Up and Down Offensive Performances

The idea that the Cs have shown that lots of guys can surface on any night to score enough points to win games has been good, but it is also becoming quite concerning to me. Each of the last two games are great examples.

Turner went from 30 last night to 7 tonight.  Olynyk had two points tonight in 20 minutes on 6 shots.  Zeller was lousy last night, but got 18 tonight on 8 for 10 shooting, and there have been many other such examples this year and a whole bunch of similar examples of late.

I realize that guys have good nights and some bad nights and that points are not all that matters to a team on any given night, but such huge swings in offensive production is concerning me because I fully believe that a good player is one who is pretty consistent from night to night throughout a season in all aspect of his game.  Bass has been their most consistent guy since he started getting consistent minutes in December.  Thomas has been very regular since joining the team.  The other guys (starters and bench) not so much.

Are the current Celtics guys just one their way to becoming consistent or are they just not talented enough to be consistent from night to night.  This may not be a problem, but I can see it being a big item relating to just which players are able to move on as the Cs re-build continues.

wide

You already know the answer to that question.

Today I was looking at GS stats. Did you know that they have 3 players shooting +40% from behind the arch. The team average is a round 40.

Brad Stevens wants this team to play with pace and he wants this team to shoot the three ball. The team takes a lot of three's but they do not consistently make a high percentage.

The Celtics need more high end talent. I am drafting a guy that runs like a maniac at both ends and can knock down 3 pointers from all over the court

dboss.

Clyde,

I've had a lot of thoughts along those lines too.  It would be more reassuring to have a couple of guys who are good for 20+ just about every night and another four or five who are pretty consistently in double figures.  But I think it's important to recall that it wasn't long ago when some of us were despairing that the Celtics lacked enough punch and poise down the stretch of every game and lacked any form of a dependable go-to guy despite two guys named Rondo and Green whose talents suggested they should be go-to guys.

The team has come quite distance in a short time since those days.  They're nowhere near what they'll be like when they reach their peak potential (whenever that might be).  Right now, they're at a stage where (1) they're quite obviously more comfortable playing together, (2) they're individually more comfortable in their roles, and (3) collectively, their roles constitute enough complementarity to gain incremental chemistry with each game, and (4) they can usually band together to find some way to do just a little better than their competition in a majority of the games..

That scenario is a very promising direction for the team, and perhaps even a direction that will produce a winning record since Rondo and Green left.  But it is only one stop in the right direction.  It's very possibly as far as we can expect them to get at this point in their journey.  They're not at the stage of readiness that is close enough to their ultimate peak to warrant worrying about niceties such as a predictable formula for success night after night.

They're at the stage that involves taking a different route in almost every game—a stage where their one area of consistency involves energy output rather than a dependable output from every guy every night.  They're still at the reactionary stage, whereby the ceiling of each player on ay given night depends partly on the the sum of all their individual matchups.

Turner might have a better matchup one night, Bradley another night, Crowder another night, etc..  They're not at the stage where they're good enough to guarantee that each Celtics' player's matchup will produce roughly the same result every night.  They're at the stage in which the totality of their individual matchups just barely scrapes by as being sufficient to succeed more often than not.  I'm grateful for that; and, with every game, I just hope the bubble won't burst.

In a way, their recent successes have spoiled us because they suggest that we should be looking for even more rapid improvement.  I'm working hard not to be greedy in expecting a rapid succession of glimmers every time one glimmer surfaces.  It has been one step at a time all season long; and we're fortunate that the steps are covering more ground with every game.

And finally, I haven't been talking about discontinuity as I used to, but that doesn't make it any less operative.  Whenever a player goes OR comes, a discontinuity is created—usually requiring either small or large adjustments.  When Isaiah came, an adjustment was required.  When he got injured, another adjustment was required.  When he comes back another adjustment will be in order.  Some discontinuities have more impact than others.  Sully's departure required a long-term adjustment by several players to pick up the slack.

An environment of rapid-fire discontinuities is not conducive to the development of a predictable pattern of player inputs with each succeeding game.  I find it close to miraculous that Brad has this collection of players faring as well as it is on a reasonably consistent basis, even if we must hold our breaths to see who might emerge as a hero in each game.

Don't worry.  Greater consistencies will surface down the road.

Go Celtics!

Sam