Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching

[Neurotic Guy]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

[ozgod]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

Mike Felger and Michael Holley made that point on Boston Sports Tonight tonight...that the Cs don't need KP and this game proves it. It's an interesting take for sure, albeit only one data point 

[Moranis]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

It has been happening for years. That is the point.

[Kernewek]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

It has been happening for years. That is the point.

But does this correlate with better decision-making at the end of close, contested games?

[Neurotic Guy]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

It has been happening for years. That is the point.

I know you’re firmly on that horse. JB has been a key factor in at least half of the games he’s played this year.  And I think he’s trending toward finding his role. JB and Al are the only Celtics on this team needing to change or reduce their role on this year’s team. And for Al, when he’s on the court, the role isn’t reduced. KP, DW, and Jrue all impact JBs touches and shift his role significantly.  JTs obvious improvement also impacts JB. He does need to figure this out - but it’s important to note that he just doesn’t have the versatility that Derrick or Jrue have - so it’s harder for him to play a supportive role in the offense.  I think he’s adjusting (3 solid games in a row) and we’ll see how it plays out.

[SHAQATTACK]

Joe is making passing grades so far .  Playoff are the final exams…..can he run the team under pressure…..think fast …make the adjustments .   

[Moranis]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

It has been happening for years. That is the point.

I know you’re firmly on that horse. JB has been a key factor in at least half of the games he’s played this year.  And I think he’s trending toward finding his role. JB and Al are the only Celtics on this team needing to change or reduce their role on this year’s team. And for Al, when he’s on the court, the role isn’t reduced. KP, DW, and Jrue all impact JBs touches and shift his role significantly.  JTs obvious improvement also impacts JB. He does need to figure this out - but it’s important to note that he just doesn’t have the versatility that Derrick or Jrue have]- so it’s harder for him to play a supportive role in the offense.  I think he’s adjusting (3 solid games in a row) and we’ll see how it plays out.

that is exactly the point I've been making for years. Brown is not a good secondary piece to Tatum because of their respective skill sets.  Per 100 possessions, Brown is once again negative at -3.2 and the team is 1-0 without him (last year they were 11-4 without him and he was -3.9).  There is literally seasons of evidence of this.  It isn't going to change.  And the discrepancy was worse in the playoffs.

Brown is a very good player, but he isn't the right player next to Tatum. His skill set just doesn't compliment Tatum, which is why there isn't much drop off when Brown doesnt play at all.

[Vermont Green]

If you look at the +/- numbers, Tatum is better with Brown this season than without.

+/- numbers can be weird.  White always has had great +/- numbers his whole time on the Celtics.  But I don't see White as a better player than Brown.

The thing with Brown is that he gives us a great option when Tatum is out or just not having a great game.  Now that we have added Porzingis, I think that is going to allow Tatum and Brown to be more complementary.  I don't see that the problem was ever with Brown and Tatum, the problem was we didn't have that skilled big to take the pressure off either of them.

I can see that in the ideal world, the team you would build around Tatum would be #1, a skilled big (we have that now).  #2, a skilled ball handler or floor general type (not necessarily a traditional PG).  That would be Holiday as an upgrade over Smart.  #3, you would want a secondary high end scorer/wing, that is Brown's role.  He can score and defend multiple positions.

Once Holiday and Porzingis settle into their roles, I think you are to see Brown and Tatum work just fine together.  If you were to trade Brown, what alternate need would you address?  Would the team be better with another all star level big, more of a defensive blue collar type (Gobert)?  Another all star level PG/ballhandler?  I think the secondary all star level scorer/wing is more valuable than any other option.

[footey]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

Mike Felger and Michael Holley made that point on Boston Sports Tonight tonight...that the Cs don't need KP and this game proves it. It's an interesting take for sure, albeit only one data point 

Clowns

[Redz]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

Mike Felger and Michael Holley made that point on Boston Sports Tonight tonight...that the Cs don't need KP and this game proves it. It's an interesting take for sure, albeit only one data point 

Clowns

Because we can rely on Big Al going off on a nightly basis lol

[Vermont Green]

Brown with a solid game his last game, but doesn't play tonight and the Celtics beat the Sixers.  Once again the team keeps right on winning when Brown doesn't play at all.

Good game to ‘prove’ your point though I wonder if it also proves they don’t need KP.  Cs are 8-2 with JB.  What I liked tonight though was good ball movement and lots of good looks.  If that happens every time JB is out and not when he’s in, it confirms your take.

Mike Felger and Michael Holley made that point on Boston Sports Tonight tonight...that the Cs don't need KP and this game proves it. It's an interesting take for sure, albeit only one data point 

Clowns

Because we can rely on Big Al going off on a nightly basis lol

I think that is a key point.  Brown gets replaced by Hauser.  Porzingis by Horford.  Much more of a drop off Brown to Hauser than Porzingis to Horford.  Of course what Porzigis being out really means is that Kornet gets more minutes, not Horford; Horford just gets his minutes in a different rotation of players.

[Moranis]

If you look at the +/- numbers, Tatum is better with Brown this season than without.

+/- numbers can be weird.  White always has had great +/- numbers his whole time on the Celtics.  But I don't see White as a better player than Brown.

The thing with Brown is that he gives us a great option when Tatum is out or just not having a great game.  Now that we have added Porzingis, I think that is going to allow Tatum and Brown to be more complementary.  I don't see that the problem was ever with Brown and Tatum, the problem was we didn't have that skilled big to take the pressure off either of them.

I can see that in the ideal world, the team you would build around Tatum would be #1, a skilled big (we have that now).  #2, a skilled ball handler or floor general type (not necessarily a traditional PG).  That would be Holiday as an upgrade over Smart.  #3, you would want a secondary high end scorer/wing, that is Brown's role.  He can score and defend multiple positions.

Once Holiday and Porzingis settle into their roles, I think you are to see Brown and Tatum work just fine together.  If you were to trade Brown, what alternate need would you address?  Would the team be better with another all star level big, more of a defensive blue collar type (Gobert)?  Another all star level PG/ballhandler?  I think the secondary all star level scorer/wing is more valuable than any other option.

over the last 6 years we've had all of those things to varying degrees and outside of a few unique time periods (the big one being the last few months of udoka's season), it just hasn't mattered. Brown has basically had a negative on/off differential and the Celtics win at generally the same rate when he doesn't play.  Those are simply facts. And given just how many seasons that has happened it can't just continually be written off as nothing.  Tatum plays better when Brown doesnt play and the team does just fine. The inverse (with a much smaller sample size) is also not true i.e. when Brown plays and Tatum doesn't the team play and w/l record drops off a lot.  Tatum is what makes the team go and Brown's non-elite skill set just doesn't compliment him.

As for a trade, I think there are several fairly realistic trades that may make sense this summer.  Davis for Brown being the most obvious, but there are others. 

[Vermont Green]

As for a trade, I think there are several fairly realistic trades that may make sense this summer.  Davis for Brown being the most obvious, but there are others.

I think this is the main point.  Everyone agrees that Tatum is better than Brown.  The question is what player or type of player would be more complementary alongside of Tatum, to allow Tatum and the team to be better.  And my point from earlier is that the equation for what the best complementary player would be has changed.  Last season I would have been OK with trading Brown for say Towns, to add a skilled big to the mix.  Now we have a skilled big.  Last season, you could have argued that more of a ballhandler would have been a better fit next to Tatum, but now we have Holiday in that role.

So you are suggesting Anthony Davis, a scoring but still strong defensive and rebounding big, albeit with durability issues.  I don't think that makes us better or complements Tatum better.  If that trade went down, all you would hear is "we need more wing scoring".  I could see possibly someone like Siakam, more of a hybrid big/wing.  Maybe someone like Jaren Jackson.  But I don't think either of them have more talent than Brown or would complement the team any more than Brown.  I would be happy to add a starting level big to the rotation, but not at the expense of Brown.

To me, the ideal team would be:

Holiday
Brown
Tatum
Defensive/Rebounding PF
Porzingis

with White and Horford off the bench.  I would even be happy with White in the "first" unit and Brown coming off the bench.  But at this point, I see it as hard to trade Brown and end up with a better, more complementary team.

[Moranis]

Most of the recent champions have 1 wing scorer, not 2.  Heck Denver didn't even have a wing scorer.  You absolutely do not need 2 wing scorers.  You need 1 elite and at least 1 very good scorer, but you are better off without the duplication of position and role because you often end up how the Celtics do i.e. not great compliments to each other. 

[tazzmaniac]

Most of the recent champions have 1 wing scorer, not 2.  Heck Denver didn't even have a wing scorer.  You absolutely do not need 2 wing scorers.  You need 1 elite and at least 1 very good scorer, but you are better off without the duplication of position and role because you often end up how the Celtics do i.e. not great compliments to each other.

You're obviously better off with better fit.  However Lebron and Wade won championships together and Wade was a Lebron mini-me.  Tatum/Brown may not be a great fit together but for this Celts team KP, Holiday and White provide the necessary versatility.