Hoopsworld Article

by coach Mike Moreau.
Mike Moreau is the Director of Basketball at IMG Academies in Bradenton, FL – home of The IMG Basketball Academy . Mike has worked with NBA stars such as Kevin Martin, Courtney Lee, Earl Clark, Jrue Holiday, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas and dozens of others, and is in his second year contributing to HOOPSWORLD.


Read more: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=15445#ixzz0gwbSNWP4

Hi,
Very sad. I don't have any arguments to counter the points the guy makes.

AK

It's difficult to argue with many of stats this guy throws out. It's difficult to argue with most stats, short of typos. But one can argue against the conclusions drawn from the stats. And one can also comment on restatement of the obvious as well as convenient omissions.

We don't really need a lot of stats to tell us that the Celtics have been doing poorly since Christmas. All we need is their record. Since their record is much poorer since December 25, then it's very probable their stats are poorer too. Duh!

But this guy, despite trying to leverage his alleged previous support of the Celtics, almost seems to have somewhat of an agenda in saying basically the same thing in about 38 different ways. He's almost forcing some things, such as where he says the following:

"His (Pierce's) three-point percentage is up – which is a bad sign. He's shooting more threes, which means he's driving less and getting to the foul line less frequently. That isn't a recipe for a go-to scorer in a playoff series.

Perhaps Mr. Moreau doesn't realize that a higher three-point percentage doesn't necessarily mean the player is shooting "more threes." In fact, Paul Pierce has averaged 4.5 three-points attempts per season throughout his career and is shooting only 4.1 per game this season. I'm not trying to negate an entire article by refuting a single claim. But I do get a funny feeling when I can read something, say to myself "That doesn't seem right," go to Basketball Reference, and find out that it isn't right. Seems like almost too much of an eagerness to pile it on so as to make for a more compelling article.

I guess he could be excused for blowing one statistical conclusion because he’s not a statistician; apparently he’s a coach. Which make me wonder why he wrote a statistically based article when, if he were really a great coach and an observer of the Celtics, he could have added much more value by diagnosing the underlying problems rather than simply citing stats that reinforce problems of which we’re already aware:

• What has changed in their style of play?

• Why aren’t they getting more rebounds?

• What is it about the mix of players that militates against better chemistry after Christmas than before?

• Why is it that having issues with his former team necessarily prevents Nate Robinson from helping this team?

• Etc., etc., etc.

And, perhaps most important, where is the proof that things can’t be turned around? Most of the stats were obviously very different before Christmas time, and the only substantive changes since then have been the additions of Quis, Davis and Robinson and the subtraction of House—and of course the frequent disruptions caused by the absences of unimportant players like KG, Pierce, Sheed and others.

Yes, perhaps the Lakers and Cavs are built in such a way as to withstand injuries better than the Celtics. Perhaps that’s a Celtics vulnerability. But teams’ chances in the playoffs are not predicated on being decimated by injuries. Even good teams need to be very close to full strength to win championships. The Lakers will not win a championship without either Pau or Kobe. The Celtics will not win a championship without either KG or Paul Pirece. Duh! Perhaps the Celtics depend more on chemistry while the Lakers depend more on hero ball and height. And perhaps chemistry suffers more from the absence of key players than hero ball and height do (unless you lose both the hero baller and the height at the same time). That seems like an almost embarrassingly easy hypothesis to recognize.

Mr. Moreau’s article is all too shallow for me. Too convenient. Here’s another of his “revelations”:

“In their run in last year's playoffs, Glen Davis was a monster for them offensively - averaging nearly 16 points a game on 49% shooting. This year, he's averaging 5.8 points per game and is barely a factor.”

In last year’s playoffs, Glen Davis played 19 more minutes per game than in this regular season. He played with the first unit and, more
specifically, with one of the game’s premier ball distributors. And as for being “barely a factor,” he’s rebounding this season at a rate (per minute played) 53% above how he rebounded in last year’s playoffs. Did Mr. Moreau accidentally overlook that latter stat? Or did he simply do a shoddy job of accepting whatever version of each stat most fits the titillating negativity of the article?

I wish the author had printed the same stats for the pre-Christmas period versus the post-Christmas period. Of course, comparing the before-and-after stats would have compelled him to offer some hopefully non-amateurish opinions about the reasons for the differences. Despite his having worked with so many athletes, analysis seems to be something he avoids. Maybe it doesn’t pay as well as conveniently underscoring the obvious.

Sam

We shall see.

Sam,
I should've used singular vs plural: point. And that point is Celtics are not championship contender based on the current results.
On the other hand I sincerely hope that your theory of continuity is true and give the team 10-15 games with full and healthy roster and they'll show who's "daddy" in the playoffs.

AK

Sinus,

I understood your point and the author's point.

One of my points is that the current results do not constitute anything approaching sufficient evidence about what could occur in the future. He's simply restating facts (many, but not all, of them correct) that we already know and could well change by playoff time. So my other point is that the the article is not particularly relevant and falls short of sheeding any new light on the matter.

He may prove to be 100% correct; he may not. But there's really nothing compelling about the article in my estimation...and certainly no reason to feel any more concerned about the Celtics than we already were.

Sam

"The attitude and swagger are gone, the defensive intimidation non-existent. The stranglehold the Celtics put on teams on the defensive end of the floor can't be recreated and the offensive firepower isn't there anymore. This is a shell of the team that won a title two years ago."

He went on to call them "a bad team".

The article was way too histrionic.

As far as "the attitude and swagger" go, they've been there since Christmas, but only in the first half of games. Then they decide in the locker room they can win by showing up for the second half. The attitude becomes laziness - instead of defense, trade outside shots, don't box out, jog don't run - the swagger is in saying to Lebron and Cleveland, we can beat you without even trying.

The physical part of the problem was injuries and soon now they'll finally all be healthy. The mental problem has everything to do with taking it easy through the regular season and turning it on come playoff time.

The loss to NJ had much to do with not showing up at all mentally. Nobody was into that game, not even Doc. If you look at the won-loss records of playoff teams over the years, you're going to see a preponderance of losses to sub-.500 teams. Winning teams don't take bottom-dwelling teams seriously enough, never have, never will.

Comparing what's going on with the Celtics to what's going on with the Lakers, there was a fascinating sentence in the article about Lebron and Phil. It went, "Yes, the Lakers are holding their own at the top of the Western Conference, but as Jackson’s source pointed out, “It’s incredible how miserable they seem winning.”

Somewhere else there's a quote from Red about the "tremendous pressure" of winning all the time. The reigning champs are facing it and it seems to be taking a toll.

KG had a good rest and looks ready to run. Now Paul's gotten some time off. The pre-post season starts when Paul comes back and everyone's healthy. To write them off before that is foolish.

I purposefully didn't add my own thoughts to the original thread because I saw some aspects that I agreed with and some that I didn't and wanted to give the board a chance to voice its opinion before I added.

It seems to me articles are either:

1. Duh! I need you to state the obvious?
2. I'm not so sure about this.

The "I'm not so sure about this" category often comes from over-projection or under-analysis or both. This article, to me, had a little of all of the above.

The Celtics don't intimidate on defense like they have in the past. Part of that has been the slow, but it appears now more certain, comeback of KG. He is clearly moving more fluidly on offense and defense and is becoming more the force he used to be. Will he ever be 100% again? Who knows, but 90-95% of KG is still a force of nature. I am, quite frankly, more concerned about our lack of perimeter defense than I am about the state of KG.

"The attitude and swagger are gone" definitely fall under the "duh" category. That's what happens when you aren't devouring all in front of you.

Everything Sam said is well-founded. Pierce is playing fewer minutes/game, so his /game numbers are down, but he's taking only slightly fewer fga per game (and more of them are 3s) and he's taking the exact same number of fta/36 minutes (6.1) as in our championship year of '08.

Glen Davis' numbers/36 minutes this year are the highest of his career in fga, rebounds, assists (tied with last year). He's also committing fewer fouls/36 minutes in his career.

Bottom line, Moreau may be onto something, because there's definitely something wrong, but his points are not backed up well.

bob