Just 21 Down

I think we have seen this team reach another level.

Last night's win over the up and coming Nuggets reveled one undisputable act.

The Celtics' are being led by Brad Stevens.  In his short stint at the helm our new look Boston Celtics, he has taken the team  up the road.  When he runs into a bump or 2 he figures out how to correct that and moves on to the next obstacle.  This is no game of chance because you have to alter the ingredients and the stroke of mix to get past the bumps.  

Some bumps are circumstantial and others are self- inflicted.

He took over a team characterized by too many sports experts who actually get paid for their opinions, as a rebuilding project that should and would tank the season.  

What a horrible concept tanking is.  

Tanking I suppose has its' merits but this team is too damn good to tank.  And most importantly, tanking is an abomination to everything we know and love about the Boston Celtics.

So here we are 1/4 of way into the tunnel and already we can see the light....

The light has revealed that

Danny's fleecing of the Brooklyn Nets was epic in proportion and the Impact into the future has a long tail.

The players seem to really get along well and several have shown improvement since last year.

Bass, Bradley and Sullinger are better than they were last year.

Bass perhaps has made the biggest leap.  Last year Bass was a one trick Pony on offense and a pretty good defender.  This year he has turn into a player that can and will take his man off the dribble or scorch him from the outside.  While still not a great  ball handler, Bass is getting to the rim off his dribble.  His maturity and development can also be seen  in his offense facing the basket where he read the defense, uses fakes and then goes up with his high patented jumper.  On defense, his rotations have been quick and we see him coming from the weak side to block a shot,  He plays very solid on the ball defense covering both the 3 and 4 positions.  His value has increased and let us not overlook that he is a knock down free throw shooter.

One of those bumps in the road could be seen with Brad's experimentation using Avery Bradley at point guard.  As though he was not fully aware that Avery proved to be an ineffective PG last year. Did he not know what all of us and many fans know?   His film on Avery and Crawford must have had him in a funk.  How could he have known or any of us have know that Jordon Crawford is the perfect combo guard who can run an offense acceptably and also carry a team on offense like he has been doing.  Like he did again last night.  Boy was I wrong about him...

Avery Bradley is displaying a near perfect stroke on his 3 point shots and midrange jumpers.  This kid is high energy.  It appears that he has reached an understanding that he has more time to release his shot.  If you remember that was the take on him.  He just needed to slow down a bit.  Our 3 point defense is anchored by Bradley's tenacious on the ball defensive pressure.  

Another bump in the road that manifested itself can best be characterized as 'A Turn of The Ankle'

Professional and well paid Veteran Kris Humphries has logged a lot of negative minutes on the DNP scorecard.  The notion that well-liked rookie, Kelly Olynyk, is entitled to get Kris's minutes, has proven to be premature.  That baby ain't coming for 9 months.  Now that circumstances have given Kris a chance to play, his contributions are evident.  He gives us a presence on post defense and he can rebound in traffic.  While never considered to be a great offensive player, Kris knows how to score.   Kelly cannot play the post or defend other bigs.  His weakness in rebounding the ball in traffic is exploitable.  And his ability to consistently knock down outside shots has not been realized.

Bottom line, I think Hump should be higher on the depth chart than Kelly and Vitor and that Kelly should develop over the season.

Who was it that set our expectations for Jeff Green?  Oh that's right we read about our expectations.

Last night Hubie Brown during the pregame show on ESPN provided a scouting report that must have been copied from last year.  He said the Celtics want to slow it down in the half court, keep the game in the 90's.  He basically said that we do not want to play uptempo.  But his ignorance and stupidity was certainly shared by Avery Johnson who I have a lot of respect for.  He said the game was a matchup of the point guards, Lawson and Bradley.  He did not get the memo until the halftime show when he replaced Bradley's name with Crawford.  
 
And Jeff Green's play was a topic of discussion.   How many points should he score consistently. Is he this or is he that.  Blah, blah, blah......  

Sullinger continues to play well but must do a better job of staying out of foul trouble.  I would also rather see him in the post on offense than taking 3 point shots.  At least if he is in the post he can also fight for an offensive rebound.  If he takes multiple 3 point shots per game it will not help us.

There remains significant defensive issues because of the way they defend the pick and role.  Last night Lawson had his way running the pick and role which in effect was the main reason why our lead dwindled.   I would love to have a reporter ask Brad more specifics on his defensive philosophy.   We will never be good at defending the P & R until the big rotates  quickly to check the guard, and secondary rotations occur so that every player is covered.

On the immediate horizon is the return of Rajon Rondo.  We have heard several players mentioned how anxious they are to have him back on the court.  And Stevens must also consider lineup and rotation changes once Rondo gets back.

The luxury of Crawford's PG development will provide a needed scoring punch and distributor off the bench.  And we should also see a more precise offense with Rondo's execution.

In sum, the Celtics are starting to gel a bit.  They are improving rather quickly, all things considered.

dboss

Dboss,

Trying to put things into perspective, on one hand, they're coming together sooner and better than I had expected. On the other hand, in addition to perpetuating the quality of what they're doing, the next plateau will probably involve succeeding against upper-echelon teams—especially those with elite players in the middle. Right now, Sully seems to be doing an Unseld-like job against opposing bigs. But I believe they need a more traditional, taller, bulkier, defensively talented center in order to take that next step (although I'd be delighted to see Sully playing some backup center minutes on an ongoing basis).

Sam

dboss,

Excellent summation of the team that far.

They are playing better than I thought they would given the newness of it all and the roster imbalance. They are keeping turnovers down consistently now. They are scoring in higher % more consistently now. Their defense is more consistent now.

Stevens is doing a remarkable job. After the trail of broken high-profile college coaches that moved to the NBA (Calipari, Pitino, PJ Carlesimo) I had my heart in my throat when he was named but he really has produced amazing results in far, far shorter time than even my wildest expectations. He really finds the best in each player rather than trying to force them into his mold and, when he realizes he's wrong (like he was trying to make AB a point guard) he has the strength of character to just admit that what he thought would work isn't and he makes a change for the better.

He needs to improve a bit on his mid-game tweaks, but that's just practice and he's very bright. By April he won't be making these same mistakes. Contrary to what the Knicks fans were saying on the "Comments from the 7th Level of Hell" thread, Mike Woodson isn't a bad coach. He just got outcoached yesterday.


bob


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At this juncture, I'm not sure Danny's fleecing of the Nets is any more impactful than his fleecing of the Washington Wizards. The spirit of Red definitely lives on.

Sam

sam wrote:At this juncture, I'm not sure Danny's fleecing of the Nets is any more impactful than his fleecing of the Washington Wizards.  The spirit of Red definitely lives on.

Sam

sam,

Jordan Crawford for Jason Collins, who is out of the league now, and Barbosa, who was out for the season with an ACL and is now playing in Brazil?

Yeah, I'd say Trader Danny has more than a little of Red in him. He's got the eye for horse flesh like Red did.



bob



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