Jae Crowder glad the Boston Celtics are more focused on hitting first

by **bobheckler** Wed Oct 14, 2015 1:14 pm

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2015/10/jae_crowder_boston_celtics_now.html

Jae Crowder glad the Boston Celtics are more focused on hitting first

Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com

on October 13, 2015 at 7:40 PM

It's obvious why Brad Stevens considers perimeter defense one of the Boston Celtics' strengths. Just watch Marcus Smart bull his way around a screen or Avery Bradley turn a ball-handler back and forth. If that duo is joined by Jae Crowder in the starting lineup, boy, the Celtics should be physical and tough outside.

Crowder hopes those elements can push Boston to better starts this season. Before Tuesday's practice, the forward said Stevens has stressed setting a defensive tone early.

"I'm glad we're focusing on that this year," Crowder told reporters. "I feel like we didn't talk about it enough last year. Other teams, we found ourselves down early and trying to scrap back. So we don't want to get in that situation too many times. We want to hit first."

First-unit offense actually bothered Boston as much as anything else last season. En route to getting outscored by 7.2 points per 100 possessions, Stevens' starting lineup scored with near-76ers futility. That group often played only the first few minutes of each half, but even that was enough for the Celtics to midrange jumper their way toward regular deficits.

Jae Crowder is glad the Boston Celtics are more focused on hitting first this season.
AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

disadvantages weren't always big, but the second-best and 10th-best teams in the league were separated by fewer than four points per 100 possessions. The gap between good and great -- or good and bad -- is not huge.

Scraping together even an average first unit would be a major improvement. If Stevens sticks with a similar lineup to the one that started the first two preseason games, there's opportunity there. David Lee's playmaking should provide a jolt, Marcus Smart will continue developing and Avery Bradley could be shifting his formerly troublesome shot profile. A few extra points here and there and Boston's strong bench won't have to handle as much heavy lifting.

"You have to take full advantage of the opportunity to jump on a team if you have one at the start of the game," Crowder said. "I think that sets the tone for your whole team. It sets the tone for the whole game. And I think it's pretty big moving forward. I think we've focused on it, we've talked about it. And we want to bring it to life in the near future."

bob
MY NOTE: I can't even count how many games we lost last year because we started out cold, fell way behind, rallied but came up a possession or two short. If we can just start off well, not blazing hot but just competitive, we can wear almost anybody down. The concept of platooning has fallen out of fashion because of the rise of the superstar, but we are one of the few teams I can think of who really can platoon without a major drop off in effectiveness. Anybody who loses focus against us will pay because our talent level is good enough to compete and grind and if, you take a few minutes off because your bench isn't at the top of their game, your superstar will be coming back in sooner than the coach would have liked and that might pay dividends in the 4th quarter (we all saw LeBron start to wind down towards the end of the series against GSW. That might be the first time I have EVER seen LeBron look and play fatigued). The downside of competing against superstar laden teams is that the superstars have the talent, get the calls, etc. The upside is that injuries are part of the game (just ask Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love) and if a superstar gets injured there is, almost by definition, going to be a big drop off in that team's effectiveness.

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by **wide clyde** Wed Oct 14, 2015 1:24 pm

Bob,

I completely agree with your remembrance of so many games last year that started off (seemingly almost before the jump ball on some nights) with very poor offense play from the starters that were eventually not won even with late comeback effort because the hole was just too large to climb out of. This was a very frustrating trend for much of last year.

As a solution, I think that David Lee is key. I think that this guy is going to settle down the starters on offense to the point that they will be far more often competitive at the beginning of both the first and second half.

A second part of the solution, I think, is going to be Perry Jones. This guy can score, and if he starts Crowder can go back to where his biggest value was last year-coming off the bench.

by **bobheckler** Wed Oct 14, 2015 2:09 pm

wide clyde wrote:Bob,

I completely agree with your remembrance of so many games last year that started off (seemingly almost before the jump ball on some nights) with very poor offense play from the starters that were eventually not won even with late comeback effort because the hole was just too large to climb out of. This was a very frustrating trend for much of last year.

As a solution, I think that David Lee is key. I think that this guy is going to settle down the starters on offense to the point that they will be far more often competitive at the beginning of both the first and second half.

A second part of the solution, I think, is going to be Perry Jones. This guy can score, and if he starts Crowder can go back to where his biggest value was last year-coming off the bench.

clyde,

I agree about Lee. I don't see Lee letting the offense go stale. Defense? We'll wait and see about that but not the offense. If our perimeter defense is as good as Brad seems to feel it is then maybe all Lee will have to do on defense is box his man out and rebound, which he does exceptionally well. We'll see, we'll see. Offensively he'll make it happen. If Turner comes off the bench then we'll have creators Turner and IT on the floor together.

You still have all your chips pushed into the middle on Jones. We'll see on that one too. The X-factor on that might not have anything to do with Jones, nor even with Young's play, but on whether Danny can convince someone to include Young in a trade.

bob

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by **rambone** Wed Oct 14, 2015 2:45 pm

I've been meaning to start a thread wondering if the Celtics might have won a couple/few games against the Cavs in the playoffs last year if Ainge hadn't unloaded a couple players like Joel Anthony and Jameer Nelson.

Anthony is still a solid defensive role player, and he would have been very useful against the Cavs in limited minutes. And Jameer was/is a much better shooter than Pressey, and we really could have used more veteran 3 point shooting in that series.

I don't think Brandon Wright would have made a difference, and I think we got a first rounder for him, but Joel (traded for nothing pre-season?) and Jameer (traded for nothing mid-season) would have surely helped a bit.

by **wide clyde** Wed Oct 14, 2015 4:41 pm

Rambone,

One of the guys in our breakfast club asked that same question last year during the Cavs series.

I don't think that Ainge thought that the team would get to the playoffs last year when he dumped either
of those two guys. They were kind of dead weight and were taking minutes from younger guys when they did
get some minutes. They could have been part of saving a few M as well. Certainly, they had no future
in Boston for this year even if the Cavs had been beatable.

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