Is Brad Stevens the problem?

[BASS_THUMPER]

Don't get me wrong

I Love the Celtic's





but when my Born Town come at Boston 4 Down...


smh..

I had to run with them..


Good Luck Tomorrow fam.... I'm running with..



*nip*

[Spicoli]

Stevens is absolutely the problem. He loves defense first guys but his defense routinely gets shredded by the likes of Tyler Herro and Ish Smith. This team could not get a stop against Miami when they needed one so his rep as a defensive guru is overstated.

He allows other teams to go on massive runs. He never challenges bad calls and doesn't get technicals for his players. He allows guys to jack up bad shot after bad shot with no repercussions. He never runs plays to get shooters open. He misuses all his players. He does not utilize any of these players to their actual strengths. He plays guys big minutes who do not deserve it. He sticks to substitution patterns game after game that do not make sense. Man I could go on all day. He is a mediocre coach period. Both he and Ainge should both leave the team after this season. Their time is up.

[GreenEnvy]

I think the true problem is we’ve basically handed the keys to under-25 players.

Why wasn't this a problem in 2018? Our 3 leading scorers in the post season were Tatum, Brown and Rozier, yet we reached the ECF and lost in 7 games. Tatum was 20 years old at the time!

Or why wasn't this a problem last season? Hayward practically missed all our playoff games and Kemba was clearly struggling with his injury.

It’s called fools gold. We overachieved in both (who did we really beat in either playoff run?) and set in motion the Tatum train. We accelerated his superstardom and thus this is where we are at. It’s his team now.

Name another perennial contender that was led by a player with Tatum’s experience (in 2018, 2020, or now). Even Jordan and LeBron both flamed out for quite a few seasons before becoming who they were. If we truly turned the franchise over to Tatum, we are going to have to be patient. It’s extremely rare to see a player who came out after a year of college become the leader of a championship-caliber team.

You don’t think it was a problem. That’s great. If you’re good with making it to the ECF and then getting outworked/outsmarted by an inferior team, good for you. I’m not. I’m not happy with how 2018 or 2020 ended.

[Moranis]

I think the true problem is we’ve basically handed the keys to under-25 players.

Why wasn't this a problem in 2018? Our 3 leading scorers in the post season were Tatum, Brown and Rozier, yet we reached the ECF and lost in 7 games. Tatum was 20 years old at the time!

Or why wasn't this a problem last season? Hayward practically missed all our playoff games and Kemba was clearly struggling with his injury.

It’s called fools gold. We overachieved in both (who did we really beat in either playoff run?) and set in motion the Tatum train. We accelerated his superstardom and thus this is where we are at. It’s his team now.

Name another perennial contender that was led by a player with Tatum’s experience (in 2018, 2020, or now). Even Jordan and LeBron both flamed out for quite a few seasons before becoming who they were. If we truly turned the franchise over to Tatum, we are going to have to be patient. It’s extremely rare to see a player who came out after a year of college become the leader of a championship-caliber team.

You don’t think it was a problem. That’s great. If you’re good with making it to the ECF and then getting outworked/outsmarted by an inferior team, good for you. I’m not. I’m not happy with how 2018 or 2020 ended.

Generally somewhere in years 5 to 7 are when players start reaching their prime, however Lebron took a pretty awful Cavs teams to the finals in his 4th year.  That said, I've been saying pretty consistently that this team wasn't a contender because neither Tatum nor Brown was ready to lead a contender and wouldn't be this year and the rest of the team quite simply wasn't good enough without both of them taking major leaps again. 

[Birdman]

We have no bench..that’s the problem

[Neurotic Guy]

I think the true problem is we’ve basically handed the keys to under-25 players.

Why wasn't this a problem in 2018? Our 3 leading scorers in the post season were Tatum, Brown and Rozier, yet we reached the ECF and lost in 7 games. Tatum was 20 years old at the time!

Or why wasn't this a problem last season? Hayward practically missed all our playoff games and Kemba was clearly struggling with his injury.

It’s called fools gold. We overachieved in both (who did we really beat in either playoff run?) and set in motion the Tatum train. We accelerated his superstardom and thus this is where we are at. It’s his team now.

Name another perennial contender that was led by a player with Tatum’s experience (in 2018, 2020, or now). Even Jordan and LeBron both flamed out for quite a few seasons before becoming who they were. If we truly turned the franchise over to Tatum, we are going to have to be patient. It’s extremely rare to see a player who came out after a year of college become the leader of a championship-caliber team.

You don’t think it was a problem. That’s great. If you’re good with making it to the ECF and then getting outworked/outsmarted by an inferior team, good for you. I’m not. I’m not happy with how 2018 or 2020 ended.

Generally somewhere in years 5 to 7 are when players start reaching their prime, however Lebron took a pretty awful Cavs teams to the finals in his 4th year.  That said, I've been saying pretty consistently that this team wasn't a contender because neither Tatum nor Brown was ready to lead a contender and wouldn't be this year and the rest of the team quite simply wasn't good enough without both of them taking major leaps again.

We may be seeing a major leap from Jaylen.  And I don’t think Tatum’s really got going yet.  So I’d say the jury’s still out as to whether both taking leaps this season. But I am dubious also - I don’t think the leaps necessary are likely, but I’m not counting them out.  Kemba back and a roster addition or 2 and this team could finish very strong.

[BruceBanner18]

I tend to align with the thoughts above that we are young and there isn't necessarily a 'problem' and we are likely a big move or 2 yrs away from being truly legit contenders based on the age of our core (today I think we are on the outer orbit of contention). I do not think replacing Stevens should even be a consideration at this point.

That said, I get frustrated with some aspects of Steven's coaching philosophy. Foremost, everyone has a greenlight ALL GAME. I think the approach that everyone always takes the open shot is legit for Q1-3...it keeps the defense honest, all of our team engaged and sets up spacing (in theory) for our scorers to take over in the 4th. So I am all 'yes, yes yes' on Smart and Theis hucking 3's in quarters 1 thru 3 and 'no, no, f*&^ no' in quarter 4. Good coaches/teams exploit this against us and I believe this is a main driver of our failure to close out games.

[Somebody]

I tend to align with the thoughts above that we are young and there isn't necessarily a 'problem' and we are likely a big move or 2 yrs away from being truly legit contenders based on the age of our core (today I think we are on the outer orbit of contention). I do not think replacing Stevens should even be a consideration at this point.

That said, I get frustrated with some aspects of Steven's coaching philosophy. Foremost, everyone has a greenlight ALL GAME. I think the approach that everyone always takes the open shot is legit for Q1-3...it keeps the defense honest, all of our team engaged and sets up spacing (in theory) for our scorers to take over in the 4th. So I am all 'yes, yes yes' on Smart and Theis hucking 3's in quarters 1 thru 3 and 'no, no, f*&^ no' in quarter 4. Good coaches/teams exploit this against us and I believe this is a main driver of our failure to close out games.

I mean if guys like Smart are consistently hitting those open threes you'd want them to keep on taking them in the fourth quarter if those looks arise - the average offensive efficiency per halfcourt possession is around 0.9-0.95 points, you're getting a win if you have a 33.3% three point shooter shoot open threes in crunch time, much less a guy who's been shooting in the mid-30s the past couple of seasons and is shooting over 40% from three this season on pretty high volume. Our failures in closing out games have mostly been relying on individual players too much and not leveraging their threat to score to create open looks for teammates enough (our last game in Detroit was the rare exception, we usually go to Tatumball in crunch time).

[SparzWizard]

I think the true problem is we’ve basically handed the keys to under-25 players.

Why wasn't this a problem in 2018? Our 3 leading scorers in the post season were Tatum, Brown and Rozier, yet we reached the ECF and lost in 7 games. Tatum was 20 years old at the time!

Or why wasn't this a problem last season? Hayward practically missed all our playoff games and Kemba was clearly struggling with his injury.

The East was weak back in 2018. LeBron the #4 seed still did work in that conference.

Last year was a problem in such that the young guys couldn't hold on to a lead and kept chucking up 3's, and taking terrible shot selection down to the last possession and end up losing the game.

[Darth_Yoda]

Alot of defense of Brad but a couple things are hard to defend.

Poor execution at end of games. All pure isoball.
No holding players accountable. Smart jacking shots.
Players never prepared for 3rd quarters or sometimes 1st quarters. No motivation or urgency.

[Spicoli]

Brad Stevens has to be fired. Some coaches i dislike and others i hate. Stevens is a coach i hate. Robert Williams is the best big on your team and he is barely getting 10 minutes of playing time a night. How can he justify this? He is going to seek a trade or sign with another ball club when the time comes because Stevens won't give him a chance. Ojeleye, Grant Williams, Jeff Teague, and Javonte Green are all duds offensively yet they get playing time over guys who are more offensively oriented. This is dumb seeing as though this team is bad on defense even while giving these "defensive players" minutes. I can't take Brad anymore. He has to go. I'm beyond sick of him at this point.

[Fred Ziffel]

Grant Williams seems to be making progress.  Some of the others not so much.

[GreenWarrior]

Brad Stevens has to be fired. Some coaches i dislike and others i hate. Stevens is a coach i hate. Robert Williams is the best big on your team and he is barely getting 10 minutes of playing time a night. How can he justify this? He is going to seek a trade or sign with another ball club when the time comes because Stevens won't give him a chance. Ojeleye, Grant Williams, Jeff Teague, and Javonte Green are all duds offensively yet they get playing time over guys who are more offensively oriented. This is dumb seeing as though this team is bad on defense even while giving these "defensive players" minutes. I can't take Brad anymore. He has to go. I'm beyond sick of him at this point.

I'm not a huge stevens fan at all, but the scouting report on williams was his "motor" or lack there of. That and the radio guys said his stamina has been an issue since his bout with covid.

So I'm thinking williams  limited mins. has more to do with him than stevens.

[liam]

You know what really stinks? We have two lotto picks that can't or won't be played. Romeo has been hurt off and on since drafted and Nesmith is apparently unplayable. That's a really big problem. Bane is averaging 10 points a game and 48% from 3 and we picked him. If Danny had Kept Bane he be worth more than we traded him for now.

[Spicoli]

Brad Stevens has to be fired. Some coaches i dislike and others i hate. Stevens is a coach i hate. Robert Williams is the best big on your team and he is barely getting 10 minutes of playing time a night. How can he justify this? He is going to seek a trade or sign with another ball club when the time comes because Stevens won't give him a chance. Ojeleye, Grant Williams, Jeff Teague, and Javonte Green are all duds offensively yet they get playing time over guys who are more offensively oriented. This is dumb seeing as though this team is bad on defense even while giving these "defensive players" minutes. I can't take Brad anymore. He has to go. I'm beyond sick of him at this point.

I'm not a huge stevens fan at all, but the scouting report on williams was his "motor" or lack there of. That and the radio guys said his stamina has been an issue since his bout with covid.

So I'm thinking williams  limited mins. has more to do with him than stevens.

I'm not seeing a lack of motor on R. Williams at all. When he's out there he's all over the place disrupting things all over the court. He gets steals, blocks, put backs, can pass, and can even hit the jumper now. He has it all. Stevens would rather play Grant Williams and Tristan Thompson center minutes instead.

This team has really talented guys on the roster who just aren't getting the opportunities. Theis and R. Williams looked really good together but of course he nixed that and went back to Theis and Thompson smh.

I am going to be sick when R. Williams blows up on another team.