Author Topic: Let’s re-examine this team  (Read 5497 times)

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Let’s re-examine this team
« on: November 08, 2018, 10:24:14 PM »

Offline droopdog7

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I know it’s early but the results have been ugly.  Perhaps the off-season expectations were severely misguided?  Seems to be a fit to a large degree, but talent may also have been overestimated.  We have one proven star in Kyrie.  That’s it.  We also have Horford who is a solid solid player.  Does all the dirty work.

As for the rest, well, they all have warts.  Jaylen is athletic but inconsistent with low basketball IQ.  He’s essentially the anti supporting player.  Unsteady, erratic, and often out of control.  I continue to be very bearish about his potential and future.  Not a star in the making at all.

Smart is smart.  Gritty defender but below average offensively.  Hayward not ready. Morris has been great but can make you pull your hair out when he’s bad.  Rozier has been awful.  Played WAY over his head in the playoffs and having really hard time with his minutes.

As for Tatum. I’m more bullish on him and expect him to be very good.  But there is a chance that we’re wrong.  His iso ball is troubling.  Is he the next KD or the next melo?   We shall see.

Now onto fit.  Obviously they’re experiencing growing pains but who thought that a mix of smart, Morris, and rozier sounded good?  If Morris wasn’t playing over his head, they’d be a complete disaster. 

I think the starters will get better but I still say switching out brown for a steady player would improve the team.

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2018, 11:05:24 PM »

Offline knuckleballer

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It's still too early.

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2018, 11:10:49 PM »

Offline gouki88

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PF: Terry Cummings (84-85) / Paul Millsap (15-16)
C: Chris Webber (00-01) / Ralph Sampson (83-84) / Andrew Bogut (09-10)

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2018, 11:23:55 PM »

Offline PhoSita

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They're still great on defense.


Issues -- they are 29th in free throws per offensive play.

They're top 5 in three pointers attempted but only 15th (dead average) in shooting percentage from three.

They're also dead last in points in the paint per game, which is partly due to pace, but also because they lack an inside presence on offense.

They're 21st in Total Rebounding %.



Basically, they throw up a lot of of jumpers, they're just OK at hitting the jumpers, they don't get inside, they don't get free throws, and they don't rebound very well.


They're great defensively but that can only help you so much.
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Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2018, 11:52:14 PM »

Offline keevsnick

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I know it’s early but the results have been ugly.  Perhaps the off-season expectations were severely misguided?  Seems to be a fit to a large degree, but talent may also have been overestimated.  We have one proven star in Kyrie.  That’s it.  We also have Horford who is a solid solid player.  Does all the dirty work.

As for the rest, well, they all have warts.  Jaylen is athletic but inconsistent with low basketball IQ.  He’s essentially the anti supporting player.  Unsteady, erratic, and often out of control.  I continue to be very bearish about his potential and future.  Not a star in the making at all.

Smart is smart.  Gritty defender but below average offensively.  Hayward not ready. Morris has been great but can make you pull your hair out when he’s bad.  Rozier has been awful.  Played WAY over his head in the playoffs and having really hard time with his minutes.

As for Tatum. I’m more bullish on him and expect him to be very good.  But there is a chance that we’re wrong.  His iso ball is troubling.  Is he the next KD or the next melo?   We shall see.

Now onto fit.  Obviously they’re experiencing growing pains but who thought that a mix of smart, Morris, and rozier sounded good?  If Morris wasn’t playing over his head, they’d be a complete disaster. 

I think the starters will get better but I still say switching out brown for a steady player would improve the team.

So about Jaylen. 6/8 in the second half for seventeen points and excellent defense. Some might call that an anti-anti supporting player.

But seriously, I just think its too early to make broad judgements. We need to get better going inside, we need to get better at generating free throws, and we need to get better at hitting our wide open shots. We have guys who can do that. Hayward hands been pretty good at getting to the rim and should get better as he shakes off the rust. Jaylen can get by just about anyone and has been much agressive to the rim lately. Tatum won't keep on missing literally every shot he takes for the whole season. We have the talent, we just have to figure out how to play together. This team is struggling under the burden of its own expectations right now, but they will figure it out.

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2018, 11:58:34 PM »

Offline droopdog7

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Scratch everything I said :).

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2018, 12:09:15 AM »

Offline Kyriefor3

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Hey guys new here but long time Celtics fan. Great game tonight had me fuming at points to obviously ecstatic. I really have bad feelings about Gordon, I understand he is coming off a terrible injury and he needs time to recover but man I feel like his shot shouldn’t be this affected especially with those spot up threes and recovering from this type of injury is not something many athletes can do. I understand PG did it but Gordon has never even averaged 20 a year or been as explosive as him. As for Tatum I really think Kobe Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ed his head up and got him out of his game and did it to pay us back as Celtic fans lol. I really liked how jaylen started going back to the basic and getting to the rim in the second half and built his confidence up for that OT three. Looking forward to posting and interacting with you guys cheers go C’s!

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2018, 12:15:22 AM »

Offline Smartacus

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Here are my biases with this team...

I think the best version of this team revolves around Horford, Hayward, Tatum, and Irving.

I think Gordon Hayward is and will continue to be better than Jaylen Brown.

But...

Brown is dealing with the shell shock of the roster crunch better than Tatum and Hayward is not as close in his rehab that we were hoping. Jaylen is more mature and ready to show up in big moments than Tatum who is having more trouble finding his way than I would've hoped.

I'm still pro Hayward over Brown but I admit I can reverse that opinion with a significant sample size of data. At this point I am not convinced we can run a starting lineup of Hayward/Brown/Tatum at the highest levels. Hopefully they prove me wrong.

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2018, 12:32:37 AM »

Offline GreenEnvy

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I can’t explain why they are missing so many open threes and layups. Most of the time I am pleased with what they are getting, they just aren’t converting.

11 games now is a decent stretch, they need to turn it up. It’s clearly a lack of focus. Too many are shooting well under their career averages. Morris and Irving are the only ones playing up to expectations.

The defense has been good, but inconsistent. Sometimes they are lockdown, sometimes they are lazy.

I still believe this is a case of luck. Some bad luck on offense, some good luck by other teams. There were so many instances tonight that we missed a wide open shot and they came down and hit a significantly harder one. The lead should have been half what it was most of the night. But they woke up and played well enough the last 4 minutes of regulation and OT (hitting 13 shots in a row).

A bunch of close games thus far, only two blowouts. We deserved to lose tonight, but won. We should have won Saturday, but lost. Long season.
CELTICS 2024

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2018, 12:52:45 AM »

Offline nickagneta

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Another hot take thread that aged poorly. 😉😋😁😎

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2018, 09:36:34 AM »

Offline KGBirdBias

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Some of you are good at playing MMQB after a win. Look this team is struggling and anyone can see it. I think they learned a hard lesson last night. Teams are coming for their head even though they didn't win anything last year. They have to play hard and play like their hair is on fire.

If Brad has to shake it up, cut mins during a game to put guys out there that are going to play hard, then we'll see a different team. Teams will eventually succumb to their talent but they have to play much harder and smarter.

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2018, 09:41:28 AM »

Offline fairweatherfan

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One thing you can definitively say after such a small sample size is that Hayward is not yet ready to be back in All-Star form. Another is that Tatum needs to not buy into his own hype. 

Outside of that, making the open shots that we're very good at creating will cure a lot of ills. Let's hope that kicks in sooner than later.

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2018, 09:41:30 AM »

Offline fairweatherfan

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« Last Edit: November 09, 2018, 09:52:35 AM by fairweatherfan »

Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2018, 10:29:54 AM »

Offline td450

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I strongly disagree about Brown, who I see as the most important player on the team, but I do agree there are issues.

I don't blame Stevens for taking the approach he has early, but as the season progresses, we need to prune the rotations. Long term, I think the team needs to build around Brown and Tatum's skills.

Both guys are just OK one on one players who are very young, and will become killers in a few years. Both guys can really run and shoot right now. With space, they can create offense, but this should be brought along slowly. Tatum in particular has slipped into some bad habits. Last year he picked his spots better. Brown needs reps and much more offensive movement.  He benefitted more from the aggressive pacing that Rozier brought than anyone else. Kyrie is slowing things down. The passing is below average.

This team almost never forces mismatches. It has three big wings but rarely scores on cuts or pin downs. The guys are open, but the passes aren't made very often.

My concern is that Kyrie really doesn't create for others very well, and uses up a lot of the oxygen on offense. I had hoped that Hayward would help create shots for others, but he isn't doing that yet. To me, the big thing is whether Kyrie will do what it takes to create opportunities for Tatum and Brown. The best version of the C's is where we run teams off the floor and those two guys are scoring an efficient 15 ppg.




Re: Let’s re-examine this team
« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2018, 11:02:17 AM »

Online BitterJim

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Hey guys new here but long time Celtics fan. Great game tonight had me fuming at points to obviously ecstatic. I really have bad feelings about Gordon, I understand he is coming off a terrible injury and he needs time to recover but man I feel like his shot shouldn’t be this affected especially with those spot up threes and recovering from this type of injury is not something many athletes can do. I understand PG did it but Gordon has never even averaged 20 a year or been as explosive as him. As for Tatum I really think Kobe ****ed his head up and got him out of his game and did it to pay us back as Celtic fans lol. I really liked how jaylen started going back to the basic and getting to the rim in the second half and built his confidence up for that OT three. Looking forward to posting and interacting with you guys cheers go C’s!

This is not at all accurate. He averaged 19.3, 19.7, and 21.7ppg on one of the the slowest-paced teams his last 3 years in Utah. He needs time to get back to playing NBA basketball after missing an entire year. Shooting drills, etc. are great, but shooting in a real game, with defenders, and fans, and people actually counting on you is a different animal. Expecting him to be 100% in a month is unreasonable
I'm bitter.