Re: Celtics Post-Game Thread (Collection of past threads)

[worcester]

For some reason no one here has been talking about Doc and the role he plays in instructing the team how to run the offense. Doc deserves a great deal of blame for our failures as a team. There, I've said it. Now here are some reasons why:

First half, lots of pick and rolls were set for Rondo who either took it to the basket or dished out for a score and seven assists. Fast paced effective offense. Second half, 1 assist for Rondo in the 3rd Q. Why? Because Rondo followed the coach's orders and played Doc's preferred style of offense - setting the team up to shoot contested jump shots. Too often in the 3rd and 4th Q Rondo didn't touch the ball after he passed it off. Usually 3rd and 4th Q offense - Rondo brings the ball up court slowly, settles into set plays of Doc's design, dishes off to another player, and then the ball perhaps gets tossed around a bit and winds up in the hands of someone making an outside low % shot or even worse, Rondo takes an outside shot with too much time left or too often very little time left on the shot clock. Cleveland then has numerous opportunities to turn our missed shots into hurry up offense of their own, stressing our defense.

Another failing is that the pick and roll plays are very elementary with only one other player besides Rondo moving, at most. Compare this to Phoenix's offense or that of Utah where the coaches have taught and implemented very complicated and effective P&R offenses. In fact on most Celtic plays there is too little movement, except for Rondo and Ray.

Another beef I have is that too often - when Kevin is not on the court - no one calls out on the defensive end when a pick or screen is being set. Result? One of our guys (Rondo, Ray, Quis) runs smack into an opposing player. These things should be called out. That this happens too often with the Celts is a function of poor coaching. The head coach must, MUST instruct his players between games to talk to each other on defense so that Celtics don't get blindsided.

Another beef - too often when Ray gets double teamed he does not pass the ball out and instead attempts highly contested shots. Yes this is poor decision making by Ray, but Doc let's him get away with this. Doc should play back video to Ray of instances when this happens - and it is often - and insist that Ray pass out more when he's double teamed.

Finally, Danny deserves some criticism too, because our highest need was not to replace Eddie House with Nate but rather to get a good small forward with young energetic legs to spell Paul and to fill in for him when he's injured. Quis has been playing better since his return, but we needed soemone bigger and stronger and a better outside scorer than Quis, and Danny didn't address that need. Peace out!

[jeb]

rosalie t


YES!

[jeb]

worchest

Nobody is goin to give the celts shit. ever. danny gave us a title. remember? over PHIL and the awful shit he presides over.

[worcester]

I'm a huge Danny fan and totally appreciate how he's rebuilt this team. I'm just saying that we had a need and he didn't find a way to fill it this year.

[jeb]

I know it. But I also know he tried. I think teams tried to fleece him and he said to hell with it.

[Sam]

BobH,

Good points as usual.

Why would I be bothered by your making favorable comparisons with Ray Allen? I've already compared him in some ways with Sam Jones; and compliments from me don't come higher than that.

Actually, I think Ray's style is closer to that of Sam than John. And I believe Ray's motion on the floor is far more selective than John's. When I reviewed the second half of the Cavs game, I saw Ray standing around a lot, although he also ran his curls as usual—but not nearly as constantly as Havlicek would do. However, his stamina must be admired, and he even guarded Lebron for a short span in the half I saw.

On a tangentially related subject, we're now approaching the part of the season where the bench could very well make or break the Celtics. The team needs a bench performance that will do more than give the starters an occasional rest. Doc needs to be able to develop confidence that the bench will consistently be able to hold its own or gain ground on the other team because the starters' biggest problem (mostly in second halves) seems to be an inability to halt a reversal of momentum.

Against the Cavs, the pattern of the second half was:

1. The starters gradually lost a couple of points in the third quarter, but they were still up by five with 3:45 left in that quarter when Doc began substituting the bench.

2. By the time the intact starting unit returned to the game, the Celts were down four and in a definite fade. I call a net loss of nine points a momentum reversal.

3. The starters then proceeded to lose 10 more points to the Cavs before Doc threw Nate and then Glen back into the starting mix. I call that an inability to stop a momentum reversal.

Several points are important:

• A healthy Paul Pierce would have given the Celtics a much better chance of making Lebron work harder for both his points and his assists, as he seemed to wear down the guys who were guarding him.

• With a healthy Pierce on Lebron, there probably wouldn't have been as much tendency for the Celtics defense to double Lebron and leave the corners so wide open for the killer threes.

• A healthy Pierce would have freed Quis to operate with the bench and, at most, defend Bron for just a few minutes rather than for long stretches.

• The availability of Quis for bench play also would have given the bench (with Nate) more opportunity to get in sync, which is going to take a while as Nate and his bench mates learn what to expect of one another.

If one were to go back over the schedule since Christmas, it would be difficult to find games in which discontinuity (and that includes players returning as well as players departing) has not put the Celtics at a disadvantage ranging from moderate to severe. This team has been forced to overachieve much more often than simply to achieve during the past 28 games; and opportunities to take their performance to yet a higher level (solid improvement rather than survival) have been hit-or-miss at best. That's not an excuse (as some may claim and I will be most delighted to debate) but simply a fact.

Sam

[bobheckler]

BobH,

Good points as usual.

Why would I be bothered by your making favorable comparisons with Ray Allen? I've already compared him in some ways with Sam Jones; and compliments from me don't come higher than that.

Actually, I think Ray's style is closer to that of Sam than John. And I believe Ray's motion on the floor is far more selective than John's. When I reviewed the second half of the Cavs game, I saw Ray standing around a lot, although he also ran his curls as usual—but not nearly as constantly as Havlicek would do. However, his stamina must be admired, and he even guarded Lebron for a short span in the half I saw.

On a tangentially related subject, we're now approaching the part of the season where the bench could very well make or break the Celtics. The team needs a bench performance that will do more than give the starters an occasional rest. Doc needs to be able to develop confidence that the bench will consistently be able to hold its own or gain ground on the other team because the starters' biggest problem (mostly in second halves) seems to be an inability to halt a reversal of momentum.

Against the Cavs, the pattern of the second half was:

1. The starters gradually lost a couple of points in the third quarter, but they were still up by five with 3:45 left in that quarter when Doc began substituting the bench.

2. By the time the intact starting unit returned to the game, the Celts were down four and in a definite fade. I call a net loss of nine points a momentum reversal.

3. The starters then proceeded to lose 10 more points to the Cavs before Doc threw Nate and then Glen back into the starting mix. I call that an inability to stop a momentum reversal.

Several points are important:

• A healthy Paul Pierce would have given the Celtics a much better chance of making Lebron work harder for both his points and his assists, as he seemed to wear down the guys who were guarding him.

• With a healthy Pierce on Lebron, there probably wouldn't have been as much tendency for the Celtics defense to double Lebron and leave the corners so wide open for the killer threes.

• A healthy Pierce would have freed Quis to operate with the bench and, at most, defend Bron for just a few minutes rather than for long stretches.

• The availability of Quis for bench play also would have given the bench (with Nate) more opportunity to get in sync, which is going to take a while as Nate and his bench mates learn what to expect of one another.

If one were to go back over the schedule since Christmas, it would be difficult to find games in which discontinuity (and that includes players returning as well as players departing) has not put the Celtics at a disadvantage ranging from moderate to severe. This team has been forced to overachieve much more often than simply to achieve during the past 28 games; and opportunities to take their performance to yet a higher level (solid improvement rather than survival) have been hit-or-miss at best. That's not an excuse (as some may claim and I will be most delighted to debate) but simply a fact.

Sam

sam,

A healthy Paul Pierce would absolutely made a difference. LBJ is too good to allow a double-team to stop his team. Unlike Kobe, he'll pass the second he thinks it'll help. Pierce could have done a better job one-on-one with LBJ. Combine what he'd take away from LBJ along with whatever he'd add to our side of the calculation and the game would have been a lot closer and, being closer, might have produced a different psyche in our troops and maybe could have produced a different outcome.

But injuries are part of the game, that's why you have a bench and everybody practices together in varying combinations. I'm not just talking about the Celtics, but every team in the NBA. Rarely at this point in the season do you find teams at 100%. After 4 months of going hard, players go down or are dinged up and are at less than 100%. You said that losing Shaq may have been a blessing in disguise for the Cavs. I agree, they played better with him out for all the reasons you mentioned. Your analysis was perfect. Why is it, though, that when some teams lose a starter (and are without their backup center too) they get a "blessing in disguise" and overcome while other teams lose a starter and founder due to "lack of continuity"? The word in spanish is "ganas". Ganar in spanish means "to win" or "to earn", but colloquially (i.e. street slang) "ganas" means to have "guts" or "balls". It means "hunger to win", not just "win" or "hunger to be THE MAN". Fire in the Belly nails it. Cleveland went down both their 5s on Thursday and showed they had ganas. The Celtics, last year in the playoffs, showed they had ganas and the Lakers in the '08 series showed they had none. Kobe, for all his ballhog ME-ball play, is the poster boy for "ganas". This year, we talk about "discontinuity". I think we should be talking about ganas. The problem is that telling players they need to be hungry doesn't work. Sitting them down and showing them video of teams with hunger doesn't work. It has to come from them. That's not very solution oriented, I know, it just states the all-too-obvious problem but there it is and I'll admit I'm not sure how to fix it.

bob

[Sam]

The Celtics closed out their February, dropping a heartbreaking squeaker to the surging Nets. The Celts quickly ran up a 10-point lead and made the Nets play catchup over the course of two or three minutes. I was out but heard most of the game on radio, finding myself very
irritated that Sean Grande kept leaving out most of the high-powered Celtics offensive plays. He kept saying stuff like. "They're bringing it up. There's another turnover." The Celts' defense was tremendous, as time after time they forced the Nets to wear out their shooting arms. Rumors are that the Celtics are compiling a video of their ballhandling based on this game, to be used as an instructional and motivational tool at the Division 6 Jayvee level. The game Celtics closed to within a missed Ray Allen three, which would have made it a one-possession game near the end, but the Nets lucked out and got a few foul calls to eke out the victory and spoil an otherwise inspired Celtics effort.

Despite the loss, but keenly anticipating my tape of the game, I find myself so invigorated by the Celtics' "I give great pluck" attitude in this one that I just had to post this thread to give everyone an opportunity to weigh in before I contribute additional pearls of wisdom.

Sam

[jeb]

Sam

Pretty bad today. No mojo. Little effort and pride. Watched the whole game and I cant come up with any glimmers.

Well KG hit his knee. And got up. And finished strong.

[jeb]

Sam

Are you in good health Sam? Things ok?

[bobheckler]

1. Ick

2. Yuck

3. Puke

4. And that had nothing to do with this stupid cold I've been fighting for a week now. Ok, now that I got that out of my system, KG had a good game. He was "in it". That's the good news. The bad news is hardly anybody else was.

5. Sheed. See #4 above. Becoming "uncoachable"? "Becoming"?...

6. More fodder for the "glimmer" thread: at least Yi didn't beat us. A very forgettable 2-12. Who was it that wanted to trade for that toothpick? Nevertheless, he gathered 10 rebounds. That's more rebounds than any Celtic got. Our starting center and starting PF had 11 total. Damn, and I thought I had one there for a sec.

7. Kris Humphries, reserve PF, also got 10 ribbies. And the beat goes on...

8. We gave up 41 fts again. We're not stopping anybody on the perimeter, we're just collecting fouls on the interior switching. Glimmer Watch: I guess we can say we're stopping them at 15' from the basket!!

9. We shot 50% from the field and had 12 more fga than the Nets. Discounting the possibility some of those 12 additional fga might be 3s (we were 3-19 from 3, so they weren't going to go in anyway, but that didn't stop us from launching them) or foul-producing (we only shot 11 fts in the game, so that wouldn't be likely either) that means those additional 12 fga @ 50% probably provided us with 12 points. You'd think that'd have been enough. It might have IF our defense wasn't constantly stopping them 15' from the basket for a pair of 1-pointers.

10. Scal worked his ass off. The only player I saw really throwing his body around effectively. Oh sure, I saw Quis and Ray commit charges on fast breaks, but that's not effective use of your weight.

11. Brooke Lopez is a solid player who looked like an all-star today, but that's a back-handed compliment.

This is an amended version of part of a response to Sam that I posted on the Post Cleveland game thread. Unfortunately, it's still relevant Post-Nets.

The word in spanish is "ganas". Ganar in spanish means "to win" or "to earn", but colloquially (i.e. street slang) "ganas" means to have "guts". It means "hunger to win", not just "win" or "hunger to be THE MAN". Fire in the Belly nails it. Cleveland went down both their 5s on Thursday and showed they had ganas. The Celtics, last year in the playoffs, showed they had ganas even though they eventually lost and the Lakers in the '08 series showed they had none while we cornered the market in it. Kobe, for all his ballhog ME-ball play, is the poster boy for "ganas". This year, we talk about "discontinuity". I think we should be talking about ganas. The problem is that telling players they need to be hungry doesn't work. Sitting them down and showing them video of teams with hunger doesn't work. It has to come from them. That's not very solution oriented, I know, it just states the all-too-obvious problem but there it is and I'll admit I'm not sure how to fix it.

bob

[jeb]

bobheck

point 3. Could this poss be flu related?

Inre "ganas" I feel this could also mean belief. Belief in the teams chances to win. If you think you can or you cant your right to go all Hank Ford.

I have seen that belief from the Celts this year. I have not to this date seen them sustain it. I think your breakdown is right on.

It did me good on a personal note to see KG take the hit on his knee and get up and be active out there. I bet it did him some good too. I think 90% of this is mental.

Jeb

[bobc33]

Sam

Pretty bad today. No mojo. Little effort and pride. Watched the whole game and I cant come up with any glimmers.

Well KG hit his knee. And got up. And finished strong.

Jeb,

Analysis isn't my strong point, but I agree lack of mojo today and since the first month or so into the season seems to be a big factor. Yes they have had more than their share of injuries but I have two concerns:

1. Do they simply feel they can turn it on come playoff time?
2. Have they tuned out Doc?

Either one or both doesn't bode well.

[bobheckler]

jeb,

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. - Yogi Berra.

inre point 3. Mine or Pierce's? I don't think mine had any effect on our effort today. In fact, I'm still trying to fight through it. That's the difference between us.

As far as ganas goes, if you're hungry only when you think you can win the championship, that's pretty shallow. You should be hungry to win all the time. You should be hungry to own whomever anybody throws up against you all the time. That's what made Larry Bird so great. The harder you struggled, the harder he squeezed. If Kobe can name himself "the Black Mamba", somebody should have named Larry "Anaconda", because his ganas would suck whatever resistance you thought you had out of you. I'm not seeing that now from these guys. I saw it by the dumptruck load in '08. I saw it last year in the playoffs too, even though they eventually lost. Not this year.

bob

[jeb]

bobheck

Interesting you mentioned Larry. I just read When the game was ours and some of it stuck in my mind pertaining to this years Celtics.

Bird talked of the coach only being able to keep the players ears for three years. He talked of Fitch losing the players and the players dogging it as a result. He agreed to coach the Pacers but said he would walk after three years and he did. Even though he took the team to the finals.

Bird had ganas in spades but his health took it from him in terms of winning.

Bobc

I fear the answer is yes to both questions. Some games they just dont show up and you play how you practice.

If today's game does not get their attention then ganas has left the building.

[babyskyhook]

Sam, Jeb, Bob and Bob-

I saw the score a minute ago and thought it was a mis-print.

I can't believe this is the same team that played an inspired game and shut the Lakers down for the last 7 min of the game 10 days ago, then crushed PDX in their own gym the next night.

What in the world is going on back in Boston ? They get home and barely beat the Knicks, have the Cavs run them out of the gym in the 2nd half, and now lose to the NEts ?

IT doesn't make any sense. I know Pierce is out, but weird things that jump out to me from looking at the box scores like Rondo taking the most shots (and a bunch of 3 pointers) vs the Cavs, then KG being the leading scorer vs the Nets , as well as giving up 100 points in both games, make me wonder if there is a bigger dysfunction going on under the surface.

Are they not executing any kind of game plan any more ? Are they more free-lancing and tuning Doc out to some extent ?

I thought they had kicked in their second half run with the West Coast trip, and were going to be rolling for the rest of the year.

I don't know what to think now, except that something really strange is going on.

As I like all of you guys, I hope they figure it out.

[Sam]

Bob,

I'm thoroughly aware of all that. Except for one thing. They don't
play with a lot of combinations in practice. They play mainly the combinations that are most likely to be used in the upcoming game. And, as for the games, if you check 82games.com, you'll find that there are only three five-man Celtics combinations that have played as many as 100 minutes together this season.

Yes, energy and fortitude are important. But, you know what? When a team is more of a veteran team, its uniqueness comes not from energy as much as from excellence of execution. The Russell Celtics had desire, but it translated more as professionalism and poise than as demonstrative rah rah energy. What they consistently did was to out-execute everyone else. And what enabled them to do so was continuity that made the sum more than the total of the parts.

Teams such as Cleveland, Atlanta, Orlando, Denver and Oklahoma City have the extra ingredient of youthful energy to fall back on if their execution falters. And that's exactly what has spelled the difference between first and second halves in a number of Celtics games. Veteran teams such as the Celtics, Lakers and Spurs have to rely more exclusively on the excellence of their execution and poise in order to persevere. If their execution and poise (on either end) falter for any extended period, it gets tough because youthful energy is not their forte.

And discontinuity is a major factor in undermining execution. One reason is that teams do adjust at halftime. Other teams do make adjustments designed to take advantage of a team's executional vulnerabilities. And, because the breadth of the Celtics' executional repertoire and versatility has been limited by the aforementioned discontinuties, other teams are finding if relatively easy to make effective adjustments.

So it's not just that the injuries have lost the Celtics a lot of player games. (They're 27-10 when all their starters have played and 9-11 when at least starter has been missing.) The discontinuities have prevented from from expanding their arsenal of weapons, as is the case when Nate's on the floor and they have to keep things very simple.

I believe it could be argued that discontinuities have hurt the Celts, Lakers and Spurs more than the Cavs, Magic, Hawks and Nuggets. That's because the former teams don't have the extra dimension of youthful energy that can help overcome the executional droughts that can affect every team.

In no way am I claiming there hasn't been an energy letdown on the part of the Celtics. But I still believe that is the effect of the frustration due to executional problems rather than the cause of the problems. It's in their heads. They're human.

I haven't yet seen today's game, having only listened to it on radio. And Perk's apparent comment that they're bored until the playoffs is really worrisome to me. But, at this juncture, I'm sticking with the theory that, if they can just get an extended period of reasonable continuity, they can address executional woes and better capitalize on their assets...and, in the process, lower the frustration levels and refurbish the energy levels. In the interim, anything Doc can do to stimulate their motivation directly will be all to the good.

Sam

[cowens/oldschool]

Practice???I just read that Doc gave the team off yesterday.....were too old to even practice consistantly,thats not helping execution.We've sadly aged at warp speed last 2 months,something is always off offense,defense or rebounding,team is not the same,just as KG is not the same.We used to play with enough energy to carry two talented role players Perk and Rondo,now we have to rely on them more and more and when they shoot FT's the way these two do,just constantly kills momentum.

I'll still root for them,but things don't look especially promising right now.

[jeb]

Sky

I dont know. I am at a loss. I never become gloomy over one loss but the one thing that really makes me gloomy is a lack of effort.

I remember the first time I got a really good lick in on our neighborhood bully. The look in his eyes. I took a bad beating for it but he never bothered me again.
He knew I had heart.

I also remember the beaten look in a lot of my friends eyes when they took a beating from this kid. That was the look in the Celts eyes today.

I work in a business (or I used to the way things are goin) that can really put you in some unwell situations and to survive I have learned to read body language. The Celts body language today was really that of a broken team. Cleveland took somethin from them. I hope they can get it back

I am rambling I guess but I dont have a clue Sky. I am scared that Doc has lost the team. Out of doc's own mouth "There's nothing I can do about it."

Ainge is publicly calling out the starters. He aint a drama guy. Something is up.

It's gutcheck time. Who's got ganas?

[Sam]

Jeb,

The MRI was elective because I want to bear down on fixing my back problem, which has gone on far too long. I'm sick of it! And the prerequisite to seeing an orthopedic surgeon is to get an MRI.

No big deal. But thanks for asking.

Sam

[cowens/oldschool]

Sam we don't practice,we're now old and need to rest,everyones prolly getting therapy,great posts by you and Bob

[jeb]

Sam

Copy that ...very bad. We need you around this place. I had a couple of those when my back was out and it is very strange to do. Very spooky.

I had pretty good luck with the steroid injections right into the problem areas. It went right at the swelling.

I dont envy you watching the game you taped. Got to be the worst one this year. Be interested to hear what you think.

[Sam]

Cow,

I'd give anything to be able to see some practices. That was a major part of what made the Russell era come alive for me.

Sam

[Sam]

Jeb,

As I was driving home and listening to the fourth quarter on radio, I was thinking that the MRI was a distinct pleasure compared to what watching this game will be. I'm really not interested in writing the usual post-game threads under these circumstances. Anyone can write a thread saying they started well, faded, and lost. I'm much more interested in analyzing some things and trying to pinpoint not the manifestations of the problems (which anyone can see) but the underlying contributing factors. So that's what I'm going to concentrate on for a while, although it requires vastly more time.

For example, I continue to be much more concerned about the starters than the bench. I feel the bench will assume a different dynamic with Nate and Quis in the lineup; so I would prefer to defer any definitive commentary about them for a while.

But the starters are the guys who play two-thirds to three-quarters of the game. They're the ones who have been together for a while (except for much of this season). And they're the ones who are getting out to big leads, losing some or all of those leads, and unable to forestall turnarounds in momentum. So I really want to determine what the heck is really messing up their chemistry, because it's marginal at best right now.

And one guy I'm looking closely at is my favorite current Celtics, Rondo. Today he had something like 12 and 17, and yet I had the distinct feeling he did a poor job as catalyst for this team. There's much more than assists to being a floor general. And I want to see how he and others are performing in defensing pick-and-roll plays, because their defense on those is just horrible lately.

Sam

[jeb]

Sam

Make sure you got some tums big fella. Maybe a stiff shot of liquor.

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