Small Ball

[GreenRunsDeep33]

I'm trying to understand how the Celtics got beat at their own game last night. How does Stevens NOT tell the team to pound the ball inside or take the ball to the paint with no rim protection from the Rockets. It perplexes me by some of Stevens coaching moves at times. How does Kanter not score one bucket? We just kept jacking 3 and 3 after 3.

I thought Stevens was the king of small ball! Yes, the officiating was ridiculous but this was the perfect game to use Theis, GWill and Kanter in mismatches all over the court.

[Who]

(1) They got guys who are better at attacking the rim than we do.

(2) Like you said, Boston is a small ball team itself. It evades the paint, plays on the perimeter and tries to attack from there. Some of the team's players have post games. Many do not (like Theis). Those who can post -- mostly Smart or one of the SFs -- Houston had guys who can matchup reasonably well against in the post.

At that point, is the post up option a better option than Boston's regular offense? I don't think so. Maybe the odd one here or there but not good enough to abandon the regular offense in favour of post ups. The regular offense was still Boston's most efficient option.

In summary, Boston (like many other teams) lack the personnel to truly exploit Houston's small ball lineups.

Everyone has been so focused on playing the perimeter game and so few players have truly developed their post games that very few teams out there are good enough at posting up to take advantage of Houston inside.

Boston had a better shot at beating them to rebounds than they did attacking them in post ups. Unfortunately, rebounding isn't well taught nowadays either.

[Fafnir]

As much as anything the C's got frustrated and rattled and made silly mistakes in fouling the rockets or wasting offensive possessions. Uncomfortable going against the full time small-ball combined with Jerry Sloan tactics when it comes to shoving and fouling every play.

[otherdave]

Too much Tatum and Walker iso hero dribbling for entire possessions.  If these two pass the ball at the beginning of the possession in half court they will quite often get the ball back later in same the possession.  Keep the freaking ball moving - open man takes the shot.

I get why they sometimes slip into hero ball (especially when they see Harden & Westbrook do it all night), I don't get why Brad doesn't take them out of the game for a little bit right after an egregious transgression happens.

[fairweatherfan]

We tried pounding it into Kanter a couple of times and it was a disaster, the shots didn't go and it threw off our rhythm.

We needed to focus on exploiting the boards, especially offensive boards with Kanter, rather than low-efficiency offense disrupting post banging.

[ozgod]

I'm trying to understand how the Celtics got beat at their own game last night. How does Stevens NOT tell the team to pound the ball inside or take the ball to the paint with no rim protection from the Rockets. It perplexes me by some of Stevens coaching moves at times. How does Kanter not score one bucket? We just kept jacking 3 and 3 after 3.

I thought Stevens was the king of small ball! Yes, the officiating was ridiculous but this was the perfect game to use Theis, GWill and Kanter in mismatches all over the court.

Here's your 2nd TP, welcome to the forum. Adam Himmelsbach from the Boston Globe had some thoughts about this in his report of the game.

When discussing Houston’s small-ball approach in recent days, Celtics coach Brad Stevens frequently pushed back, pointing out that Houston’s frontcourt players are strong and built like linebackers, and it can be dangerous to believe you can just post them up because they’re not as tall. Enes Kanter, who has had success overpowering opposing big men, found this out the hard way in the first quarter, when he was simply unable to move P.J. Tucker before throwing up an 8-footer that missed. Kanter figured to be a defensive liability in this game due to the personnel differences, and he played just eight minutes and had 3 rebounds and no points.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/celtics/2020/02/12/celtics-seven-game-winning-streak-snapped-rockets/YENDTwbAUNJpgvP4qFKTMJ/story.html

[vjcsmoke]

The Celtics should have run more offensive sets isolating Harden once he got that 5th foul.  You just knew that he couldn't afford to contest anything.  Tatum was getting fouls on Harden.  Not sure why they went away from this.

Rockets had no real "center".  Theis played poorly down the stretch.  He fumbled a lot of passes that could have led to easy layups and dunks.

Celtics survived Harden's 'hot outburst' in the 3rd and came back to tie the game but then did themselves in down the stretch in the 4th with a lot of turnovers and bad fouls.  I mean the amount of times they gave the Rockets 3x free throws was really bad.

The game was winnable, but the last 5 minutes of the game were just poorly played by the Celtics.  Back to the drawing board.  I just hope that Jaylen's injury was not serious.  We need to hold him out longer to heal before allowing him try to come back.

[Fafnir]

Jaylen is probable for tomorrow, so it seems minor. Though I'm sure he'll enjoy some beach time off the court.

[Who]

Rockets had no real "center".  Theis played poorly down the stretch.  He fumbled a lot of passes that could have led to easy layups and dunks.

Theis is a liability against that type of lineup. He had no business being on the court. No idea why Stevens kept him in there so long.

Theis isn't skilled enough offensively to be useful against those smaller Rockets defender. He isn't as good defensively on the perimeter as a smaller true perimeter defender. And he is too far away from the basket covering Houston's shooters to be useful as a shot-blocker. He was a liability on offense and a non-contributor on defense.

No idea why Grant Williams didn't get more time. At least he has some skills on offense.

[Monkhouse]

This level of play from the Rockets probably won't be as sustainable, plus I suspect some of the Rockets players will end up being too sore or injured before playoffs start.

[GreenRunsDeep33]

I'm trying to understand how the Celtics got beat at their own game last night. How does Stevens NOT tell the team to pound the ball inside or take the ball to the paint with no rim protection from the Rockets. It perplexes me by some of Stevens coaching moves at times. How does Kanter not score one bucket? We just kept jacking 3 and 3 after 3.

I thought Stevens was the king of small ball! Yes, the officiating was ridiculous but this was the perfect game to use Theis, GWill and Kanter in mismatches all over the court.

Here's your 2nd TP, welcome to the forum. Adam Himmelsbach from the Boston Globe had some thoughts about this in his report of the game.

When discussing Houston’s small-ball approach in recent days, Celtics coach Brad Stevens frequently pushed back, pointing out that Houston’s frontcourt players are strong and built like linebackers, and it can be dangerous to believe you can just post them up because they’re not as tall. Enes Kanter, who has had success overpowering opposing big men, found this out the hard way in the first quarter, when he was simply unable to move P.J. Tucker before throwing up an 8-footer that missed. Kanter figured to be a defensive liability in this game due to the personnel differences, and he played just eight minutes and had 3 rebounds and no points.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/celtics/2020/02/12/celtics-seven-game-winning-streak-snapped-rockets/YENDTwbAUNJpgvP4qFKTMJ/story.html

Well these are good points but it doesn't excuse the inability to adjust and this is what frustrates me with Stevens...his inability to adjust on the fly.

He can't have it both ways. Claim the team was too big and get pounded on the boards or get beat at your own small ball game. Where was Tacko? Tacko would've flipped the advantage back to the Celtics and would've created fouls. So what if Tucker takes him outside and shoots a few 3s. Is Tucker really going to go off for 10 3s? No.

Sometimes it feels like the coaching is too cautious and it's not to win the game but to be competitive.

Why not get a technical when you see the officiating calling so many fouls that Harden and Westbrook went to the FT more than the entire Celtics team...that's worthy of a techical.

[td450]

I'm trying to understand how the Celtics got beat at their own game last night. How does Stevens NOT tell the team to pound the ball inside or take the ball to the paint with no rim protection from the Rockets. It perplexes me by some of Stevens coaching moves at times. How does Kanter not score one bucket? We just kept jacking 3 and 3 after 3.

I thought Stevens was the king of small ball! Yes, the officiating was ridiculous but this was the perfect game to use Theis, GWill and Kanter in mismatches all over the court.

Here's your 2nd TP, welcome to the forum. Adam Himmelsbach from the Boston Globe had some thoughts about this in his report of the game.

When discussing Houston’s small-ball approach in recent days, Celtics coach Brad Stevens frequently pushed back, pointing out that Houston’s frontcourt players are strong and built like linebackers, and it can be dangerous to believe you can just post them up because they’re not as tall. Enes Kanter, who has had success overpowering opposing big men, found this out the hard way in the first quarter, when he was simply unable to move P.J. Tucker before throwing up an 8-footer that missed. Kanter figured to be a defensive liability in this game due to the personnel differences, and he played just eight minutes and had 3 rebounds and no points.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/celtics/2020/02/12/celtics-seven-game-winning-streak-snapped-rockets/YENDTwbAUNJpgvP4qFKTMJ/story.html

Well these are good points but it doesn't excuse the inability to adjust and this is what frustrates me with Stevens...his inability to adjust on the fly.

He can't have it both ways. Claim the team was too big and get pounded on the boards or get beat at your own small ball game. Where was Tacko? Tacko would've flipped the advantage back to the Celtics and would've created fouls. So what if Tucker takes him outside and shoots a few 3s. Is Tucker really going to go off for 10 3s? No.

Sometimes it feels like the coaching is too cautious and it's not to win the game but to be competitive.

Why not get a technical when you see the officiating calling so many fouls that Harden and Westbrook went to the FT more than the entire Celtics team...that's worthy of a techical.

Posting up bigs is one thing. Driving to the rim is something else. We lost because they bulldozed to the rim more than us.

To be fair, it was obvious that Jaylen was having trouble making his normal aggressive moves to the hoop because he's playing hurt. But Tatum, Walker and Smart all failed to play with force, while Harden and Westbrook did.

[Who]

I wonder what role (if any) the decline in midrange shooting has on team's ability to exploit these undersized lineups.

Guys used to be able to get high percentage 10-15 feet jumpers over smaller defenders but so few players take those shots nowadays that they do not even look to take them against smaller defenders like the Rockets play with.

Everyone wants to get to the rim or shoot a 3.

[#1P4P]

Aside from the subpar officiating last night, the Rockets did an excellent job at deterring drives with their team defense. They shaded toward the paint, cutting off driving lanes without straying too far away from their assignment. They were excellent at collapsing into the paint when someone was able to penetrate and still close on their assignment if the pass was made.

Stevens’ gets a little too stagnant after the initial moves with the guys in the corner. The C’s need more off ball action with Jaylen cutting to the basket for ally oops or to the free throw line for a stop and pop. When shots aren’t falling, this five out system has to be more than pick and pops and dribble drives from the top of the key with guys stuck in the corners.

[Birdman]

Larry Bird would average a tripe double if he was playing in today NBA..