POST GAME NEW YORK - GAME 2

Mulcogi,

One thing that's happening is that, when the Celtics'
defense falters OR when they're facing a really good-shooting team OR
when they're facing a superior offensive rebounding team, it's difficult
for the Celts to run the break because they're so often taking the ball
out of the basket.

Worcester,

It's interesting that you
mention Cousy because I almost included him in my previous post except
that some people get bent out of shape when I refer to the past. I went back to the best-scoring season the Celtics have ever had (1961-62) and found that Cousy assisted on 32% of the Celtics' made field goals (regular season).

For comparative purposes, I had to go back three seasons to find one year in which Rondo played in more than 83% of the Celtics' regular season games. This kind of stat doesn't mean anything unless the player played virtually every game because, otherwise, you can't break out only those games in which the guy played.

In 2009-10, Rondo assisted on 41% of the Celtics' made field goals. Given the increase in his assists per game since then, I would estimate that he's probably been averaging more like 43%-45% of the Celtics' made field goals more recently. I think it's very possible that Rondo's 43%-45% versus Cousy's 32% makes the current day Celtics' offensive pattern far more predictable than that of the earlier Celtics. This is what I'm referring to when I say that the Celtics' style of play has become too Rondo-centric.

This is not a knock on Rondo, because it's not a bad thing to assist. Once again, it's the TEAM that's suffering from an imbalance.

One thing I've worried about for years concerning Rondo was that a lot of his skills involved literally throwing himself around and gaining advantage through athleticism. The fact that he hasn't played anything approaching a full season in any of the past three years due to injuries could be a major warning signal.

Sam

Sam,
Sure, you are right in that scenario, but that isn't what usually happens, is it? Doesn't really matter if the shot is made or not, what matters is that when they start to push the ball they do well but so often they stop doing that and resort to bad shots or miss the easy ones.

I think the major difference between Cousy and Rondo is the philosophy of the coach. Red wanted the pace pushed all the time, Doc, not so much. I don't think the problem is that Rondo's teamates won't or can't run that much, that they won't fast break, but that the movement stagnates and the ball sticks, either with Rondo or PP. Run a/o move with out the ball. That is always a good mantra in basketball. That is the issue here. It's kind of like the C's rebounding woes, they aren't expected to rebound so they don't. They aren't expected to run and move, so they don't. They do it sometimes, but not enuf for the taste of this board or me.

Re: % of assists. Wouldn't this be affected by the style of play? Wouldn't a more fast paced especially a fast break offense, distribute assists more evenly due to the pace of play? Of course that doesn't explain what happens when Rondo or any other player pounds the ball, we all agree on that one. Would I be correct in assuming that both Rondo's and Cousy's assist % is higher than almost all other pg's?

Sometimes I think Rondo went to an Iverson summer camp. Very few players absorbed the kind of wear and tear that AI did. Rondo seems to be cut from that same mold. Let's hope he stays on the court and that Danny get's an actual pg as a backup, a big one, hopefully.

As far as referring to the past you oldtimer you, keep it up. Some of us know just how right you are and just how much the youngbloods need your wisdom.

Mulcogi

Great piece on what we're missing:

http://www.sbnation.com/2013/4/26/4268756/rajon-rondo-boston-celtics-nba-playoffs-2013

Mulcogi,

The most prominent PGs in 1961-62 were Cousy, Guy Rodgers (Philadelphis), Len Wilkens (St. Louis), Oscar Robertson (Cincinnati) and Gene Shue Detroit). That was Wilkens' second season, and he never played just about a full season until 1968-69, so I used his stats for that season and stats for the 1961-62 season for the other
four.

Robertson had 42% of the Cincinnati assists.
Wilkens had 34% of the St. Louis assists.
Cousy had 32% of the Celtics' assists.
Rodgers had 31% of the Philadelphia assists.
Shue had 27% of the Detroit assists.

Oscar was a true stat machine. If there ever was a team that was player-centric, it would have been those Royals teams. In terms of assists, I guess Oscar could almost be called the 1961-62 version of Rondo. But Cousy's percentage was certainly not outlandish, compared with his peers on other teams.

Now that I've looked into the matter a little more, what was really significant was that the old Celtics had four players who were in double figures in terms of their percentages of the team's assists:

32% Cousy
17% Russell
17% K.C. Jones
11% Sam Jones

Even The Gunner (Heinsohn) had 8% of the Celtics' assists. And, when Havlicek joined the team the following season, the assists were even more widely distributed:

26% Cousy
18% Russell
16% K.C. Jones
12% Sam Jones
9% Havlicek
5% Heinsohn
5% Ramsey
5% Sanders

Despite the fact that Rondo missed more than half the Celtics' games this past season, only Paul Pierce and JET, among the other Celtics, were in double figures when it came to
percentage of the Celtics' assists for the entire season:

20% for Pierce
11% for JET
9% for KG
8% for Lee
7% for Green

I'm not counting the assists of Rondo or Bradley because they both missed so many games. However, it is noteworthy that Rondo led the team at 23% of the team's assists despite his missing half the season. That's certainly in keeping with his averaging 42%-45% over an entire season. I call that Rondo-centric.

In terms of whether the pace of the game contributed to the more widely distributed assist shares in 1961-62, actually it could be argued that consistently fast-paced play favored Cousy because so many of the fast-break assists were his.

On the other hand, by today's rules, Cooz AND his teammates got screwed out of a significant number of assists because assists weren't credited in those days if the receiving player took even one dribble before subsequently scoring. The 1961-62 team averaged 25.6 APG compared with 22.8 APG for this year's team. Yet the old guys were credited with assists on only
53% of their made field goals compared with 61% for this year's team.

In 1985-86, no Celtics had more assists than the 23% of the team's points submitted by Larry Bird.

For those who view stats as mumbo jumbo, the implications of these figures are:

* Rondo's assists as a percentage of Celtics' assists are incredibly high. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if may possibly be unmatched by any player in history other than the stat machine, Oscar Robertson.

• I call that a Rondo-centric team when it comes to ball distribution.

• I believe that, in addition to lack of ball distribution depth in case of injury, this creates a basic imbalance on a team that has always lived or died on the strength of team interaction, because I think it makes the Celtics' offensive patterns too predictable.

I reiterate that this is not a knock on Rondo; it's a knock on the imbalance of the team. They need better, more assertive ball-handlers and passers (in addition to the need for better shooting and size that we all know about).

Sam

When I se Rondo set up the offense, it's usually in a half court set and he's waiting and watching for one guy and one guy only to make a move so he can feed him for a good opportunity to score. As a result, his assist % is high, but the involvement of other players in the offense is diminished.

By contrast, other than on fast breaks, Cooz would more often make the pass that led to the pass that led to a made basket. Thus on the vintage Celtics teams there was more involvement by more players...more player movement...more ball movement...more players winding up with assists...and more scores. Why more scores? Because the defense had to guard twice as many people - the player receiving Cousy's pass and the player breaking free to receive the pass from the guy who had received the ball from Cooz.

It's simple math really. The Cousy offense multiplied the number of possible Celtic scorers. The Rondo offense narrows the number of Celtic scorers often to only one guy, the recipient of Rajon's pass. Hence the Celtic offense becomes more predictable and easier to defend. Hence, less scoring.

Is that an accurate representation of Celtic history Sam?

Steve, that's an interesting article, and it stirs a lot of memories, but it doesn't really present any conclusions about what the Celtics are missing most with Rondo out.

My own opinion is that the number one thing they're missing is Rondo's ability to make effective entry passes. Time after time, the offense stagnates while Pierce, Lee, Terry or (especially) Bradley stands on the perimeter and then moves the ball laterally (by pass or dribble) rather than toward the hoop.

Bradley's forays along the baseline are virtually missing in action, and I believe the main reason is that no one can find him and/or get him the ball. On the other end of the action, most of Bradley's assists are of the inside-out type because he has no concept of how to penetrate by pass.

Lee, Terry and Pierce are veterans who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous with risky or lazy entry passes. Opponents are like vultures, poised to jump into the obvious passing lanes and steal the ball.

Perhaps "obvious" is the operative term here. To a large extent, this team is only good enough to make obvious moves on the court. Occasionally the obvious move works because of a great shot or a defensive breakdown; but, at least as often, it backfires on the Celts.

In Green, Bradley, Bass, Pierce, Lee, Wilcox, and Terry, they have six players who need someone to get them the ball in favorable locations. They're get-ters rather than get-ees. I could almost put KG in that bunch, but he's adept at maneuvering around to create his own shot more often than not. Occasionally, Pierce is too. But time is obviously taking its toll on the ability of those two to gain the upper hand in one-on-one play. Crawford is another one I omitted because I don't want to upset those who believe that what he can't do is more important than what he can do (including creating his own shot and basically representing energy off the bench that we were expecting Terry to provide).

Sam

Worcester,

It seems right on the money to me.

One other player opponents had to guard carefully was Cousy himself because his passing ability (like his shooting ability) included so many gyrations and arm slots. Moreover, he was a constant threat to penetrate effectively or to step back and use one of his five outside shooting styles to score from distance.

In short, the Cousy Celtics were the absolute antithesis of predictable. The Rondo Celtics—not so much.

Here's hoping tonight's Celtics will uphold the Celtics' "etched-in-stone" tradition of rising to the occasion just when things seemed darkest.

Go Celtics!

Sam

Let's hope so. If only we had a point guard on the court.
Speaking of PG's, what's up with all the PG knee injuries?
Russell Westbrook just went down with a torn meniscus.
Derrick Rose is still out.
Rondo is out.
Kyrie Irving had a stress injury to his kneecap September through January.
Chris Paul was out last year.
Tony Parker had the ankle injury.
Steve Blake has the hammie.
Any others? Where's Bob Heckler when we really need his encyclopedic mind?

Worcester,

I got word from the New Zealand police that Bob had an extended encounter of the closest kind with a mother lamb.

One thing that's seldom mentioned in connection with old Celtics is that they rarely had injuries that were serious enough to cause extended absences from the court. But just look at the percentage of games played by the key Celtics during their entire Celtics careers. (I omitted a year when Red didn't play Sam a lot - coach's decision and a year of military service each for KC Jones and Frank Ramsey. (They played only when they could get leaves of absence.) These figures include regular season games and playoff games:

98% Frank Ramsey
98% Don Nelson
97% Bill Russell
97% John Havlicek
97% K.C. Jones
96% Tom Sanders
95% Tom Heinsohn
94% Bob Cousy
92% Bill Sharman
90% Larry Siegfried
89% Sam Jones
81% Jim Loscutoff

Compare those figures with the central players of this year's team:

100% Jeff Green (Is this guy a wonderful story or what?)
98% Jason Terry
96% Courtney Lee
95% Paul Pierce
84% Kevin Garnett
81% Brandon Bass
75% Chris Wilcox
62% Avery Bradley
56% Jared Sullinger
47% Rajon Rondo

Sam

sam wrote:Steve, that's an interesting article, and it stirs a lot of memories, but it doesn't really present any conclusions about what the Celtics are missing most with Rondo out.

My own opinion is that the number one thing they're missing is Rondo's ability to make effective entry passes. Time after time, the offense stagnates while Pierce, Lee, Terry or (especially) Bradley stands on the perimeter and then moves the ball laterally (by pass or dribble) rather than toward the hoop.

Bradley's forays along the baseline are virtually missing in action, and I believe the main reason is that no one can find him and/or get him the ball. On the other end of the action, most of Bradley's assists are of the inside-out type because he has no concept of how to penetrate by pass.

Lee, Terry and Pierce are veterans who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous with risky or lazy entry passes. Opponents are like vultures, poised to jump into the obvious passing lanes and steal the ball.

Perhaps "obvious" is the operative term here. To a large extent, this team is only good enough to make obvious moves on the court. Occasionally the obvious move works because of a great shot or a defensive breakdown; but, at least as often, it backfires on the Celts.

In Green, Bradley, Bass, Pierce, Lee, Wilcox, and Terry, they have six players who need someone to get them the ball in favorable locations. They're get-ters rather than get-ees. I could almost put KG in that bunch, but he's adept at maneuvering around to create his own shot more often than not. Occasionally, Pierce is too. But time is obviously taking its toll on the ability of those two to gain the upper hand in one-on-one play. Crawford is another one I omitted because I don't want to upset those who believe that what he can't do is more important than what he can do (including creating his own shot and basically representing energy off the bench that we were expecting Terry to provide).

Sam

its pretty obvious AB is not a point guard

Sam...I think often about how durable the vintage Celtics were and how fragile many modern ballers are.

I've always believed that the increase in injuries to modern athletes is a result of too much weight training.

Interesting thought, Mulcogi. I have wondered whether it's a combination of factors ranging from all the flopping and dives today's players take to poor body mechanics when they do their Tarzan imitations on dunks. Maybe counter-productive conditioning regimens are factors as well.

Sam

mulcogiseng wrote:I've always believed that the increase in injuries to modern athletes is a result of too much weight training.

Interesting point. To me, the risk factor is the added weight and the strain that puts on the body. These guys are huge, while they were more like lean greyhounds in the old days.