All Kelly Olynyk needed was a shot of confidence

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4720922/all-kelly-olynyk-needed-was-a-shot-of-confidence



All Kelly Olynyk needed was a shot of confidence

5h


Chris Forsberg, ESPN Staff Writer




WALTHAM, Mass. -- Sometimes, all a struggling shooter needs is to see a ball go in the basket. So, with Kelly Olynyk hoop-less in consecutive games, the Boston Celtics decided that they would close out Friday's shootaround by having Olynyk make the final shot.

He did, hitting a corner 3-pointer to close the team's afternoon session, then went out and scored a season-high 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting with seven rebounds, four assists, four steals, and a block in Boston's inspired 118-98 triumph over the Washington Wizards.

"We needed him to do that. He’s been struggling a little bit," teammate Jae Crowder said of Olynyk, who had missed all eight shots he took in games against the Spurs and Pacers and sat out the entire second half against Indiana. "We broke shootaround [Friday] with him making a shot -- that’s the way we ended shootaround [Friday] with him making the corner 3. So it rolled over into the game. Just trying to get his confidence where it needs to be."




The Celtics' Kelly Olynyk struggled offensively early in the season. Brian Babineau/NBAE/Getty Images


For his part, Olynyk pleaded ignorance to Boston's shooting brainwash but couldn't argue with the results.

"Whatever [Crowder] did, it worked," said Olynyk. When it was suggested he should consider taking the final shot at shootaround more often, Olynyk replied, "Maybe I should."

The Celtics are a better team when Olynyk is on the floor and they're a much better team when Olynyk is aggressive on offense and making his shots. The third-year forward/center has established himself as the sort of advanced-stats darling whose impact isn't always obvious with the eye test but is hammered home by the stat sheet.

Case in point: The Celtics were plus-226 in plus/minus last season when Olynyk was on the floor (1,424 minutes) and minus-213 when he was off (2,552 minutes). Sure, plus/minus is a flawed stat, but that trend has continued this season as Boston is plus-33 in Olynyk's 67 minutes of floor time and minus-16 in the 173 minutes he's been on the bench (or suspended).

What's more interesting this season is that while the 7-foot Olynyk is typically regarded as an offensive player -- one who stretches the floor and forces opposing bigs to guard him beyond the 3-point arc -- it's Boston's defensive numbers with him on the floor that are most eye-popping (albeit in a small sample).

Olynyk is tops on the team with the Celtics allowing only 71.7 points per 100 possessions when he is on the court. That's 23.5 points better than Boston's season average of 92.5 (which ranked seventh in the NBA entering Sunday's play). It's also 11 points better than the next closest teammate and 30 points better than someone like Amir Johnson (typically another advanced stats darling and one of the most common big-man pairing with Olynyk this season).

Watch Olynyk and you don't think lockdown defender. And yet the league's player-tracking data suggests a Marc Gasol-like dominance (OK, that's some early season hyperbole). But opponents are shooting a mere 37.5 percent (6 for 16) against Olynyk and he has four blocks (second on the team behind only Jared Sullinger). What's more, Olynyk had those four steals against the Wizards and is tied for third on the team in swipes this season (7) behind only Crowder (15) and Isaiah Thomas (10).

How does coach Brad Stevens explain Boston's defensive dominance with Olynyk?

"I think our defense has been pretty good generally, and he’s done a pretty good job of being in the right position," said Stevens. "We’ve talked about that. He’s got a good feel for positioning. He’s done a pretty good job of getting out to shooters when he’s guarding shooters. He hasn’t been at the 5 a lot, but when he’s been at the 5 we’ve been pretty active defensively in times where we’ve played a little bit smaller. So there’s a lot of factors that go into that.

"I think that for one person to be good, or have good numbers defensively, it’s reliant on the other four people playing good defense with him. But that’s a positive thing for sure."

Maybe Olynyk's stats shouldn't surprise us too much. Among regulars during Boston's second-half surge to the playoffs last season, Olynyk owned the best defensive rating on the team (91.1).

Asked about the reasons for the team's quality defense when he's on the floor, Olynyk said: "I don't know. It's not something you can really try and go and do, I don't think. You've just got to play the way you’re playing. I don’t know. You've just got to play hard on both ends of the floor and try to make your teammates better on both ends of the floor."

The challenge now is getting Olynyk to maintain his offensive aggression, because his floor-spacing abilities really open things up, especially when paired with the likes of Thomas off the bench.

"I think that the more that he can [be aggressive], the better he is," said Stevens. "He’s a very talented player and we need him to shoot it well for us to be a good team. We don’t need him to be the greatest shooter ever, but we need him to be a threat."

Said Sullinger: "[Olynyk] gave us a little bit of everything [Friday] -- rebounding, scoring, playmaking, and he had four steals... He was very active, high hands, active as hell. It’s something he can build on. Kelly is a guy with runs, and once he gets like this, it’s kinda hard to stop him. So hopefully it carries over."

And if it doesn't, the Celtics can always try to get him going again at the team's next shootaround.



bob
MY NOTE:  Another column lauding Kelly after what was, admittedly, a very good game for him.  That's the way the media works.  You do well and they write about you.  You struggle, and they write about you.  If Tyler Zeller explodes in the next game they'll write about him too.  This is the part that grabbed me "it's Boston's defensive numbers with him on the floor that are most eye-popping (albeit in a small sample)".  I'm content to let the sample size grow.  Hopefully, this particular worm has turned.  The hard part, at that point, will be to get Cowens to admit it.  That might be a Mission Impossible :-)


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Bob, you missed this part.

Maybe Olynyk's stats shouldn't surprise us too much. Among regulars during Boston's second-half surge to the playoffs last season, Olynyk owned the best defensive rating on the team (91.1).

You keep talking about a one game sample size no matter how big a sample size from last year is presented.

Hes a really good defender on 2nd and 3rd string PF's that usually are tweeners...and he defelected a couple of balls when back up PG's were driving, if you want to call that great GO ahead.

I don't remember Celtics fans screaming at Paul Pierce to SHOOT IT!!! Every single time he touched the ball. Nor KG.

If Olynyk is off on any given night, why does it make sense for him to chuck it up every time, especially from deep, especially with a guy draped all over him.

And it's his biggest detractors that demand that he shoot the ball every single time.

Here in this article again we see it:

"The challenge now is getting Olynyk to maintain his offensive aggression, because his floor-spacing abilities really open things up, especially when paired with the likes of Thomas off the bench."

KO was aggressive shooting the ball in the previous 3 games, even when he probably wasn't feeling hot.

Teams are closing out on KO no matter how he is shooting that night, so the argument that he needs to keep shooting every single time in order to space the floor isn't accurate.

The team is better off not trying to force Olynyk into a Steph Curry role. Only Curry can make highly contested 3 pointers over and over and over, to the point where fans and coaches want him to shoot it every time.

KO should take good shots, because he's still going to stretch the floor regardless of whether he chucks the ball up with a hand in his face every time he touches the ball.

It's almost like his detractors want him to fail, by insisting he never pump fake, and always shoot the 3 regardless of whether he's in the zone or not.

Just like they can't see that he's an above average defender no matter how well he plays, or for how long a period of time.

Name one other big man who fans scream to shoot a contested 3 every time they touch the ball.

Crickets. If you can name one, chances are that fanbase doesn't even like the guy and wants to see him fail.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Hes a really good defender on 2nd and 3rd string PF's that usually are tweeners...and he defelected a couple of balls when back up PG's were driving, if you want to call that great GO ahead.

A super-sub is still super.

Ask Havlicek, McHale, Walton, or Isaiah Thomas.

It was good to see Olynyk play well in the Wizards game. Shows that he has it in him. Of course, now the key will be for Stevens and company to get this same level of performance out of him in many more games.

This guy was drafted just outside of the top 10 picks so it was assumed that he at least had some kind of NBA type talent. It should not be a surprise that he can then score a few points in any one game.

He has improved himself for each of his first two years in the league, and it is likely that he can do that again this year and then probably again and again for at least three more years.

So far this year, the stats are coming from a small number of games (4), but he does seem to be picking up where he left off at the end of last season. It will be interesting to see what he can do from game to game and over a period of about 25 games with consistency as this factor has been his biggest weakness so far in his short NBA career.

I am certain that every Cs fan will be quite happy if he can come close to replicating his performance against the Wizards the other night for the rest of the season.

KO is a very unselfish player who will keep swinging the ball.  However he is a shooter and needs to shoot the ball more.  If the defender is not on him he should shoot the ball.

So when he missed a few shots in other games he was pulled from the lineup.  So part of the confidence issue begins with the coach.  He needs the opportunity to go through a bad stretch during a game without being relegated to the bench.

dboss

dboss wrote:KO is a very unselfish player who will keep swinging the ball.  However he is a shooter and needs to shoot the ball more.  If the defender is not on him he should shoot the ball.

So when he missed a few shots in other games he was pulled from the lineup.  So part of the confidence issue begins with the coach.  He needs the opportunity to go through a bad stretch during a game without being relegated to the bench.

dboss

Yeah. Totally agree about Stevens need to keep him in the game even if he's missing, at least to a great extent.

I'd go so far as to say that even during the playoffs vs the Cavs, that unless Olynyk's ankle had flared up or something, Stevens should have let him ride out cold shooting spurts.

Stevens tried to beat the Cavs at their own game, which is strength and force in the front court. Celtics were never going to win games against that Cavs team by getting drawn into their game.

Here's KO's +/- from that Cleveland series

<PRE>                                                                                                                                  
Rk   G       Date    Age  Tm  Opp         GS    MP FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA  FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS GmSc +/-
1    1 2015-04-19 24-000 BOS  CLE L (-13)  0 18:27  5   7 .714  2   3 .667  0   0        1   1   2   1   1   2   1  4  12 10.6  -9
2    2 2015-04-21 24-002 BOS  CLE  L (-  0 21:00  2   5 .400  1   3 .333  0   0        0   2   2   0   1   0   2  4   5  0.3 +13
3    3 2015-04-23 24-004 BOS  CLE  L (-  0  2:41  0   0       0   0       0   0        0   0   0   1   0   0   1  1   0 -0.7   0
4    4 2015-04-26 24-007 BOS  CLE  L (-  0 11:08  0   1 .000  0   0       1   2 .500   1   0   1   0   0   0   0  3   1 -0.6  -6
</PRE>


Stevens went away from what worked for us in the regular season, which was Olynyk stretching the floor and IT4 attacking the rim with an empty paint. Stevens completely gave up on what had gotten us to the playoffs, just like he did the first 4 games of this season.

KO was +13 in the Game 2 loss to Cleveland, despite us losing by 8.

The only way we had a chance to win games against Cleveland was by trying to outscore them with pace and space. Brad instead went away from that, trying to beat Cleveland at their own game.

Now we know rambone in real life is Chris Forsberg!

Then you look at his +/- from his first 3 games this year, and it's not like his poor shooting was leading to bad team play. We probably would have won one of those 3 games just by giving him more minutes and a green light to red light his 3 point shot if he wasn't feeling it.


RE>
Rk G Date Age Tm Opp GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS GmSc +/- DFS
1 2015-10-28 24-192 BOS PHI W (+17) Player Suspended
2 1 2015-10-30 24-194 BOS TOR L (-10) 0 16:36 4 10 .400 1 5 .200 2 3 .667 1 1 2 0 2 0 0 0 11 8.2 0 18.0
3 2 2015-11-01 24-196 BOS SAS L (- 0 13:00 0 3 .000 0 3 .000 0 0 1 6 7 1 1 1 2 0 0 0.8 +5 13.3
4 3 2015-11-04 24-199 BOS IND L (-2) 0 10:32 0 5 .000 0 2 .000 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 2 1 1 0 -2.5 -4 6.0
5 4 2015-11-06 24-201 BOS WAS W (+20) 0 26:55 7 11 .636 3 5 .600 2 3 .667 2 5 7 4 4 1 3 0 19 21.1 +27 43.8
</PRE>

bobc33 wrote:Now we know rambone in real life is Chris Forsberg!  

Now we know Forsberg and A Sherrod are regular readers of Sam's Celtics Forum. Just kidding, even Mike Gorman was announcing KO's superlatives during the game so anybody could look it up

Last night The Celtics were getting murdered. Enter KO and Turner. Both of those guys really sparked the team last night.

Will Zeller get out of the dog house anytime soon?

dboss

dboss wrote:Last night The Celtics were getting murdered.  Enter KO and Turner.  Both of those guys really sparked the team last night.

Will Zeller get out of the dog house anytime soon?  

dboss

Their entry into the game coincided with the run. I think Hunter may have been in there as well. Hunter had very active hands on defense.

All Zeller got was a DNP - Coach's Decision. I think Zeller sat because Monroe is to much for him. It's all about the matchups, game to game.

gyso