Season Begins Tomorrow - My Expectations

Hard to believe but the Celtics 2022-23 campaign begins tomorrow night.

I had a high level of confidence after we signed Gallo and Brogdon but that confidence took a hit when Gallo torn his ACL and Rob had to go under the knife for his meniscus injury.

The Gallo injury while disappointing is really not going alter our team much.

Rob's absence during the first 2 and a half months of the season will have a profoundly negative impact.  Although the preseason just gives us a quick snapshot of what things may look like in the regular season,  the two things that stood out like a sore thumb was the lack of any semblance of rim protection and a noticeable deficiency on the glass.

We know that one of the fundamentals associated with securing a rebound is positioning (blocking out an opponent)  However, what I witnessed in the Toronto games was our guys being outrebounded despite their efforts to block out.  Their guys were jumping over our guys and securing or taping out rebounds.

How does that translate on the court without Rob?  Well, we know that Rob can get up with anyone.  His less talked about skill is offensive rebounds where he was tied for 2nd in the NBA last year at 3.9 per game.  Those offensive rebounds are extra possessions and given our middle of the pack turnover numbers, (15th last season at 13.9 per game) those offensive rebounds have an offset effect that helps to temper our turnovers.

The rim protecting issue is not just about blocking shots.  Rim protection actually encompasses the painted area.  Rob is a top notch rim protector.   During the preseason we saw a disturbing number of blow-bys that resulted in uncontested layups.

Robs impact is not just about his shot blocking and rebounding.  It impacts the way his teammates function as a defensive unit.

My hope is that he can get back to work by Xmas.  He will have missed 33 games or 37% of the season.

If we are sitting around .500 during that timeframe do not despair.  As long as he can come back healthy, the Celtics will remain a top contender.

Our guys will need to play even better on defense with Rob out and maybe an improved offense will help to even things out.

I believe we will fall somewhere in the middle these first few weeks out of the gate. .500 Ball isn't too far of a stretch.

One thing I'll be watching is just how "seamless" the transition from Ime to CJ actually was on all levels. The best way for an assistant coach to takeover a team that made it to the Finals and came up two games short is to use the "It ain't broke, so don't fix it" approach. That's pretty much what CJ has said from the jump. But as the season gets going tonight, we'll quickly determine if CJ was an upgrade, tread water or a bust. His game philosophy will begin to take over Ime's.

Now, Brad got out in front of everything and took it upon himself to fix one of the glaring examples that left us Title-less. He made some personnel changes to fix and shore up the bench. One of those is a bust for the year. But for the most part, the improvements to the bench are looking far better than last year's even with DG gone. That's where I'm going to hand my hat in the positive column for the next few weeks. Our bench is going to catch on and in the end look a lot like 2008's bench if not already.

The East got a lot more treacherous. There will be only a few nights off and even those potentially can and will blow up in one's face if you don't bring your A game night-in and night-out. But you've got PHI, MIA, BKN, CLE, MIL, TOR and maybe CHI all breathing down your necks every night. It may resemble a bloodbath for a while.

Now I've said that given our depth, we shouldn't need everyone to go off every night for us to win consistently. But it's time that we see more complete, consistent tandem games with Brown and Tatum. Brown has shown up ready for duty. We saw Tatum struggle out of the gate. But these two need to put up numbers ala Westbrook night in and night out so opponents don't know who to guard and throw up their hands in disgust and quit. The assist/fgm stat is really looking good. Let's hope that carries over to the season. It's curtains for the rest of the league if those two put up 20+/10/10 all night long. 98-0. It's no longer My Ball/Your Ball or I'm on/You're off each night. It's now Our Ball/Our Team and let's dish out for easy, wide-open practice threes, quit forcing the action and get everyone involved. That's championship basketball. It's time and long overdue.

dboss has already highlighted what will kill us. TO's and whether opponents can drive a Mack Truck down our lane, consistently. We can shoot our way out of defensive holes in the short run, but not if you're going to win a championship.

I'm not going to be too worried about injuries this year as much as I have been in the past. We'll see.

As usual, looking back on what I've just written, nothing is clear cut, one way or the other. Hence, I'm with dboss in that we should expect .500 ball here for a while until Christmas. May look a lot like last season. But I'm hoping this team as currently constructed will catch on much quickly than last season' team did.

db

I'm a little more confident in my expectations this year. I look for an Atlantic title and no less than top three in the East. I believe another conference title is well within reach.

My feeling remains that the biggest problem is the frontcourt, but I believe the roster is so deep outside of that, that the Celtics will be a difficult team to game plan for and defend against. I believe the offense can improve over last year, and I think contributions in that department can come from Brogdon, Hauser and even Vonleh who can grab rebounds and get the ball moving upcourt.

Back-court defense may be the strongest in the league.

Mazzulla will be just fine. He's been a serious candidate for a head coaching job in the league and knows this team well. Ime went far as a rookie head coach and so can Joe.

Back to the one big negative; frontcourt. I do think, unfortunately, RWIII is not the long-term solution we hoped for and Al is obviously at the end of a great career. IF RWIII can return for the second half of the season, play at last season's level, and Al can be kept fresh by sitting B2Bs, I believe a title run is highly possible. Contributions from Kornet, Vonleh and Griffin are going to be needed in reserve. Not an unreasonable thought.

Looking at the downside further, there will be times this season when the two-big lineup on the floor will possibly be Kornet and Griffin. Before anyone falls out of their chair over that thought, the other three names on the floor could come from a collection among Tatum, Brown, Smart and Brogdon. That 5, despite the big men, will still be among the better NBA lineups at either end of the floor.

If that last thought doesn't give us some hope for big things this season, nothing will.

db

You have highlighted everything that  is racing through my mind.

CJ said the other day that they will try different lineups.  We have yet to see a version of our 2 big lineups.  It worked really well last year although I was 50/50 at first.  

The pairing was great because you had a high/low offense with AH stretching the floor and Rob dominating in the post with his vertical abilities. On defense, with Rob playing safety, we became the best defensive team in the league.

CJ will need to uncover a similar pairing if they want to play bigger. Or he may find a suitable configuration by adding a wing to the starting lineup.

You are 100% correct.  Our fortunes rely most heavily on JT and JB and their ability to be on their games night in and night out.  Outside of those guys, we have significant firepower and if that can be released against other teams with an emphasis on PACE, we will be fine.

Even if we remain rough around the edges on the glass or in the TO categories we can still win.  We just have to avoid a lot of games where both of those issues occur in games.  The rebounding part (defensive rebounds) will impact points in the paint by our opponents.  The turnovers limit the number of good possessions and often can result in run outs and easy buckets for the other team.

CJ seems to be a guy with a very high basketball IQ and his level of motivation is sky high.  The players from last season have a determined mindset to play to win and our additions are more than capable of adding  to this core group.

It is a long season and I cannot wait until the first jump ball tonight.

Let's go Celtics!

NYCelt wrote:I'm a little more confident in my expectations this year. I look for an Atlantic title and no less than top three in the East. I believe another conference title is well within reach.

My feeling remains that the biggest problem is the frontcourt, but I believe the roster is so deep outside of that, that the Celtics will be a difficult team to game plan for and defend against. I believe the offense can improve over last year, and I think contributions in that department can come from Brogdon, Hauser and even Vonleh who can grab rebounds and get the ball moving upcourt.

Back-court defense may be the strongest in the league.

Mazzulla will be just fine. He's been a serious candidate for a head coaching job in the league and knows this team well. Ime went far as a rookie head coach and so can Joe.

Back to the one big negative; frontcourt. I do think, unfortunately, RWIII is not the long-term solution we hoped for and Al is obviously at the end of a great career. IF RWIII can return for the second half of the season, play at last season's level, and Al can be kept fresh by sitting B2Bs, I believe a title run is highly possible. Contributions from Kornet, Vonleh and Griffin are going to be needed in reserve. Not an unreasonable thought.

Looking at the downside further, there will be times this season when the two-big lineup on the floor will possibly be Kornet and Griffin. Before anyone falls out of their chair over that thought, the other three names on the floor could come from a collection among Tatum, Brown, Smart and Brogdon. That 5, despite the big men, will still be among the better NBA lineups at either end of the floor.

If that last thought doesn't give us some hope for big things this season, nothing will.

+1

NYCelt I'm with you on this.