Um, okay. Too bad they do not have one guy on the roster who can truly play point guard. We will be okay. We lost a guy who is supposedly a top 5 point guard in the league and in the top 20 for MVP. Sure, will be great.
How many teams in the league have a legit "proper" PG?
There are probably only 4 or 5 of those in the league:
* Chris Paul
* Rajon Rondo
* Andre Miller
* Jason Kidd
* Deron Williams
Guys like Derek Rose, Mario Chalmers, Russel Westbrook, Brandon Jennings (etc) are not proper/pure Point Guards, they are basically scorers who can handle the ball.
The natural PG is very rare in today's game, which is dominated largely by scoring PGs.
We can win games without Rondo. We can potentially be just as good without Rondo IF we do it the right way. We need to utilise the strengths of our players better in his absense and change our game plan to suit our key guys.
With Rondo out it leaves Terry, Lee, Barbosa and Bradley as our 4 guard rotation. All of those guys can hit the three, so it's harder for defenses to help off them the way they did with Rondo out there. Bradley is probably the only guy on that list that the Defense can risk leaving open, but even he can make you pay.
Also the loss of Rondo allows us to use Lee and Bradley on the court together more frequently, allowing us to take advantage of the smothering defense we get when those guys combine with full court pressure. Then we can bring Terry and Barbosa off the bench for scoring punch.
Also unlike most teams in the league, we have two of the best passing frontcourt players at their positions in Pierce and KG. As we saw tonight they are both capable of creating plays for others.
Needless to say our effort and motivation levels also need to increase dramatically. We won a lot of games last season with a LOT less talent than we have right now, even with Rondo out. We won those games with pure desperation, by simply playing harder than the opponent every single night.
If we play with the same urgency we have for most of this season, then yes our chance of making the playoffs will be slim.
This doesn't destroy our chance of making the playoffs or competing deep in the playoffs, it just means we need to do it a different way, with a different strategy.