Culture of Team Needs to Change

[manl_lui]

To me the culture of the team is perfect. Established veterans mentor the younger players, stressing defense first and then scoring. It is this exact style of culture that has helped the spurs to continually be good for such a long stretch of time.

I don't see news reports of arguments often, either. They probably hang out after games, and joke around (so I would think)

I agree, nothing is wrong with the culture. KG is a good mentor for young players coming in and hope he can continue to do so for the Celtics when he retire.

[BballTim]

It's just age.  KG and Pierce can't physically play at the level or amount of minutes every night that they used to.

If KG and Pierce could play 36 MPG with occasionally 40+ minute outbursts with no side effects we would be seeing that and we would be winning a lot more games.  They just can't physically do it anymore.  It's not like two HOF competitors suddenly lost the desire to win.

However I will say I think there is a big issue with Rondo's mindset.  Having an obvious "playoff Rondo vs regular season Rondo" is a BIG issue for a team pinning their hopes on him being their best player.  Rondo needs to play better on a consistent basis.  Not more minutes, but better and become a reliable weapon as a spot up shooter so other guys can handle the ball.

  Rondo showed some good improvement in his jumper this year. If you look at his play in 11-12 (since he didn't finish this year) he was an all-star, led the league in assists, led all pgs in rebs/game, was 2nd team all-defense and 3rd team all-nba. It's not like he stunk up the joint. And it's true that he plays better in the playoffs (not really a bad thing IMO) but remember he learned what he knows about pacing himself during the season to get ready for the playoffs from the big three.

[Celtics4ever]

I think the culture of the team is fine.   What we lack is youth, size, scoring, and reboundsbut the effort is there on the court.  The injury bug really got us this year.  Danny tends to get guys who can play rather than fill classical basketball positions.  As a result, we are small and lack rebounders and aside from Green and KG we have few who can protect the rim.