Depth puts Celtics in prime position

BOSTON HERALD

By Mark Murphy

Although it may be as much spin as truth, considering his team’s ongoing need of interior size, Miami’s Eric Spoelstra has talked about striving for a team that doesn’t need positions.

The NBA certainly seems to be going in that direction. The league’s competition committee, which includes Doc Rivers, has eliminated the center position from the All-Star ballot. The Celtics [team stats] coach would like to push that envelope further, and open voting to the best players, regardless of position.

In today’s NBA, of course, that would mean a battle of point guards and small forwards, with maybe a hybrid big man slipping in through the back door.


But the Celtics, with Danny Ainge’s recent additions, certainly seem to be chasing the Miami model. Including the recuperating Avery Bradley, they go five deep in the backcourt, with Rajon Rondo [stats] the only true point guard in the bunch.

They are three deep in all three frontcourt positions as well, with the resurgent Jeff Green shaping up as the ultimate swing forward. Rivers wants to downplay the list of combinations he can now throw onto the floor, but he has to admit that his matchup options are almost endless.

That’s fine, as long as he’s the one creating the mismatches.

“You absolutely can,” he said of the increased matchup gamesmanship. “But you want to create more of a matchup game — you don’t want to be the guy matching up. That means they have the best hand. But you can absolutely create a matchup game. Not every night, but on a lot of nights you can.”

But there is also such a thing as over-complication.

Rondo will still play his usual lion’s share of minutes. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce [stats] have reached an age where more rest is needed, but both are still at the core of this rotation.

“There’s only going to be five on the floor,” Rivers said. “Depth is great when you need it, but a lot of times they won’t be on the floor, too. It’s great to have, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes it’s overblown because you can’t use them all. Now, if we could play 10-on-10, then we’d be really good. Then we’d win most of the time, but you can’t do that. It’s still going to be 5-on-5. It’s nice to have in case of an injury.”

For a player like Green, though, versatility is becoming a weapon. By the end of the season, he could be one of this team’s minutes leaders. That may even be a given.

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Green said of the possibilities. “We have lineups that can match up with any team in the league, and that’s a great thing for us. Positions are completely gone. We have guys who can play multiple positions. When you go out there you just have to play, and play together. You can create a mismatch on offense — we can do that, too.

“There’s a lot of teams playing small ball right now,” he said. “You have to be able to match up with everyone if you want to win. We have the ability to do that. If that’s what teams want to do, then we’re prepared.”

So perhaps Spoelstra is right. Maybe the defending NBA champions really are leading the league into a new era were the ability of the player, not his position, will command playing time. Rivers seems to agree with this view, to a point.

“Slowly,” he said of the decline of position-oriented basketball. “In 2008 we put the best five on the floor at the end of the game. We didn’t care what it was, and Miami did that last year in the Finals. It’s almost like they had to work to that. In the first round and second round they had different bigs playing, and then they said, ‘Our best five players are going to be on the floor.’ I think you can get away with that.”

The question, with the season opener in Miami four days away, is how much Rivers cares to tinker with that depth.

“It’s all on Doc,” said Rondo. “We have a pretty deep roster, and some guys will want more minutes, but it’s always up to Doc. I don’t have to worry about that.

“Obviously a lot of different players makes us more versatile,” he said. “We have a deep team that can go a lot of different ways with different lineups. We can go a lot of different ways.”

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