many times, the ref was virtually part of a Celtics fast break. And there were many more fast break baskets off made field goals or free throws than in today's game..

That's a major reason why there were a lot more instances of beating the other team upcourt back then than now. Nowadays, the ref looks around, picks his nose, scratches his butt, makes a quick cell call to a good friend, and finally gives the ball to the inbounder.

Sam

For a while, Scalabrine was the only Celt who'd inbound the ball quickly. He fully understood the fast break implications.

P.S. My grandson Ben is getting very good at dribbling.

Let's not forget we won our lone championship in this era with Rondo, well before he got his act together. So there is more than one way to skin a cat.

With the current team sans Rondo, the assists are spread out all over the place with no one assist leader. While the winning looks good, it may have more to do with the rest of the league not knowing how to handle the Celtics without Rondo. If you don't know what your opponent is going to do next, you are going to lose more often than not. I don't know how long it takes coaching staffs to get the proper game plans together based on certain expected personnel on the floor but all their plans/schemes to date had/have to be Rondo Centric. But it takes at least a month I would guess. So much so, they didn't have contingency plans for Rondo going down. Who would? There was a low probability of that ever happening.

The added madness for those playing the Celtics now is per Doc above, our coach doesn't even know where the ball will be at any certain time. That's why the assists are all over the place. Doc knows what he is doing. Telling the league he doesn't know is pure genius. That statement alone sets the rest of the NBA coaching staffs back another month of planning/preparation by itself.

Celtic philosophy and the resulting championships have always been based on true team play. This team right now looks very good. They are scrapping, defensive-minded, distributing the ball, have loads of experience, youth and they are winning. They have re-invented themselves in very short order because they want to win with the cards they have been dealt. They know Rondo isn't walking through that door, the guy that lead them to the first championship in this era. So how do they proceed?

All this and they appear to be near-peaking at just the right time, going into the home stretch. Again, with all the bs Doc has to deal with regarding injuries, egos, line ups and coaching in general, I think we will look back on this time as he is the master puppeteer. Probably in the same vein as Auerbach but in this era of the NBA. While Red's feats will never be duplicated in this league again, nor a Phil Jackson winning 6 out of 8 years with the same team in the 90's, Doc will go down in Celtic history as one of the most brilliant coaches of our time. Unfortunately Celtic Nation is a championship or bust mentality. The rest of the sports world won't pick up on Doc until another banner or two is hung in the rafters. This is further compounded by everything going on in the deep southeast. Until we find a way to knock off the beast in the east in the playoffs, Doc may never get the true recognition he deserves.

dbrown4 wrote:Let's not forget we won our lone championship in this era with Rondo, well before he got his act together.

What does this even mean?

Rajon was one of the 5 most improved players in the NBA in 2007-08, and took on a trio of hall of famers - and led them to the championship. He had 16 assists in game 2 of the finals and 21 - 7 assists and 8 rebounds in wrapping up the series in game 6. After which, Phil Jackson said Rondo was the X factor that put the Celtics over the top.

Mrkleen,

Looking back, I guess that was a little out of place. He was brand new working with the Big Three in their first season together. Early in that season he was turning over the ball, throwing it to nobody in particular and we were all in doubt early on that he could get it together by playoff time. He did. Since then, he hasn't been able to lead us to another banner, but he has clearly matured as a player since then until now. We've just run into the Miami buzzsaw, Laker revenge, etc. since then and have been unable to repeat.

He wasn't as smooth, court savvy and crafty that first season as he is now. You are right though he was the X-factor.

My bad.

Gyso,


Good one. I never thought of that. Do you hire out as a ghost writer?

Sam

gyso wrote:dbrown,

If
Laker revenge = Perkin's knee injury (10)
and
Miami buzzsaw = Wade busting Rondo's elbow (11) and then ref no-calls (12)

Then I will agree with your reasons for no championships since 2008.

That doesn't even mention KG's knee injury (09). That would have been the Orlando prestiditation? (LOL)

gyso

thanks for calling a spade a spade