STAT MAN: ADDRESSING CELTICS’ BIG PROBLEM

WEEI

By Ben Rohrbach

The biggest problem facing these Celtics is the lack of a point guard, but that’s a story for a different day, since there’s no viable solution on the current roster until Rajon Rondo returns. Sure, a little more Phil Pressey might help, but is an undersized, undrafted rookie point guard really going to solve this thing?

So, let’s address a problem that Brad Stevens could possibly bandage with the current roster.

The Celtics are the NBA’s worst defensive rebounding team, allowing opponents to grab 33.9 percent of available offensive boards — a number that would rank among the worst in history over a full season. Opponents attempt 39.3 field goals per game within 8 feet of the basket; only the Blazers (43.3) are worse. The opposition scores 20.8 second-chance points per game; only the Nuggets (23.0) are worse. And just four teams (Wizards, Blazers, Clippers, Bucks) give up more than the C’s 44.5 points allowed in the paint per game.

The C’s interior defense needs work. Vitor Faverani, Brandon Bass, Jared Sullinger, Kelly Olynyk and Kris Humphries are allowing an average of 26.5 attempts at the rim, where opponents are shooting 52.8 percent.

The two biggest offenders, naturally, are rookies. Faverani is allowing 11 field goal attempts at the rim per game. Eleven! Per game! That’s the fifth-worst number in the league. He’s grabbed just 49.2 percent of his 14.8 rebound chances per game. The only other player with as many opportunities to snatch fewer than 50 percent is Al Jefferson, who hasn’t played since aggravating an ankle injury on opening night.

Meanwhile, the opposition is shooting 76.5 percent at the rim against Olynyk. That’s ridiculous. Only two bigs (Trevor Booker, DeMarre Carroll) are worse. And Olynyk snags fewer rebounds per chance than Faverani.


Bass has been the most invaluable of the C’s bigs. They’re almost 20 points per 100 possessions better with Bass on the floor. Opponents are shooting 46.7 percent on six field goal attempts at the rim against Bass, and he’s snatching 65.7 percent of available rebounds. Not bad. Not bad at all. For good reason, he’s started all four games and averaged more minutes (31. than anyone else in the frontcourt.

Here’s where the issue begins. As Red’s Army noted, the Celtics are 29.4 points per 100 possessions better with Faverani on the bench and 17.5 better sans Olynyk. Yet, they’re getting more burn than Sullinger and Humphries. Perhaps the Celtics are applying a slow-play strategy, accelerating the maturity of their rookies. But Sully’s part of their future, too, and his performance has been better than both rooks across the board.

And, for some strange reason, Humphries hasn’t played a minute since dropping 14 and eight in the opener as Sullinger sat with a suspension. Hump was a plus-10 in eight minutes alongside Avery Bradley, Jeff Green, Gerald Wallace and Bass, and then plus-7 in five minutes when Jordan Crawford subbed for Bradley. Those remain the team’s best plus-minus numbers. And Humphries snatched seven contested rebounds against the Raptors, a limited sample size that stands atop NBA.com’s Player Tracking statistics.

None of these guys are great defensively, and perhaps the young guns may improve over time, but at least the rebounding of Sullinger and Humphries allows fewer opportunities for the Celtics to be poor defensively.

112288

He says that Brad could "possibly "bandage" the problem of dearth of defensive rebounds, but he doesn't say how. Fine, then I believe Brad could possibly "bandage" the problems of protecting the rim, rookie inexperience, lack of an intimidating center, lack of an experienced ball distributor, crummy fhree-point shooting percentage, and world conflict.

While I have no huge gripe with the validity of these stats (a "small sample" of minutes played would be a naive criticism because these figures presumably represent a complete census—100% of their minutes played—rather than a sample), there's always a context. Rebounding stats should be considered within the context of (1) how well teammates are supporting one another's rebounding efforts (2) whether, although a player isn't getting a lot of rebounds himself, he does a good job blocking out so teammates can grab the boards, and (3) the extent to which other teams are drawing a rebounder away form the boards on defense.

1. Among Vitor's teammates, only Brandon Bass is consistently doing a good job of blocking out under the defensive boards. Brandon's smart enough to realize he doesn't have the height to compete for a lot of rebounds, so he sticks his butt on an apposing player and doesn't lose the guy.

2. Vitor's instinct is to go for the board, even if he has a low-percentage chance to get it. While that may be admirable in one sense, he could be more valuable if he would be more discriminating in realizing that he can be useful even in those low-percentage opportunities by blocking out for teammates. His aversion to blocking out may be related to his aversion to touching opponents when he sets a "pick." He sets "shadow picks," basically feinting at an opponent and rolling to the basket prematurely rather than to risk contact. Someone should tell him that two purposes of a pick are to free a teammate and/or force a defensive switch.

3. Opponents have been quite successful in drawing Vitor away from the rim on defense. He lacks the agility to recover to the rim when an opponent's shot was imminent. Russell, Cowens, Paris and KG all had that ability. His defense at the rim and his rebounding are both affected adversely.

Among all the positional unbalancing, the two positions being manned least capably are center and point guard. (No one needs me to tell them that.) Unfortunately, forgetting about the won/lost record, these two positions are the most important in aiding teammates in the development process. Just two of the obvious types of support are (1) having their backs in protecting the rim when they lose their man on defense and (2) distributing the ball so as to put them in a good position to succeed.

Hopefully, Rondo will solve one of these two problems. It's important to note that being a floor general means far more than getting assists. A good floor general controls the pace, passes with purpose, anticipates upcoming sequences in the action, motivates teammates, Getting a handful of assists in a game can occur on a case-by-case basis without maintaining a high level of continuity in these other areas.

While I like Vitor, I see him as a potential second-line center—perhaps eventually on the order of Za Za. When the offense of the opponent brings him away from the basket, he's not agile enough to recover in time to protect the rim and come up with rebounding oppoortunities. (For examples, google the names of Russell, Cowens, Parish and Garnett.)

Sam

I think the turnovers have been the biggest problem...

They are getting out-rebounded but the untimely TOs are doing them in.

Sam,

I think Vitor will be much better than ZaZa. He looks significantly more skilled on offense overall and he has a lot of room to grow as a player. Zaza is mainly a big body for the most part, he lacks a versatile game.

KJ

Here is the video that came with this article.






bob


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http://www.celticsblog.com/2013/11/5/5070748/celtics-arent-that-bad-in-the-paint


Celtics aren't that bad in the paint
By wjsy on Nov 5 2013, 7:20p 10



Earlier today, Ben Rohrbach of WEEI's Green Street put together some condemning statistics about the Celtics and their poor performance in the key. Consider this the rebuttal.


Sure, the numbers don't sound good:

The C's interior defense needs work. Vitor Faverani, Brandon Bass, Jared Sullinger, Kelly Olynyk and Kris Humphries are allowing an average of 26.5 attempts at the rim, where opponents are shooting 52.8 percent.

The two biggest offenders, naturally, are rookies. Faverani is allowing 11 field goal attempts at the rim per game. Eleven! Per game! That's the fifth-worst number in the league. He's grabbed just 49.2 percent of his 14.8 rebound chances per game. The only other player with as many opportunities to snatch fewer than 50 percent is Al Jefferson, who hasn't played since aggravating an ankle injury on opening night.

Meanwhile, the opposition is shooting 76.5 percent at the rim against Olynyk. That's ridiculous. Only two bigs (Trevor Booker, DeMarre Carroll) are worse. And Olynyk snags fewer rebounds per chance than Faverani.

All things considered, it's not that bad.  Two of the Celtics first four games have come against the Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies, two teams that are markedly bigger than most in the NBA.  Everybody's going to have trouble against that three-headed monster of Josh Smith, Andre Drummond, and Greg Monroe and the dynamic duo of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol.

While Rohrbach's numbers are all true, here are some other stats to chew on.  The Celtics are tied for 6th in the league in points allowed, but admittedly, that has a lot to do with pace.  However, according to MySynergySports.com, the Celtics rank 9th in defending the post up, 11th against cutters, and have only allowed 9 field goal attempts in the pick-and-roll.  The pack line defense was designed to limit penetration.  We're seeing fewer iced PnR's with big man defenders moving their feet, retreating backwards, and forcing teams to shoot from the perimeter.  So far, you could make the argument that it's working.

Sure, rebounding has been an issue, but a lot of that has to do with long rebounds from missed shots.  The goal of most defenses is to have your opponent take bad shots and there's nothing worse that the long 2.  So far, Boston ranks 14th in the league forcing teams to shoot from the mid-range, giving up 18.64 points a game (22.3 shots at a 40.4% clip).  Better still, the Celtics are one of the league leaders in defending the 3.  They're only allowing three points a game from the corner and 10.5 above the break.  That ranks the pitbulls on the perimeter 3rd in the NBA.

What has absolutely killed Boston so far are the defensive rotations, but it's getting better.  For those of you that didn't watch the Pistons game, Detroit murdered us near the basket when guys didn't rotate quick enough after the first pass and Monroe and Drummond found themselves wide open for dunks.  At the Palace on Sunday night, the Celtics gave up 14 field goal attempts and 9 makes on Detroit making the extra pass to a wide open cutter.  Against Milwaukee, the Bucks were 9 of 13 on similar shots.  Last night in Memphis against one of the best passing big men in Gasol, the C's cut that number down to 4 makes in 8 attempts.

It's a process, it's a process, it's a process and the team is trending towards the positive.



bob



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