NBA Radio discusses what is wrong with the Celtics

I just listened to Jason Termine and Joel Meyers dissect the Celts for half an hour.
Their conclusions?
1. Brad Stevens is not the second coming of Red Auerbach and Vince Lombardi.
a. He does not know how to manage the egos on the team.
b. He does not run plays for the hot hand and often ignores the hot hand after a few minutes. E.G.:  against Chicago Jayson sank his first 3 baskets, then only took six more shots the rest of the entire game, whereas Kyrie had 24 shots and Rozier had 9, many of which were crazy ill-advised.  Brad should have sat him down for a talking to "No more of that iso shit Terry." [I paraphrased]
c. Gordon has gotten too many minutes he hasn't deserved.
d. Jaylen has not gotten enough minutes.
e. No way should he let the team troubles be aired outside of their own locker room. The team has lost its cohesiveness nor continuity. That's on Brad.

2. Kyrie has not proven he can be a #1 guy on this team, much less a #1 guy in the playoffs.
a. He has not made anyone better on the team -not Jayson, not Jaylen - no one.
b. He will probably not get a Supermax contract from any team if he can't get the Celts out of the 2nd round; because he has yet to prove he is a leader, despite his braggadocio boasts that the Celts will be ok because he is there.

3. The Celts are not going to be the 3rd team in NBA history to win a championship if they fail to finish in the top three in their conference. The '69 Celtics finished 4th and won with Russell, Hondo, et alia, the '95 Rockets finished 6th and won with Hakeem, Clyde, Kenny, Horry, Cassell, etc. The 2018-19 Celts are not that caliber of team. The Celts are not going into the playoffs as a fifth seed and beating Philly, Indy, Toronto, and/or Milwaukee, much less the Western Conference champs.

The NBA radio announcers like the Celts and are quite disappointed, as are we. Brad - the fish smells form the head as Mike Dukakis was known to say. Get a grip. You too Kyrie.

A pretty damning assessment.

Here are some things that were not mentioned.

Last year Aron Baynes started in 67 games.  This year even if he was not injured he probably would not be getting a lot of starts.  There have been way too many games where the lack of physicality in the paint has been a problem.

GH may have gotten too many minutes early on but now he is not getting as many as he should.  When he was really struggling early on they could have still keep in in the lineup but reduced his minutes and then increased them as his play improved.  His confidence was shot for a while with his benching and that is unfortunate.

I totally agree that Jaylen is not getting enough minutes.  

The Celtics definitely have issues riding a hot hand and that is because the offense if pretty vanilla.  Their offense is so predictable as the ball moves in search of an open shot.  However once the final pass is made it may end up in the hands of a guy that should not be taking that shot.  I believe they have worked harder to identify mismatch situations and get the ball to the correct guy but that needs to happen more.  

It does not appear that enough screens are set that are specifically designed to get a player open with a more direct path to the basket.  

The Celtics are a team of jump shooters from top to bottom.

They have dug a hole for themselves and would need to play lightsout to get out of the East.  Without home court advantage they could be out of the playoffs sooner rather than latter.  

Boston has to knock off one of the top teams and hope that one of the top teams stumble so we do not have to play them.  

The Bucks look really solid and the Raptors are not too far behind.  

The Celtics need a 3rd place finish to strengthen their odds.

Aron is our MIP, Most Indispensable Player...

worcester wrote:Aron is our MIP, Most Indispensable Player...

Aron is one of our indispensable players and Marcus Smart is the other one.

True.

Seems like a pretty harsh assessment. I still think the current perception of the Celtics is colored by unrealistic expectations from last summer. The Celtics are still currently third in overall point differential, which is one of the more reliable predictors of playoff success. For sure there is room for improvement, but I doubt any team really wants to play them in a seven game series.

Shamrock1000 wrote:Seems like a pretty harsh assessment. I still think the current perception of the Celtics is colored by unrealistic expectations from last summer. The Celtics are still currently third in overall point differential, which is one of the more reliable predictors of playoff success. For sure there is room for improvement, but I doubt any team really wants to play them in a seven game series.

Good point.

Shamrock1000 wrote:Seems like a pretty harsh assessment. I still think the current perception of the Celtics is colored by unrealistic expectations from last summer. The Celtics are still currently third in overall point differential, which is one of the more reliable predictors of playoff success. For sure there is room for improvement, but I doubt any team really wants to play them in a seven game series.

This game is laced with psychological advantages and disadvantages.

If a team  strongly believes that they are better than another team, regardless of circumstance, they have a big edge.  To be a great team you have to overcome how a team really thinks about you.  Great team are those that learn how to beat a team that has had the edge over them.  

Not wanting to play a team as a preference is not the same as fear.

Putting fear into another team provides a decisive advantage.  A win tonight in Toronto will establish a degree of fear in the minds of the Raptors.

Beat then now and they have more fear of you than you do of them.  

The element of fear in your favor is powerful.  There needs to be no questions.  No consternation by the Celtics when faced with ultimate challenges. What made the 2008 Celtics champions as well as all the other great championship Celtics team was the reality that they had no fear of anyone.  They were not afraid to lose.  They had NO fear.  They never indulged themselves in the idea that their opponents were better.

That 2008 Celtics team took NO prisoners. The decks were awash with blood once those pirates swung over the side. A team full of assassins. They feared no team. We were so lucky to watch them.

Dboss, your quote has special meaning for me: "If a team  strongly believes that they are better than another team, regardless of circumstance, they have a big edge."
In my senior year of high school my wrestling coach could read me like a book. After winning three matches on tournament day, I made it to the New England finals, and my coach came up to me and said, "I just talked with the other coach. His guy was a Junior Varsity wrestler and has no idea how he made it to the finals. He's going to be happy to go home with a silver medal. Just go out, wrestle your kind of match, and you'll win the gold easily."

First period my opponent came out ferociously trying to shoot take downs. I was pissed, indignant. "Who does this punk think he is?" I thought to myself. I cross-faced his every attempt to grab my legs and we wrestled to a stand-still by the end of the first 2 minutes. Second period I thought I'd better put this punk away. I was on top by the luck of the draw and knew I had a good move to put a guy on his back. I broke him down, turned him over, put him into a predicament, and came close to pinning him. Not close enough. I was awarded 2 points, and then he crawled off the mat. Back to wrestling I rode him a bit, then he escaped. We finished that period me up 2-1.

Third period started; he slapped in a 3/4 nelson from the left side, and tried to pull me over. It took all the neck strength I had to fight him off. No way was I going to let a J.V. wrestler put me on my back. He spun around to the other side and slapped on the 3/4 nelson from the right side. I strained against him for 30 seconds and still would not let him turn me over. We wrestled to the edge of the out of bounds circle and the ref blew the
whistle. We crawled back to the center; he got back on top in the wrestler's position - left hand on my left elbow, right arm around my waist. There were sixteen seconds left on the third period clock. Sixteen seconds left in the match and I was up 2-1. No riding time for either of us. I looked over and saw my coach. He motioned for me to crawl forward. The ref blew the whistle, and I crawled forward. The other guy didn't expect that and lost his grip. He scooted to catch up to me, and I turned toward him, grabbed his ankle with my left arm over his outstretched left arm, and executed an inside switch, actually one hell of a move. When the whistle blew to end the match I had reversed him to win 4-1.

The ref raised my arm. I had won the New England's that year for my 147 lb. weight class, a tough one. My opponent was pissed. He pulled off his head gear, slammed it to the ground, and stomped off the mat, barely giving me the obligatory handshake. Then I found out that he was not a J.V. wrestler. He'd been undefeated for two years and was 32-0.

My coach knew that I would not fear any J.V. wrestler. He knew that I would not allow myself to lose to an "inferior" opponent - and I didn't. I simply would not allow myself to lose to someone whom I thought I was better than.

The Celts need to operate with that same attitude. They do against Philly. They pretty much do against Milwaukee. Let's hope they do the same against Toronto tonight.

worcester wrote:I just listened to Jason Termine and Joel Meyers dissect the Celts for half an hour.
Their conclusions?
1. Brad Stevens is not the second coming of Red Auerbach and Vince Lombardi.
a. He does not know how to manage the egos on the team.
b. He does not run plays for the hot hand and often ignores the hot hand after a few minutes. E.G.:  against Chicago Jayson sank his first 3 baskets, then only took six more shots the rest of the entire game, whereas Kyrie had 24 shots and Rozier had 9, many of which were crazy ill-advised.  Brad should have sat him down for a talking to "No more of that iso shit Terry." [I paraphrased]
c. Gordon has gotten too many minutes he hasn't deserved.
d. Jaylen has not gotten enough minutes.
e. No way should he let the team troubles be aired outside of their own locker room. The team has lost its cohesiveness nor continuity. That's on Brad.

2. Kyrie has not proven he can be a #1 guy on this team, much less a #1 guy in the playoffs.
a. He has not made anyone better on the team -not Jayson, not Jaylen - no one.
b. He will probably not get a Supermax contract from any team if he can't get the Celts out of the 2nd round; because he has yet to prove he is a leader, despite his braggadocio boasts that the Celts will be ok because he is there.

3. The Celts are not going to be the 3rd team in NBA history to win a championship if they fail to finish in the top three in their conference. The '69 Celtics finished 4th and won with Russell, Hondo, et alia, the '95 Rockets finished 6th and won with Hakeem, Clyde, Kenny, Horry, Cassell, etc. The 2018-19 Celts are not that caliber of team. The Celts are not going into the playoffs as a fifth seed and beating Philly, Indy, Toronto, and/or Milwaukee, much less the Western Conference champs.

The NBA radio announcers like the Celts and are quite disappointed, as are we. Brad - the fish smells form the head as Mike Dukakis was known to say. Get a grip. You too Kyrie.

I have heard others on Sirius pretty much say the same things during the last month or so. I have posted many of the same things you listed here. Kyrie will get the Max from someone. I wish we could sign and trade him for someone like Conley. The only time Kyrie has won was with Lebron and he couldn't win with a championship team when Lebron sat out. I wish he could change his stripes.

Shamrock1000 wrote:Seems like a pretty harsh assessment. I still think the current perception of the Celtics is colored by unrealistic expectations from last summer. The Celtics are still currently third in overall point differential, which is one of the more reliable predictors of playoff success. For sure there is room for improvement, but I doubt any team really wants to play them in a seven game series.

I disagree. I would change that to "I doubt any team is afraid to play the Celtics in a seven game series". Teams come into Boston-even bad teams-and they are not the least intimidated by the C's. The Celtics have no swagger, no confidence.
And Stevens is still coaching the team.....

Sad but true. The Celts now only scare us fans.

Since the Celtics are so unbearable for some here, may I make a suggestion.

Hope Aron rights the ship.

Just my opinion:
PT must be based on ability to help the team win, not on contract amounts and personal considerations.
Playing Hayward means sitting players more capable (and they know it).
Irving is not a team player, but a talented and disruptive individual. If Irving and Hayward had not been able to play this year, the Celtics would have a better record and attitude.
This team has no starting center. The fact that Worcester pines for Aron Baynes illustrates this fatal flaw, because no team with a tough guy in the middle pines for an oft-injured backup.
Think of Celtics' teams without Russell, Cowens or Parish, relying on Loscutoff, Finkel and Kite. (On second thought, don't even picture that.)
This season is still salvageable. Williams should get 20 minutes a game so he can learn what the H. he's doing, preferably playing with that cagey old softie, Horford, at forward.
Irving should be traded immediately to a title contender (because no one else will take a chance on resigning him - out west of course. Send him to LA, for example, in exchange for the best young player we can wangle out of them).
Hayward should play fewer minutes than Semi.
Brown and Tatum should play big minutes, but with a hook if they stray from team ball.
Smart should start and finish games.
The offense needs to focus on driving and driving before dishing. The defense needs desperate intensity and if that means more subbing, then do it.
Danny, who purchased the talent, and Brad, who has not used it optimally, are both responsible for the malaise. Together, they can fix it. Hawk

Agree Hawk, but there is no trading for anyone now. That deadline has passed.
Yes, we need Al, Morrus, and Theis at the 4 and a real starting big, Rw, and Aron at the 5.

Worcester, My bad. I don't know the trading deadlines. That may be one we'll regret missing. Here's hoping I'm wrong. Hawk

Next year, if we had a real big, we would not need Morris. AL and Theis and maybe Gordon or Tatum added could handle the 4 spot.

How long have we been begging for a competent big? Ever since Perk left. 10 years.

I don't think I have ever been so upset with a Celtic team as I was last night. I looked at them and just kept shaking my head. Where is the offense that was playing like dynamite in December and the beginning of January? Where is that awesome defense we played last year? I just don't understand how these players go home at night and look in the mirror.

I do have a theory though. I wonder how many of these players who are dragging themselves around are playing like this in response to the trade rumors that have been flying around all season. No one feels connected, they figure they will be gone next year.

I am not saying this is the right way to react, as they are pro's making a good amount of money to go out there and do their best. But, I wonder if they are just a bunch of "head trips", angry that they are in this position. They look as if they are just going thru the motions. I guess it was said on ESPN last night, that it looked like they don't even like each other. That is sad.

I am angry, I have loved the Boston Celtics since the 1960's, other than the Wicks/Rowe era, I have never been so disappointed in the lack of Celtic Pride. Man, Red would have pulled them all off the floor last night!

Rosalie, It's a low spot. I think Brad should make Smart the floor general. He doesn't have to be the star, but he could be the distributor. Kyrie would still get his looks, but the offense would be initiated by Smart and everyone better be ready, because he probably is going to pass. Smart is the warrior on the team. That's what we need. Hawk

Tonight I watched the Russian National Ballet Theater perform Sleeping Beauty. The ballerinas and the entire ensemble performed with more grace, outright athleticism, precision, enthusiasm, teamwork, and discipline than I've seen ANY NBA team display on the court this season. To keep our beloved sport of basketball in perspective, ballet is a much more demanding challenge, although nobody is clothes-lining anyone out there.

hawksnestbeach wrote:Just my opinion:
PT must be based on ability to help the team win, not on contract amounts and personal considerations.
Playing Hayward means sitting players more capable (and they know it).
Irving is not a team player, but a talented and disruptive individual. If Irving and Hayward had not been able to play this year, the Celtics would have a better record and attitude.
This team has no starting center. The fact that Worcester pines for Aron Baynes illustrates this fatal flaw, because no team with a tough guy in the middle pines for an oft-injured backup.
Think of Celtics' teams without Russell, Cowens or Parish, relying on Loscutoff, Finkel and Kite. (On second thought, don't even picture that.)
This season is still salvageable. Williams should get 20 minutes a game so he can learn what the H. he's doing, preferably playing with that cagey old softie, Horford, at forward.
Irving should be traded immediately to a title contender (because no one else will take a chance on resigning him - out west of course. Send him to LA, for example, in exchange for the best young player we can wangle out of them).
Hayward should play fewer minutes than Semi.
Brown and Tatum should play big minutes, but with a hook if they stray from team ball.
Smart should start and finish games.
The offense needs to focus on driving and driving before dishing. The defense needs desperate intensity and if that means more subbing, then do it.



Danny, who purchased the talent, and Brad, who has not used it optimally, are both responsible for the malaise. Together, they can fix it. Hawk

I said 2 months ago that Williams has to play now through his mistakes so that he can help us later and that he should be playing ideally with Horford, looks like that sprained ankle in his other foot really set GH back further, this GH should be limited as he has been killing us in his minutes. Stevens yo-yo minutes this year has set back Jaylen and now his coaching strategy has limited Tatum. Even the pundit Stephen A has been saying for months the team’s problem is not getting 2 J’s going first like last year and do it with Kyrie. He has said numerous times those kids were key to last years run, to get them going first, let GH adapt to them instead of the other way we have been doing....

The Knicks have a young big they let play with a skill set similar to Williams, Mitchell Robinson and now he’s a force, playing his role great. Shame they could develop him this year and we at a position of need couldn’t figure out how to do that for our team, it’s not like Williams doesn’t have the right attributes....bad coaching, if that the best we could do with him, this staff sucks and needs a big man coach.

cowens/oldschool wrote:The Knicks have a young big they let play with a skill set similar to Williams, Mitchell Robinson and now he’s a force, playing his role great. Shame they could develop him this year and we at a position of need couldn’t figure out how to do that for our team, it’s not like Williams doesn’t have the right attributes....bad coaching, if that the best we could do with him, this staff sucks and needs a big man coach.

+1

cowens/oldschool wrote:The Knicks have a young big they let play with a skill set similar to Williams, Mitchell Robinson and now he’s a force, playing his role great. Shame they could develop him this year and we at a position of need couldn’t figure out how to do that for our team, it’s not like Williams doesn’t have the right attributes....bad coaching, if that the best we could do with him, this staff sucks and needs a big man coach.

a force?

anyone can be a force for a 10 win team for godsake....LOL!!