we were 20-23 with a healthy KG, Pierce, Jeff Green, Rajon Rondo, Brandon Bass, Jared Sullinger, Avery Bradley, Jason Terry, Courtney Lee, etc...
Someone needs to posts the defensive stats with and without KG on the floor... it's absurd how much of an impact KG made.
If you watched the Celts this year the team's offense started out playing well but stalled for a while when some of the players were injured, but the defense at the beginning of the year was terrible, especially with KG on the bench. I think you posted some stats in Dec or so showing that our defense was 18 points worse when KG was on the bench. The 20-23 record was a product of that terrible defense and the swoon on offense, neither of which were permanent situations.
PP and Terry getting healthy and Green getting healthier (and less rusty from a year away from the game) should have led to a big improvement in our offense but that never happened because of Rondo getting injured. Our defense (consistency and, more importantly, not falling apart when KG was out) did improve significantly:
http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/56110/life-without-kg-a-defensive-travesty-for-the-celtics"But as John Schuhmann of NBA.com first noted on Twitter a few weeks back, Garnett’s life-or-death impact on Boston’s D mysteriously vanished upon the return of Avery Bradley. Since Bradley’s January 2 debut, Boston has been almost exactly as good defensively regardless of whether Garnett plays or sits, and they’ve been a bit better offensively, per NBA.com. That’s encouraging on the surface. So is the fact that Boston has functioned better this season when Green slides from small forward to power forward."
Again, if you watched the team, the turnaround for the defense probably started in mid December, and the difference wasn't Bradley so much as it was all of the new players figuring out how to play together (fewer missed rotations) plus any tweeks Doc made to the defense.
But in any case, the 20-23 start to the season was mainly due to our poor (but steadily improving) defense to start the season and a temporary swoon in our offensive production (mainly due to injuries). It wasn't indicative of the level of play the team was capable of and wasn't going to continue throughout the season. If not for Rondo (and possibly Sully) getting injured our season would have probably looked quite a bit like last year's team: 15-17 start, 24-10 after that and a deep playoff run.
Pierce has been the go-to guy in our offense for years. Even with Rondo on the floor, the offensive threat of Paul Pierce overshadows anything else happening. In the rare games Pierce misses, this team is dreadful. 0-3 this year without PIerce... including a 100-74 beating by the Charlotte Bobcats of all teams.
Anyone remember us starting last season 0-3 without Pierce? That 3rd game we lost 97-78 to the eventual 21 win New Orleans Hornets.
You eliminate KG and Pierce, I strongly believe this team is a lotto squad. You eliminate KG and Pierce and through some miracle land Josh Smith, I still say this is a lotto team. 25-38 wins.
A lot of people disagree with me, but I really believe it... Rajon Rondo (when healthy) is the 3rd most important player on this team. This team is all about the talents of KG and Pierce. KG with his dominant defense and Pierce with his all-around game. Pierce post all-star 32 minutes, 19 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists 49%/43%/78%.
You spent much of the spring posting about how the team would do just fine without Rondo in the playoffs because he's so much less important to the team than KG and PP. You then proceeded to watch the Celts struggle valiantly to avoid getting swept in the first round by a fairly pedestrian team. You still don't see what went wrong.
The Knicks were a below average defensive team this year yet our inability to score against them reached historic levels at times. The team had a much harder time scoring in the 2013 playoffs than the 2012 playoffs despite adding a player who averaged 20 a game in the playoffs and facing a much worse defensive team.
What was the reason? I'd say the obvious starting point would be the fact that they were missing the player who scored or assisted over half of their baskets in the 2012 playoffs, including about *63%* of the baskets made when he was on the floor. For comparison, LeBron scored or assisted about 52% of his team's baskets when he was on the floor and he might be 2nd on the list. That's not to say that Rondo's a better or more important offensive player than LeBron, just pointing out how terrifically obvious it should be that Rondo's play is very important to our offense, especially in the playoffs.
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Topic: Do you guys really think we can win 40+ with kg and pierce gone? (Read 5312 times)