1. Coaching-The players seemed to tune Brad out and apparently they needed a new voice. Stevens is a smart guy, but he’s sort of a nerd and I think the players respect Ime a lot more since he’s played in the league and is willing to call players out.

2. personnel: There was no way to have an elite defense when one of your starters in Kemba needed help all the time. It was painful watching Spolestra capitalize on that, having his players attack Walker on every possession, which resulted in a basket or someone having to come over to help and then the Heat would get a wide open 3…Adding Horford while cutting bait with Kemba made a huge difference.

3. Effort and Chemistry seemed to come with the coaching change.

4. I think if everyone was healthy last year, that team still wasn’t going anywhere.

Roster construction and talent was by far the greatest factor.  The team not only has more talent this year, but the roster is set up a lot better. 

What went right?

Covid killed our rotations, we didn't play any defense all year, Kemba missed a lot of games and wasn't terribly effective when he did play, IMHO the Jays hadn't yet figured out the difference between putting up stats and winning games, and Stevens either burned out or lost the team - not sure which.  Thompson sucked, playing Theis next to him didn't really work, and second-year Grant was WAY worse than third-year Grant has been... our only good big was Rob, who couldn't stay on the court. 

Not much to look back fondly on, to be honest.  Tatum's scoring outbursts toward the end of the season were fun, I suppose.  That's pretty much it. 

Biggest difference between last year and this one is DEFENSE and BALL MOVEMENT.  The Al for Kemba trade is symbolic of the difference between the two teams.  Al is a GREAT defender who moves the ball. 

Quote from: Moranis on April 27, 2022, 11:11:23 AM

Roster construction and talent was by far the greatest factor.  The team not only has more talent this year, but the roster is set up a lot better.

Having Horford is a big addition, but I think more could have been done with our roster last year.

Why didn't Brad use Timelord / Theis together, or go with another two-big lineup?  Why wasn't Kemba brought off the bench?

Our best lineup might have been:  Smart - Brown - Tatum - Theis - Timelord

We saw that starting lineup exactly zero times during the season.  In fact, I'm not sure if Brad tried that lineup at all; if he did, it was for fewer than 17 minutes throughout the entire season.  And, it's not like it would have been obviously ineffective:  in Timelord's starts we went 10-3.

I think that Ime saw something that a burnt out Brad Stevens just didn't.

Williams is better this year and Theis isn't good enough to play PF.  Those 2 also don't work nearly as well as RW and AH do?

Walker and Fournier weren't a good fit either.  They weren't the right type of players to have around Tatum and Brown.

Ainge never could figure out how to build the right type of roster around the 2 young guys.  Stevens almost immediately fixed those problems.  He brought in AH to play with RW.  He moved Smart to PG to get him on the floor more with the duo.  He made sure Tatum could play at his best position i.e. SF.  Stevens brought in veterans and stopped having so many young guys just taking up spots on the bench that had to play because the depth wasn't there (Richardson, Schroder, Freedom, Parker, and even Hernangomez).  Not all those veterans were good, but they also weren't bad young guys that had no business being on the team.  At the trade deadline, Stevens further consolidated the roster.   

9 guys played in the 1st round series.  Those 9 guys are significantly better and more cohesive as a unit than the team last year.  They play with an identity.  They fit well and compliment each other.  Ainge stopped building an actual team almost immediately after he traded for Garnett.  He went into this asset collection mode, and didn't really think about how the team would fit or play together (I mean just look at all the major moves he made from that point on).  He became much more about winning trades, than putting a winning roster together.  And the last 2+ years, Ainge did almost nothing good when it came to actual team building.  I mean he went 2 off-seasons and 2 trade deadlines without making a single real move (aside from drafting rookies and re-signing guys) before he finally acquired Fournier, who was just a terrible fit on the roster.  He just didn't think about the consequences of the moves he was making and was just so focused on value, the team was left with dribble.  This past year is the 1st time since the summer of Tatum/Irving i.e. 2017 that Boston has a team with more talent on the floor than the prior season.  that is 5 years of talent depreciation. 

How did a team that made the ECF Finals in 2020, and which is a co-favorite for the title this year, flounder so much last season?  We started 8-3, and then concluded the season on a 28-33 run, including 4-9 in our last 13.

Almost all poor seasons can be attributed to one or more of the following:

Personnel
Coaching
Health
Effort
Chemistry

I don't have a good sense on where I'd attribute the most fault. 

Certainly, our roster is better this year.  The upgrade from Tristan Thompson to Al Horford is huge, and Pritchard has been able to replace a lot of what Kemba gave us in terms of outside shooting combined with better defense.  Still, the personnel wasn't terrible last year.  We still had JB, JT, Smart, Timelord, Grant, Pritchard.  We started the year with Theis, Teague and Javonte Greene.  On paper, our team was certainly better than a .500 squad.

Health is seemingly a big one.  We missed more Covid games than any other team, and we know that both Tatum and Fournier were physically affected by lingering symptoms.  We used 37 different starting lineups, in 72 total games.  The Jays only started together something like 51 times, meaning there were 21 times when one or both were out.  But, even with Tatum and Brown, we struggled to reach much above .500.

Coaching, chemistry and effort all seem tied together to some degree.  Brad admitted that he was feeling burnout.  How much did that impact the team?  There were reports of locker room discord, particularly centered around Tristan Thompson.  Players weren't playing as hard as we've seen this year, particularly Marcus Smart; even his defense was often mediocre.

So, how do we allocate the "pie chart of blame"?  Very roughly, I'd estimate:

Personnel - 15%
Coaching - 25%
Health - 35%
Effort -15%
Chemistry - 10%

The one thing I think you're missing is bubble burnout.  That's partly in health (less time for bodies to recuperate) but I think it deserves its own category as well.  You could ask similar questions of Miami -- went to the finals in 2020, last year finished 36-36 and was swept in round 1, and this year earned the number 1 seed in the East, and advanced pretty easily through the first round.  It was taxing for everyone, mentally, physically, and interpersonally.  Certainly it was a major contributor to Stevens' burnout, but I think it also was problematic for the players.

Quote from: Roy H. on April 27, 2022, 11:48:30 AM

Quote from: Moranis on April 27, 2022, 11:11:23 AM

Roster construction and talent was by far the greatest factor.  The team not only has more talent this year, but the roster is set up a lot better.

Having Horford is a big addition, but I think more could have been done with our roster last year.

Why didn't Brad use Timelord / Theis together, or go with another two-big lineup?  Why wasn't Kemba brought off the bench?

Our best lineup might have been:  Smart - Brown - Tatum - Theis - Timelord

We saw that starting lineup exactly zero times during the season.  In fact, I'm not sure if Brad tried that lineup at all; if he did, it was for fewer than 17 minutes throughout the entire season.  And, it's not like it would have been obviously ineffective:  in Timelord's starts we went 10-3.

I think that Ime saw something that a burnt out Brad Stevens just didn't.

I think heath was #1 and the players tuning out Brad was #2.

Its not like Brad didn't preach defense and ball movement. We had some pretty good defenses under his tenure.
The difference was the roster. Under Brad we had to continually hide a shoot first PG. Under the PBS/Ime regime it was defense and ball movement or else. The whole roster was constructed defense first. If you don't play defense we loose. After that was made clear with no IT/Kyrie/Kemba bailouts the offense needs to play together to contend.

I think, as painful as it was, last year was good for the J's. They could go off and score as much as they wanted and loose.
Previously they had played well when the "stars" we're out. I think they learned what being a star and winning really means.

Or I could just be giddy after a BKN sweep.

It's impossible to know for sure, but I think that if Ime had last year's roster, we would have seen some differences.  Perhaps not enough to make us into a contender, but I do think he would have coached the team like he has this year's version.  I think we would have seen Kemba off the bench, I think we would have gone to a Theis / Timelord lineup.  I'm not quite sure how he would have handled Tristan Thompson, but I can't imagine he would have played a ton without an attitude adjustment.

I also think Ime might have been more critical of the Fournier trade.  Brad wanted shooters; it was a constant refrain.  Danny wanted shooters, as well.  Ime?  He doesn't really care all that much.  I think he would have told Danny not to bother bringing in Fournier, because he wouldn't see time.  At the same time, I can see him being a lot more "all-in" on Aaron Gordon.