What's the difference between us and the spurs?
Besides wins and losses...
Is it simply chemistry? I mean looking at the roster and coaching they are incredibly similar; however, things just look easy for the spurs. While we look like trash.
Avery Bradley
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Sorry, that needs an explanation.
2-3 years ago, Popovich (correctly) realized that his team could no longer be a high level defensive team. Tim Duncan's defense range had dropped, he lacked high level interior defensive help for Duncan and his perimeter defense was good but unexceptional.
Popovich (rightly) saw that his team had underutilized offensive talent and that by sacrificing some of his remaining team defense ... Pop could open up the offense and turn the Spurs into a high ranking offensive team. He (correctly) saw that the boost they would get offensively from changing his system was greater than the losses defensively that came with the system change.
The situation is not the same in Boston because Boston can still be a high level defensive team. They can be that because of Kevin Garnett's excellent defensive range as a starting center + the stellar backcourt defense they get from Rondo and Bradley + well above average swing defense from Pierce, Green and Lee.
So unlike Popovich and San Antonio, Doc and Celtics still have the capacity to be a high level defensive team so Doc has kept the team (somewhat) on that track. Rightly so. Doc could, like Popovich did, open the offense up a great deal more (sacrificing some defense for more offense) which Doc could easily do to get more out of weapons like Jason Terry and Jeff Green ... but I think staying with defense-first idea is a better option.
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In other words, Popovich's Spurs are built around their beautiful cohesive offense that gives them very good consistency in the regular season.
While Doc's Celtics continue to be built around their team defense which is currently misfiring and creating a lot of inconsistency in the team.
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And when Avery Bradley comes back, I think the team will get a big boost defensively ... and their defensive consistency will improve greatly.
It will lead to much more consistency for the team and more wins.
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Bradley is an important piece to the team identity and he is currently missing.