The "Celtics are a better team without Kyrie" narrative gets pushed whenever we win a game without Kyrie. Not to take away from the great effort by the players to cover for Kyrie's absence as they have done an outstanding job, but let's look at the games we've played without Kyrie this year:
Date Opp Result Score Opp current record
Nov. 9, 2018 @ UTH L 123-115 32-25
Dec. 10, 2018 NOP W 113-100 25-33*
Jan. 2, 2019 MIN W 115-102 27-30*
Jan. 4, 2019 DAL W 114-93 26-31*
Jan. 14, 2019 @ BKN L 109-102 30-29
Jan. 23, 2019 CLE W 123-103 12-46*
Jan. 28, 2019 BKN W 112-104 30-29
Jan. 30, 2019 CHA W 126-94 27-29*
Feb. 5, 2019 @ CLE W 103-96 12-46*
Feb. 12, 2019 @ PHI W 112-109 37-21
Feb. 13, 2019 DET W 118-110 26-30*
*teams below .500
7 teams below .500, and 2 games against a team that's just 1 game above it. These are teams we SHOULD be beating, with or without Kyrie. The times when we need Kyrie will be playoff time, where the East is much stronger this year than last year. All our major competitors (except Indiana) got better. We need Kyrie because he can go get us a bucket when we desperately need one.
The other piece of it is that the depth we have affects everyone's performance. Everyone will look better in games that Kyrie isn't playing in because when he is playing, everyone - including Kyrie himself - has to play smaller roles than they otherwise should. So when you take someone out everyone looks better because they have more touches, more minutes, more chances to impact the game.
All that being said, I think there's an argument to be made that when Kyrie is playing, the others don't play to their capabilities, whether that's due to them deferring too much or getting too little touches I don't know. But here are the stats for players PPG/efficiency with/without Kyrie (I grabbed these from the Boston Herald):
With Kyrie Without Kyrie
Player Min FG% 3FG% PPG Min FG% 3FG% PPG
Hayward 25.7 0.409 0.320 10.0 27.6 0.542 0.381 16.1
Rozier 22.3 0.368 0.349 8.1 28 0.443 0.411 13.3
Brown 25.3 0.442 0.299 11.6 28.4 0.472 0.365 15.5
Smart 26.3 0.386 0.353 7.8 30 0.458 0.375 11.0
Horford 29.6 0.508 0.349 12.5 27.3 0.571 0.478 13.6
Tatum 31.2 0.448 0.381 15.9 32.5 0.473 0.370 18.8
Morris 27.7 0.478 0.417 14.4 27.6 0.467 0.366 15.1
So the 2 players who are impacted the least by Kyrie playing or not playing are Tatum and Morris - both guys who never saw a shot they didn't like. They're not affected by Kyrie being there or not. The others have significant disparities in performance with Kyrie playing. Rather than saying it's Kyrie's fault and getting rid of our best player, maybe they (and Brad) need to figure out what they need to do better when he is there.
Topic: Scalabrine Went On The FOX Sports Shows And Lit Everyone Up Regarding Kyrie (Read 4202 times)