We Are Too Old

[Evantime34]

This is the part of the season when you want a slump (if you admit that every team will slump at some point). All we need to worry about is staying healthy, playing our best basketball at the end of the season, and winning the Atlantic. In that order. Hopefully this turbulence will cause us to play the young guys or trade for someone that will help them win the title.

Picture this, we are breezing through the regular season. We have 50+ wins with 15-20 games left. Then we go on a slump. Our team shows its flaw at the end of a great season. Wouldn't you rather have the team show its flaws early so they can be corrected rather than them just creeping up after the trading deadline when they can't be remedied.

[crownsy]

Missing the 3's is not why we are losing consistently. We are losing because, when we miss our 3's, we don't have a plan B that is working. That is what worries me.

Actually we do, it's called Paul Pierce. And we hadn't gone to that enough.

TP4U.

[footey]

This morning's Gary Washburn article in the Globe pretty much reiterates my thesis in this thread, that we are older and slower than prior two years. NBA scouts are starting to talk about it too.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2009/11/23/celtics_have_big_void_without_davis/?page=2

One scout saying they looked slower than last year does not convince me that what ails this team is age. I still say what ails this team is:

-Shooting slumps from three(Sheed, Ray, Eddie)
-KG's knee is still rehabbing
-Rondo's awful inconsistency
-Poor game preparation mentally
-A bad habit of going one on one on offense and away from team schemes and plays when they have 3-4 consecutive bad results down the floor
-Bad team and perimeter defense from just about every player

Iron these things out, get Baby back and contributing and I think this team will get young again very quickly.

I of course hope you are right, but my own eyes really see something more ominous. I don't think Big Baby is going to make much difference. He is not going to make Garnett, Sheed, Pierce and Ray 3 years' younger.

[More Banners]

The C's certainly haven't had that Banner-level intensity.  It really shows in not closing out on shooters.  I think the vets are trying to pick their spots to save energy, and giving up points and leads due to lack of effort.

But Father Time is a factor.  Players can fall off quickly, especially after an injury.  They are often still good, and often put up numbers too, but then when they try to assert their will over a game, try to "turn it on", it just isn't there...missed shot, turnover, bad pass...when it used to be a momentum shifting bucket.

Tommy was right on the "destroy the opponent's will to win" theory.  IF (big IF) we are able to do that, we're choosing to pace ourselves instead.  This is not the attitude of a champ.

Will the C's have it when they need it?  As things are, there is a good chance this is the year we end up on the losing end of the 7 game series against a younger, more athletic team on the rise.

[crownsy]

Call me a skeptic, but I just do not believe that the KG knee issues is being addressed truthfully by the Celtics. As an earlier poster wrote, he was noticeably limping several times in the Knicks game. I can understand conditioning, etc. being an issue, but why would he be limping if the knee is 100 percent?

ok, lets go the conspiracy theroy route for a second.

What do you suppose the motivation for intentionally running a hurt player out their is knowing that he's at risk to reinjure the knee and not playing well?

Also, no on at the Celtics, much less KG has EVER said the knee is back to 100% yet. I believe his doctor said in one article that would take at least 2 months of regular action.

What they are saying is it's safe for him to play on it, not that he's the bionic man.

[slamtheking]

These average ages don't tell the story.  The Celtics are old because they are playing old.  Too slow.  Lazy. Perimeter oriented.

here is a novel idea......maybe, just maybe, they are in a funk/slump?!?!  it has nothing to do with age.

It's a funk/slump when it's the minority of their games.  That's not the case unfortunately since it's the majority of their games where they've played poorly or at a mediocre level at best.  Until they play at a high/quality level for the majority of their games, the poor/mediocre performances are the norm.

Because good teams never have 7 game slumps.

I'm pretty confident they'll come out of it, simply because it hasn't been the same thing every night. They keep playing wack-a-mole on particular issues, eventually they'll get into sync.

You’ve missed my point.
Last year when they started out hot at 27-2 and then hit that rough patch—that was truly a rough patch because they had established they could play at a higher level on a more frequent basis.

This year, the timeframe where they’ve played at a high level is much smaller than the timeframe where they’ve played poorly or mediocre.  Since the lower level of play has been what they’ve demonstrated on the more frequent basis this year, that has to be considered their normal playing level until such time as they increase their level of play to the point where that becomes the norm.

You can choose to believe this is a slump.  I hope that you are right.  However, until they show dramatic improvement and do it over the course of the season, this level of play is truly their norm because this is the level of play that they most frequently demonstrate.

During that 27-2 streak they were playing poorly for the last 8 games or so of it. They just won a ton of very tight games, lots of games similar to the Magic one. They just managed to pull it off tied with 2:00 minutes to go instead of failing to make the 4 key plays.

The difference between an 8 game sample size and a 20 game isn't all that big. They played extremely well just as long as they've slumped this season.

You can choose to believe that this entire basketball team lost "it" after last season. I don't think they have.

I'm not choosing to believe they've "lost it".  I don't believe that they've lost it at all in terms of overall ability. 

What's missing this year is the will to play up to a high level, to play at their best all the time, to play intelligently, to make an actual effort to play and win. 

I do believe this is a mind over matter thing for the most part but until I see them actually address it, they are a truly mediocre team because that's how they consistently play.