The Cs are no longer a good defensive team. They have no identity.
Yep. Honestly, it's like our identity is to just mimic the opponent and the overall flow of the game. Atlanta came out with a fast, uptempo, high-octane offensive first, and we copied.
But, yeah, our defensive rotations are just non-existent. Some of this is the absence of Timelord and new rotations by Joe, but we're definitely not a consistently goo defensive team.
Chris Gasper said this on radio yesterday and I found it interesting.
The C's have the best defensive rating of all teams when they lose, BUT their have the worst offensive rating of all teams when they lose. So basically, that means even when they play awesome defense, they aren't guaranteed to win games, whereas if the offense stutters, the entire team stutters and lose
(because, surprise surprise, "live by the 3, or die by it")
It made sense to me. Last year's team was defensive-minded and they could win that way if needed. This year's team HAS to make 3s or simply make a lot of their shots, or they are doomed. It's like they try to replicate Golden State with outscoring opponents or winning a high-scoring affair, but while the C's do have shooters they don't have the historic talent like GSW does.
Mazzula himself has literally said he hopes the team takes more 3s. Hell, after the C's blew their 28-point lead against BKN recently, Mazz straight up said he was concerned that we were taking too many easy layups instead of 3s and it might cost us. It did, but that logic did seem odd to me. But that's also analytics nowadays in the NBA. Love the 3s.
Topic: Celtics (46-21) at Hawks (34-33) Game #68 3/11/23 (Read 23717 times)