Do the Celtics help opponents get hot?

[Drucci]

My question sounds stupid but, as Celtics fans, you probably know what I'm talking about. I know that players can get hot on any given night and that there is not necessarily an explanation for this phenomenon. But it seems almost unavoidable that whenever the Celtics are playing a team, this team will have a player who goes off and scores like 15 points in a quarter on us. Usually, these are average to mediocre players who doesn't score more than 10 points on a regular basis. Or former "good players" who are not the good scorer they were once.

And as you think that the Celtics should defend him better, they start hitting impossible shots (and usually to keep their team in the game or to give it the lead). Consequently, the C's struggle to beat this team and they don't always succeed.

Here are the players that went crazy against us this season :

Against the Hornets (win) : Peja Stojakovic : 26 points, 9/15 (6/10 from three), almost managed a Hornets comeback win.

Against the Wolves (win - by 2 points -): Oleksiy Pecherov : 24 points, 9/14, 5/5 free throws

Against the Suns (loss) : Jason Richardson 34 points, 10/16, 6/7 from three, 8/11 free throws. You may classify J-Rich as an exception since he has always played great against us (remember the Bobcats?), but still.

Against the Hawks (loss) : Jamal Crawford in 28 minutes off the bench : 18 points 6/15,1-6 from three, 5-7 free throws. Killed the C's comeback attempts in the 4th by hitting dagger after dagger.

Against the Pacers (loss) : Dahntay Jones : 25 points, 7/15, 11/15 free throws. Killed the C's in the 4th, but may have exploited Pierce's bad knee that night. Still, an average player playing out of his mind, apparently fueled by KG and Pierce's trash-talking.

Against the Warriors (win) : Corey Maggette : 23 points, 8/13, 6-9 free throws

Against the Knicks (win) : Al Harrington (off the bench) : 30 points, 10/21, 5/10 from three, 5/6 free throws

Against the Sixers (win) : Jason Kapono off the bench, in 29 minutes : 20 points, 8/11, 4/6 from three. He kept the Sixers in the game and even gave them the lead at the end of the third on their 8-0 run.   

And in the same game :    Willie Green in 13 minutes (!) 18 points, 5/7, 2/2 from three, 6/6 free throws.

I guess "poor defense" is the obvious explanation for these performances but even when the C's defended well on these players, they managed to hit hard contested shots. So what do you think is the cause for this hot performances from average to "former good" players against us?

I just only see such players get hot against us, not against any other team, or at least not on a such consistent basis (this performances happened in 8 of our 15 games).

I wonder if the trash-talking is the spark. We know KG and Paul did it with Dahntay Jones against Indiana, and I've seen KG talking smack for like 1:30 minute while he shot his free throws last night, to Thaddeus Young and Kapono (KG and Young both got T'ed up).

Thoughts?

[indeedproceed]

Well ummm.......

I don't know.

I think that the Celtics play the %ages, so they'd rather make Dahntay Jones or Jason Kapono beat them than give Andre Iguoadala or Danny Granger the chance to really dominate the game.

But I do see what you're saying. I don't think our 3pt defense has been anything to crow about, and I think that is an issue.

[wiley]

excellent post/topic....

Reasons you may be correct, imo:

1.  we are the Celtics
2.  we recently won a championship
3.  we talk a lot of trash

We can't control the first 2, which is why I'm not a fan of the 3rd...but to each his own

[slamtheking]

interesting way to put it.  In a sense I think you're right that they allow opponents to get a sense of comfort and get their offense going.

Last night in the Sixers game, the Sixers couldn't shoot to start the game but because they were able to penetrate the lane and crash the offensive boards, they were able to stay in the game until they were able to start making outside shots.  If the C's made the effort on defense to start the game (and match their improved offensive start), the Sixers would have been trailing by double digits very quickly and I suspect had more trouble getting an offensive rhythm (thus leading to an easier win).

[LB3533]

A big key the Sixers did last night is they went small and were able to play pick and roll with our bigs going to out to the perimeter.

With KG and Perk out on the perimeter it left so much room for driving lanes and then our defense would collapse and there would be open kick outs for wide open perimeter jumpers.

It also left us with our smalls to try and rebound.

[timpiker]

Good point.  I've been seeing this for t he 3rd year now.  Its usually a 2 guard type I think.  I attribute it to either Ray's or Paul's poor defense.

I think this is when we need a "stopper" to bring in to at least cool them down.

I just don't see the stopper on this team.  And as far as the team in general goes...what's wrong with them?  i think it is KG's lack of dominance when playing D.  He's not feared anymore.  We used to own the paint on D but no longer.