The all purpose/ panic stations/hell in a hand basket thread

[Who]

I am concerned about

(1) Not enough minutes to go around for Isaiah, Avery, Smart and Rozier. Trying to put all 4 into the rotation makes Boston very small on the perimeter. In small doses, this is fine but I am worried there will be too much of this.

(2) James Young and Gerald Green. I was hoping at least one of them if not both would be able to step up and give the team a reliable 15-20mpg while Jae Crowder is out injured. That hasn't happened and that has really hurt our wing depth.

(3) Amir Johnson has not looked good. He looks old out there. I'd love to see him move to the bench.

(4) With Horford and Olynyk out, the team has had no big man passing. This has left the offense too predictable and overly reliant on dribble penetration from 25 feet out which has made the team easy to defend. Isaiah has suffered the most in this period without Horford/Olynyk around to help him run the offense. Thank goodness Olynyk is back. Olynyk should start until Horford returns. The team needs his passing to setup it's offense and to stop these terrible first quarters.

.... other things

(a) Smart looks heavy and isn't moving as well defensively as he has the past two seasons. He is playing like an old Ron Artest (Rockets, Lakers days) rather than the young Ron Artest (Indy days) he was on defense the last two seasons. That said, Smart is currently the team's best SF with Jae Crowder out and Smart needs to start in his stead until Crowder returns. Rozier can handle more responsibility as lead backup guard.

(b) Jaylen Brown is struggling. I was surprised he was playing as well as he did in preseason and early in the regular season. I expected him to be a bad defender as a rookie (as 80-90% of rookies are) and inefficient offensively (given his troubles in this regard in college). Unfortunately, this gives us 3 backup wing players who are all playing bad basketball. Who are hurting the team and making it worse instead of helping it.

(c) Tyler Zeller is in a bad patch. We need to tighten up the defense and stop leaving him so exposed down low. Not a player you can ask to step up and fix a defense.

(d) Jerebko struggling for confidence. Mickey still figuring out how to play proper defense. I'd still like to see Jerebko get some big minutes and see if he can get himself into a better rhythm out there. Mickey is more of a long term thing. His poor positioning off the ball on defense needs work.

(e) I'd like to see Rozier on the ball defensively more often rather than off the ball. He has been getting lost too often off the ball. I think he could fair better on defense if he was more engaged with the ball. On offense, I think the 3 guard backcourts have made things tricky for Rozier at times. He needs more time on the ball. I'd like to see Rozier get more minutes away from those 3 guard lineups and especially from Isaiah. I don't like Isaiah and Rozier on the floor together on either end of the court.

(f) I'd like to see a bit more of James Young until Crowder returns. I think we know what we have in Gerald Green but J.Young has improved quite a bit since last year and I'd like to see him get some steady minutes now to see whether he can now be relied upon or not.


For the next few games, I'd like to see:

PG: Isaiah, Rozier
SG: Bradley, J.Young
SF: Smart, J.Brown
PF: Amir, Jerebko
 C: Olynyk, Mickey or Zeller