Is this team overrated?

[Roy H.]

The Celtics set a lofty standard early in the season, one they’ve struggled to maintain. Boston posted a 21-5 record to start the year and the team’s offense was on a historic pace.

Celtics Talk POSTGAME POD: Jayson Tatum ejected in all-around frustrating night for C's in loss to Knicks | Listen & Subscribe

Since then? Boston's offense ranks 16th in the NBA. So despite having the fourth-best winning percentage in the league since December 10 -- only the Nuggets, 76ers, and Bucks have been better -- there’s a general uneasiness as the team hasn’t been able to quite sustain its early-season swagger.

We can easily dismiss the New York stumble. The Celtics were playing without All-Star Jaylen Brown, got a rough shooting night from a frustrated Jayson Tatum (and just about everyone else), and lost to a team playing some of its most inspired ball of the year.

The bigger question is whether Boston’s somewhat uneven play over the past two-plus months is the result of typical midseason malaise and injury woes, or part of a more concerning trend.

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-enduring-midseason-malaise-something-180000859.html

Since the extremely hot start, we're 23-13.  That's still very good, a .639 winning percentage.  Over 82 games, that's a 52.4 win pace.  So, even when the offense is mediocre, and with some injuries to important players, we're playing pretty well.  And, we're very likely to end up as the #2 seed or better.

But, it's very hard not to compare this year's second half to last year's team.  We are definitely not playing as well, and that regular season momentum was presumably an important factor going into the playoffs.  Is there any way to get something like that going?  And if not, can we at least fix the offense?

[CelticsWhat35]

The Celtics set a lofty standard early in the season, one they’ve struggled to maintain. Boston posted a 21-5 record to start the year and the team’s offense was on a historic pace.

Celtics Talk POSTGAME POD: Jayson Tatum ejected in all-around frustrating night for C's in loss to Knicks | Listen & Subscribe

Since then? Boston's offense ranks 16th in the NBA. So despite having the fourth-best winning percentage in the league since December 10 -- only the Nuggets, 76ers, and Bucks have been better -- there’s a general uneasiness as the team hasn’t been able to quite sustain its early-season swagger.

We can easily dismiss the New York stumble. The Celtics were playing without All-Star Jaylen Brown, got a rough shooting night from a frustrated Jayson Tatum (and just about everyone else), and lost to a team playing some of its most inspired ball of the year.

The bigger question is whether Boston’s somewhat uneven play over the past two-plus months is the result of typical midseason malaise and injury woes, or part of a more concerning trend.

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-enduring-midseason-malaise-something-180000859.html

Since the extremely hot start, we're 23-13.  That's still very good, a .639 winning percentage.  Over 82 games, that's a 52.4 win pace.  So, even when the offense is mediocre, and with some injuries to important players, we're playing pretty well.  And, we're very likely to end up as the #2 seed or better.

But, it's very hard not to compare this year's second half to last year's team.  We are definitely not playing as well, and that regular season momentum was presumably an important factor going into the playoffs.  Is there any way to get something like that going?  And if not, can we at least fix the offense?

It’s not just this year’s team.  The Celtics in the playoffs last year didn’t play like the team from the 2nd half of the regular season.  A lot of it was due to a hobbled Rob Williams, but their overall play was lacking.  I think there’s a perception that since they made it to the Finals they played spectacular, but they were underperformed in every series.  Even the sweep against the Nets were three close games, and that team was a mess.

They’re still one of the top teams in the league.  Even when the ball is moving and the offense is clicking, there are going to be games when the shots aren’t falling.  The bigger issue is that they’re picking and choosing when to play defense

[Moranis]

Of course Boston wasn't the best offense of all time.  That was always an unsustainable level.  And adding a poor offensive player in Rob back into the fold was also going to lessen the offense.  But Boston has the 2nd best record in the sport and in the same general range as 1 and 3, which seems about right.  Boston is a top 3 team on the whole of the season.  Maybe the Suns are now in that class after adding Durant, so Boston is a top 4 team.  That seems right. 

[Goldstar88]

I think it’s also hard to find consistency when you have players constantly in and out of the lineup due to injuries, personal time, and rest management. That really wasn’t the case last season.

[timpiker]

I can understand the highs and lows during the season.  I saw it with Bird's teams.  This is a very special team and we just need to relax, sit back and enjoy. 

[jpotter33]

I think it’s also hard to find consistency when you have players constantly in and out of the lineup due to injuries, personal time, and rest management. That really wasn’t the case last season.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that, as well. Feels like we’ve had a lot more absences this year, particularly for personal reasons, which have absolutely impacted some losses (JB last game, Tatum in the Orlando B2B, etc.). Hopefully that trend slows down as we head into the playoffs.

[Phantom255x]

I don't think the team's overrated unless you bought into the "historic" feats (like when we had stretches where we were the best offense in history lol). But I mean, we can still beat a ton of teams and we're still pretty solidly a Top-2 or 3 team in the league (with the Bucks and Nuggets; maybe Suns but I'll wait to see how it looks with KD first before putting them there).

I do agree with the others though, whether it's injuries or personal reasons, we've had guys in and out of the lineup often and I think it's starting to affect us. I think Mazz and the team have an idea as to what their ideal lineups/rotations are but the problem is, they haven't really played with their "ideal Starting 5" for most of the season and even Monday, Jaylen was out so they couldn't.

They do need to build some of that chemistry and experience in the final 20 ish games. So there'll be some highs and lows. It just sucks though that MIL has won 15 straight lately...

[Who]

I can understand the highs and lows during the season.  I saw it with Bird's teams.  This is a very special team and we just need to relax, sit back and enjoy.

+1

[Moranis]

I don't think the team's overrated unless you bought into the "historic" feats (like when we had stretches where we were the best offense in history lol). But I mean, we can still beat a ton of teams and we're still pretty solidly a Top-2 or 3 team in the league (with the Bucks and Nuggets; maybe Suns but I'll wait to see how it looks with KD first before putting them there).

I do agree with the others though, whether it's injuries or personal reasons, we've had guys in and out of the lineup often and I think it's starting to affect us. I think Mazz and the team have an idea as to what their ideal lineups/rotations are but the problem is, they haven't really played with their "ideal Starting 5" for most of the season and even Monday, Jaylen was out so they couldn't.

They do need to build some of that chemistry and experience in the final 20 ish games. So there'll be some highs and lows. It just sucks though that MIL has won 15 straight lately...

This is where the lack of a bench has been a problem.  There really were 4 or 5 useless spots on the bench to start the year (Gallo, Jackson, Vonleh, Rob (during injury), and then you probably don't need both Kornet and Griffin), and that is just too many.  It forced the regulars to play more, which led in part to the great offense, but also wore them down and made the injuries come and come faster and last longer.  The C's needed more players on the bench that could play, which is why I keep harping on the missed opportunity of the big TPE or even not going after established vets on minimum deals.  Had the team even acquired someone like Duncan Robinson, who is vastly overpaid, he could have filled a role.  Sign Carmelo and Dwight or Whiteside, they can fill a role.  If the attitude on the vet minimum guys is a problem, you cut your losses and cut them, but the team needed guys that could give you 10 minutes and not kill you. 

Rob is back now.  We've added Muscala.  The depth is better now, but we are still feeling the effects of the wasted spots on the roster to start the year, and we still don't have Gallo, we still have an open roster spot, and we still don't need both Kornet and Griffin.  They need to fill the open spot with someone that can actually play.

[Kernewek]

I can understand the highs and lows during the season.  I saw it with Bird's teams.  This is a very special team and we just need to relax, sit back and enjoy.

I think so, too. We can enjoy the miracle run to end last season as often as we want - it's history and can be revisited at leisure - but I don't think we should cloud this season because of it.

[footey]

The Celtics set a lofty standard early in the season, one they’ve struggled to maintain. Boston posted a 21-5 record to start the year and the team’s offense was on a historic pace.

Celtics Talk POSTGAME POD: Jayson Tatum ejected in all-around frustrating night for C's in loss to Knicks | Listen & Subscribe

Since then? Boston's offense ranks 16th in the NBA. So despite having the fourth-best winning percentage in the league since December 10 -- only the Nuggets, 76ers, and Bucks have been better -- there’s a general uneasiness as the team hasn’t been able to quite sustain its early-season swagger.

We can easily dismiss the New York stumble. The Celtics were playing without All-Star Jaylen Brown, got a rough shooting night from a frustrated Jayson Tatum (and just about everyone else), and lost to a team playing some of its most inspired ball of the year.

The bigger question is whether Boston’s somewhat uneven play over the past two-plus months is the result of typical midseason malaise and injury woes, or part of a more concerning trend.

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-enduring-midseason-malaise-something-180000859.html

Since the extremely hot start, we're 23-13.  That's still very good, a .639 winning percentage.  Over 82 games, that's a 52.4 win pace.  So, even when the offense is mediocre, and with some injuries to important players, we're playing pretty well.  And, we're very likely to end up as the #2 seed or better.

But, it's very hard not to compare this year's second half to last year's team.  We are definitely not playing as well, and that regular season momentum was presumably an important factor going into the playoffs.  Is there any way to get something like that going?  And if not, can we at least fix the offense?

Hate to keep bringing this up (not really), but the major difference between how  this team played during its dominant streak last season and this was its suffocating, intimidating defense, and the ring leader of that defense was Rob Williams.  Once he got injured in the Minnesota game last season, our defensive domination was never the same level.  And it has yet to return to that level.

Ryan Bernardoni (@dangercart) tweeted about Rob's decline yesterday.  Rob now looks like a standard "athletic rolling big man" and not "oh my god what is this thing."

https://twitter.com/dangercart/status/1630596104524816386?s=20

[ozgod]

I had a look at their monthly spits last year vs this year from Basketball Reference and the delta between each stat (green means this year is higher, red means last year is higher). Both team and opponent data is included. I also added a net points differential column. You can see from that column that last year's team really started to pick up steam around February, they were 24-6 from Feb to the end of the season (34-12 from Jan to end of season and 19-8 from Jan-Feb). Our team this year has still done ok, they are 18-8 this year, but from Oct-Dec they were 26-10. We only lost 4 games the first 2 months.

So did our start create unrealistic expectations for our team? I'm sure it did. Our experience as fans this season is the team started off on fire, has tailed off and so to us looks like they're getting worse (strictly speaking they are, but it's all relative to what other teams are doing). While last season they started so bad that nobody  had any expectations and they pleasantly surprised us. But over the same period I think both versions are about the same in terms of performance.

(click to enlarge)


So to answer the question, I think they are a little bit overrated, because they were never going to be as good as they were at the start, they had historically good shooting metrics. But they're not as bad as some wrist slitters are making them out to be 

[ozgod]

Well they definitely look overrated after a loss 

[radiohead]

Overrated or not, I’m getting worried after hearing Joe say that he didn’t like it when the Nets were shooting more threes than us early in the game. I mean we were up big and yet Joe felt that we had too many lay ups and needed to shoot more threes? I really don’t know what to make of his statements.

https://youtu.be/43le7l1COYc

[scaryjerry]

Yes.

Last season they started slow and became a dominant team especially defensively towards the end of the season.

This season they had a very strong start offensively and have shown really no signs of becoming a defensive team and are trending in the wrong direction…theres absolutely no guarantee of even making the finals