Can anyone ever remember a worse 7 min. stretch of basketball?

Outscored 25 to 2 in the final 6:56 of the third quarter. AT HOME no less.

I was actually more shocked than angry, even though I was plenty angry.

25 to 2. And fielding a team with probably three future Hall Of Famers, with a fourth player who is a current All-Star and a fifth who is in the running for Defensive Player of the Year. This didn't happen to the 24-58 team of three years ago. This happened to a team that won a title in '08 and probably would have won another last year if not for KG's injury. And a team that was 23-5 not too long ago.

25 to 2 in 7 minutes. Against THIS team. The run actually became 30 to 5. If that's not rock bottom, I don't know what is. For about the sixth or eighth time since Christmas, this team thinks that when they lead by 10 or 11 in the third quarter someone's going to give them a W and a gold star.

This group needs a serious infusion of pride and a re-dedication to ubuntu.

And getting a little healthier probably wouldn't hurt either, although now they've got everyone back, they've got no excuses.

This was EMBARRASSING.

Sorry, just had to vent after this one. Not that it made me feel any better...

so I guess that was the worse stretch since the KG era,are KG and Pierce bonafide all stars this year?at the 23-5 mark I would say so,but now?this team has really aged fast at warp speed since KG went out.Before he went down this year in what was supposed to be two games,thought as season wore on he'd be getting it back,now hes not even where he was then.

This team as we know it is finished. No amount of Geritol will remedy this.Get Pierce, Garnett, Wallace and Allen to file retirement papers post haste. Dump salary like a garbage man dumps trash. Pull eleven young guys out of the Rucker League in New York to go with Rondo and let's get back to fast break basketball coupled with full court defensive pressure. This team is washed up!-MD.

MDCelticsFan wrote:This team as we know it is finished. No amount of Geritol will remedy this.Get Pierce, Garnett, Wallace and Allen to file retirement papers post haste. Dump salary like a garbage man dumps trash. Pull eleven young guys out of the Rucker League in New York to go with Rondo and let's get back to fast break basketball coupled with full court defensive pressure. This team is washed up!-MD.

Sam, does this still qualify as a tongue in cheek response in classic MD style? Or can we mark him in the "jumped ship" category?

mrkleen: You know what is said about truth and humor. The ship we're on is the Titanic. I'm just understating the amount of water that's being taken on. I'm on the Titanic, but I'm definitely not DiCaprio!-MD.

It's just too bad the team can't even give the home fans something to cheer for. I feel bad for anyone unfortunate enough to have been at last night's game.

Yeah, I'm not even sure Sam can talk some sense into us all with this. Although I will say we did have everyone back for the first time this season. And for two and half quarters I thought we looked very, very good. I fast forwarded through the dreaded third and fourth quarters, but it was over.

Here's my concern. Well, I won't even call it a concern yet. First off, the number of games left to get this all together is getting shorter and shorter every day. After 50 games, we have our line-up back. That excuse/reason for losing is gone for now. Let's give them, say an All-Star break and 10-15 games to get back into what should be the best look we will have for this team and whether they will be able to pull this off.

That puts us half way home going down the stretch which starts after the All Star break. If they are injury-free, kicking butt and taking names around the 60-65 game mark, we have ourselves a championship. And I mean stomping the competition, none of this playing to the level bs. I mean innihilating LAL in LAL, crippling LeBron and CLE for the remainder of those games and 20+ point per game massacring of the rest of the league.

Our records against ORL and ATL, both second round opponents is 1-7. As John Boy and Billy would say..."Not too good!!!"

We will need to hear things from the free press like, "OMG, this team has totally turned it around." "&%^#$ LeBron and Kobe, it's the Celtics vs. the rest of the National (Cry)Baby Association." "I have never seen a mid-season turnaround like this in the history of this league!!" "This is total destruction of the competition." "I feel totally embarrassed for Cleveland" (OK, that last one was mine, but you get the picture!)

I know there will be those who say, the playoffs are different, etc. But we need to see something now or soon. Per Sam, a glimmer of hope. More like a gamma ray burst for me. I'm seeing the glimmers. But like I said, the # of games is running out as well as the reason/excuses. All the playoffs are are single, max 7-game sets. And even then, they are your best 4 games. So really, we're trading all these 82 games in for 4 games at a time, with no guarantees of getting another 7 game set. Those aren't very good odds.

That's why I need to see something over the next 15 games.

It's not desparation time, folks. This team has everything at its disposal. Everything. The death star is fully operational. (BTW, did you see how Rondo played to Kevin on that dunk?!! It looked way better than it was.) We will know, with certainty in about one month whether we will win all or not. It's that simple. I'll mark it by the end of the NCAA regular season. Wake me up then.

Hi,
As I suggested some time ago, there's something else goes with the team. Age and injuries are just a magnification factor.
A couple of episodes from the last game that I couldn't explain. First, the expression on Doc's face in the 3rd quarter: they zoomed on him once or twice and it was quaint and didn't seem concerned with the current situation on the floor. Second, how and, partially, why they cranked their RPMs from idle to almost red line in the middle of the 4th?
At this point I have one short question: WTF?
Thank you very much,
AK

None of the good teams fear us anymore. They know that if they just keep pouring it on, they have a very good chance of winning even if they're down double digits halfway through the 3rd.

This is NOT a good place to be.

Orlando got rough in the 3rd quarter. They clutched, grabbed and bumped us around. We didn't respond and our game got thrown off.

That was embarrassing.

This is Doc Rivers, from his post-game interview:
One of the guys said, ‘We’re better than Orlando.’ And I said, ‘No you’re not. That’s a bunch of crap. They beat you three games. Two at your place. They’re better. They knocked you out of the playoffs last year. Orlando’s better than us right now. Atlanta’s better than us right now. LA’s better than us right now. Those are the teams that have beaten us. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be better than them at some point. But right now, those teams are better than us.”

This is from Gary Washburn:
It seems like this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for coach Doc Rivers. It seems that he’s going to put his foot on the neck of these players as far as being more disciplined being more focused and not falling apart in critical stretches.

Good. If they're not going to play like veteran superstars, why treat them like they are?

bob

Here is (was) a really pathetic 12 minutes span you may remember:

Game 4, 2008 finals

1st Quarter

Time Score (B-L) Event (F = Foul, TO = Turnover)

11:32 2-2 Ray finger roll (F, TO, F, F, TO, TO)
8:54 4-9 Rondo jumper
8:12 6-11 Perk hookshot (F, TO)
5:01 7-20 PJ free throw
2:29 9-26 PP layup
2:10 12-26 Ray 3pt shot (F, F, F)
0:26 14-34 House running bank shot (F)

14-35 final 1st Quarter score.

4 turnovers, 9 or so fouls, plenty of missed shots, etc.

All and all, a pretty crappy 12 minutes

gyso

I think Doc is right. I think he will get his point across. Now whether the front office decides come the trade deadline to blow up the team (trade two or more in the likes of a Ray Allen deal) or just add a player and keep the team intact, that is yet to be seen. That will involve a whole other set of adjustments.

The key to what he said was, those teams are better than us...right now. He knows what this team is capable of and that's where Doc is going to earn his paycheck this year by pullng it all together. He has seen ALL the possible combinations of line-ups that are going to get us through the playoffs. Good news. Doc's been down this road before. I really think the heat is on him to produce Banner 18. He knows if he can get the attitude right in the locker room, on the court, etc., the rest of the league doesn't want to see the finished product.

The league has officially been served notice. We're back to full strength, the closest we were to full strength, we were 23-5, sans uno uno. We're off for a week with the break. You hated us at 23-5. With all the heat we've been dealing with over the last 25 games, we're 10X better than 23-5 going down the stretch. You're really going to hate us now. We will finish with the best record in the league and have all our players intact and rested for the playoffs. Hallelujah!! Holy Shit!! Where's the Tylenol!!

dbrown4 wrote:Yeah, I'm not even sure Sam can talk some sense into us all with this. Although I will say we did have everyone back for the first time this season. And for two and half quarters I thought we looked very, very good. I fast forwarded through the dreaded third and fourth quarters, but it was over.

Here's my concern. Well, I won't even call it a concern yet. First off, the number of games left to get this all together is getting shorter and shorter every day. After 50 games, we have our line-up back. That excuse/reason for losing is gone for now. Let's give them, say an All-Star break and 10-15 games to get back into what should be the best look we will have for this team and whether they will be able to pull this off.

That puts us half way home going down the stretch which starts after the All Star break. If they are injury-free, kicking butt and taking names around the 60-65 game mark, we have ourselves a championship. And I mean stomping the competition, none of this playing to the level bs. I mean innihilating LAL in LAL, crippling LeBron and CLE for the remainder of those games and 20+ point per game massacring of the rest of the league.

Our records against ORL and ATL, both second round opponents is 1-7. As John Boy and Billy would say..."Not too good!!!"

We will need to hear things from the free press like, "OMG, this team has totally turned it around." "&%^#$ LeBron and Kobe, it's the Celtics vs. the rest of the National (Cry)Baby Association." "I have never seen a mid-season turnaround like this in the history of this league!!" "This is total destruction of the competition." "I feel totally embarrassed for Cleveland" (OK, that last one was mine, but you get the picture!)

I know there will be those who say, the playoffs are different, etc. But we need to see something now or soon. Per Sam, a glimmer of hope. More like a gamma ray burst for me. I'm seeing the glimmers. But like I said, the # of games is running out as well as the reason/excuses. All the playoffs are are single, max 7-game sets. And even then, they are your best 4 games. So really, we're trading all these 82 games in for 4 games at a time, with no guarantees of getting another 7 game set. Those aren't very good odds.

That's why I need to see something over the next 15 games.

It's not desparation time, folks. This team has everything at its disposal. Everything. The death star is fully operational. (BTW, did you see how Rondo played to Kevin on that dunk?!! It looked way better than it was.) We will know, with certainty in about one month whether we will win all or not. It's that simple. I'll mark it by the end of the NCAA regular season. Wake me up then.

You say "for two and a half quarters I thought we looked very, very good," but remember one minor detail about that: Mr. Howard wasn't running up and down the court for the vast majority of that time. He was OBSERVING.

gyso wrote:Here is (was) a really pathetic 12 minutes span you may remember:

Game 4, 2008 finals

1st Quarter

Time Score (B-L) Event (F = Foul, TO = Turnover)

11:32 2-2 Ray finger roll (F, TO, F, F, TO, TO)
8:54 4-9 Rondo jumper
8:12 6-11 Perk hookshot (F, TO)
5:01 7-20 PJ free throw
2:29 9-26 PP layup
2:10 12-26 Ray 3pt shot (F, F, F)
0:26 14-34 House running bank shot (F)

14-35 final 1st Quarter score.

4 turnovers, 9 or so fouls, plenty of missed shots, etc.

All and all, a pretty crappy 12 minutes

gyso

gyso,

Yup, that was pretty bad but I was thinking more about performances like that at home (while being a good team) even if that wasn't clear in my post. That Laker game was on the road where it's easier to get overwhelmed by a hot opponent for a stretch of time. And our misery expanded to 28 to 2 Orlando with that quick three-pointer to start the fourth quarter.

steve,

Home or away, it doesn't matter. That game came to my mind instantly and the information was easy to find. I am sure there has been other examples to be found since the 06-07 season (post KG's arrival), but I am not going to look because I'm supposed to be working.

I could suggest either Bobcat game in Jan/Feb 08 (or any other game in that time of the season). We had a real bad spell back then. The Celtics were relatively healthy during KG's first season but I bet we had some real stink-a-roos!! We had a bad spell last season, starting on the Christmas day game with the Lakers. One could look there.

This year is by far the worst for injuries and I won't cast judgment on them after every single game when I know all the pieces are not ready. All present and accounted for, yes. But not ready. I hope Doc takes the next 15 or so games and allows the walking wounded to recover. If that means Pierce, KG and Ray have to sit out entire games, so be it. Then he would have the rest of the season to round everyone into shape going into the playoffs. Doc has TA, Marquis and Davis now so there is no excuse. Hey Doc, don't forget Shelden either!!!

gyso

Mrkleen,

It really doesn't matter whether MD is still being tongue-in-cheek or really means it. The fact is that a lot of people are understandably upset over the plight of the Celtics. It's hard to blame them for that. For months, they've endured all the injuries, and they've faithfully maintained hope that things would improve once the team was reunited.

Now, for the first time all season, the team was reunited, and the most demoralizing quarter of the year occurred against a team a lot of people were looking at as a litmus test. Dismay is a natural reaction.

My main point all along has been that the ultimate root of the apparent malaise has been the disruptive factor of discontinuity. I have stated many times that a lot of the issues people were pinpointing were not causes of the problems but were the effects of discontinuity for two reasons. (1) The discontinuity quite obviously diluted existing chemistry. (2) The discontinuity prevented them from taking advantage of a retooled team to grow even better together.

Now perhaps some people feel that any discontinuity ended yesterday with an obviously subpar Paul Pierce returning to the starting lineup and Marquis Daniels playing for the first time in months. Just slap all the toy soldiers on the court and wind them up, and—lo and behold—we gots continuity again. Whoopee! And people certainly have the right to that perspective. But nothing could be farther from the fact. Because even returnees to the lineup reflect discontinuity. The need for reassimilation…relearning...reacclimation.

Since this season has been filled with almost nothing but discontinuity, it ultimately became debilitating through the frustration of repeated unrewarded effort, and both mental and physical debilitation can lead to bad habits on the court.

And the fact is that the cumulative effect of the discontinuity (in the forms of not only inactive players but also the subpar status of returning active players) has been dramatic and ongoing. Ironically, the very guts that many people are now claiming the Celtics lack have probably been the reason why the Celtics have even been in the running in a lot of these games. The very people who are yelling "Too little too late" about yesterday's Celtics fourth quarter comeback flurry are ignoring the question as to why the Celtics didn't simply lay down in that quarter—why they bothered to risk further injury in taking on that impossible chore. Could it possibly have involved guts and desire? Could it possibly have involved considerable energy expenditure, even through fatigue?

In case no one has noticed it, the Celtics are doing uncharacteristic things. Does anyone think they're setting out to achieve that goal? Does anyone think they just plummeted from a 20-5 team to a team doing uncharacteristic things on some sort of whim or based on some type of reverse Ponce de Lyon instant age acceleration drug? Does anyone think they have simply abandoned their professional pride virtually overnight? Isn't it pretty obvious that something quite substantial—and beyond their immediate control—is causing the malaise. That something is dysfunction—the product of discontinuity.

The main reason I started the glimmers thread was to try to remind people that, among all the negative artifacts of the dysfunction,
positive things are occurring (including the little comeback yesterday). However, they are happening sporadically because the dysfunction almost seems to have taken on a life of its own.

They can do it—both talent-wise and energy-wise, regardless of age. The problem now is one of residual dysfunction that will only be reversed by a major stopping point, collective breath-taking, and refocus. That’s what the all-star break can provide. The 20-5 beginning of this season offered reassurance that this team has the capacity to regroup around a revamped roster and concept; and
that’s what the last 33 games of the season can facilitate, given the refocus. Let dysfunction be replaced by momentum, and then see me in April. And I can tell you what to look for as the ultimate glimmer that the worm has turned and dysfunction has been replace by momentum. Just watch for a sense of joy on the floor. It’s been totally missing, and deservedly so.

The fact is that this season has become the perfect storm of disruption and discontinuity. Yes, I understand that the problems have persisted because the discontinuity and its dysfunctional effects have persisted. The simple togetherness on paper of the still-sub-par squad does not reverse that situation. Some people will be willing to realize this and will hopefully be moved either (1) to have patience and endure the gradual, gradual improvement that should creep in with heightened continuity or (2) to hibernate until April; others will cave in to the instant gratification instinct. And I empathize with both mentalities; I just don’t happen to subscribe
to the latter one. Never have, never will! Because it just plain does not make sense!

Sam

Sam, I'm no expert at analyzing the game, but it appears to me that only Kevin Garnett is really in synch with Rondo and makes fullest use of Rondo's skills. Kevin sets picks for Rondo and passes out to him when Kevin's double covered. When Rondo or someone else passes to Ray, the ball too often stays with Ray, even when he's double or triple covered. Less so with Paul, but still Paul doesn't pass it back to Rondo enough when he's covered.

Doc allows Ray and Paul to play point guard too much, and that I believe is the biggest dysfunction with this team. The offense becomes too haphazard, which too often creates turnovers that lead to problems on the defensive end. For thhis reason, and because Ray's $19.7M contract is expiring and sui generis is a thing of valuable in itself for the next THREE DAYS (only!), I think Danny should trade Ray for some younger legs. Certainly no newcomer would dare to dominate ball possessions as Ray does.

BTW, it's good to be back amongst you all.
Worcester

worcester wrote:Sam, I'm no expert at analyzing the game, but it appears to me that only Kevin Garnett is really in synch with Rondo and makes fullest use of Rondo's skills. Kevin sets picks for Rondo and passes out to him when Kevin's double covered. When Rondo or someone else passes to Ray, the ball too often stays with Ray, even when he's double or triple covered. Less so with Paul, but still Paul doesn't pass it back to Rondo enough when he's covered.

Doc allows Ray and Paul to play point guard too much, and that I believe is the biggest dysfunction with this team. The offense becomes too haphazard, which too often creates turnovers that lead to problems on the defensive end. For thhis reason, and because Ray's $19.7M contract is expiring and sui generis is a thing of valuable in itself for the next THREE DAYS (only!), I think Danny should trade Ray for some younger legs. Certainly no newcomer would dare to dominate ball possessions as Ray does.

BTW, it's good to be back amongst you all.
Worcester

worcester,

It's good to see you here. I was hoping you'd find your way home. :-)

bob

W,

I've always thought KG and Rondo complemented one another quite well. For example, each possesses somewhat different ball distribution abilities. Rondo tends to work from the outside in, while KG works from the inside out. The only way KG contributes to the dysfunction at the moment is that sometimes the Celtics system (offensively and defensively) implicitly involves him doing things that with which he currently has some difficulty. I'm hoping that will change during the next two months as he continues his rehabilitation; and we can all be confident that he'll give it his best possible shot.

Sam

Sam, The one problem I see with Kevin is that he's not physically able yet to get enough elevation to make the alley oops dunk plays. I wish Rondo et al. would stop feeding him that particular pass for now. I cringe that he might reinjure himself. W

W,

My main worry about KG is not on offense but his lack of lateral mobility on defense. I hope that will improve, and it's at least remotely possible that that big cast constricts his lateral movement somewhat, in which case we might see a sudden measurable improvement if he gets rid of that cast or exchanges it for a less cumbersome one.

Sam

Yes, he has been a bit hobbled. I wish some of my friends in Boston could treat him. Did you know Kevin Johnson had regular acupuncture treatments for his hamstring problems while at Phoenix, and I even used to treat Ellis Burks. What a physique he had. Coiled steel. W