Three games in: is this roster fixable?

[Roy H.]

We're seemingly getting killed on the offensive boards, our interior defense doesn't slow teams down. and our PG defense is suspect.

Barring a major trade or the return of Tatum, is there anything that can be done to be more competitive this season?

[Celtics2021]

The PG defense has not been great, but I would argue that Maxey, Brunson, and Cunningham is a tough first three PGs to start a season with.  I do not think we can fix rebounding that much.  Pritchard was our leading rebounder yesterday.  More Hugo will help a little too, because he is really good at stopping the penetration that helps lead to offensive rebounds.

All that said, if Derrick White were simply to have equaled his career-worst shooting percentages prior to this year (2017-2018 season), the Celtics would be 2-1.  I do not expect him to be as efficient as prior years because he is not going to get quite as good shots, but I also expect he will shoot better than 32% from the floor.

[Who]

Three things

Mazzula is doing a bad job with the roster (1+2)

(1) His starting lineups with Hauser at PF. Then Hugo at PF. His refusal to play Boucher more. Boucher needs 30mpg. His height, length and athleticism will help our interior defense & rebounding. The team needs him on the court. He is no great player but he is the best option we have. Minott should be his backup at PF. Minott brings more athleticism and energy. Scrappiness. We need that at PF more than Hauser's shooting. Hauser needs to play SF behind Jaylen. Only situation minutes at PF when the team desperately needs more offense.

(2) Playing guys like Scheierman or Hugo. Mazzula needs to cut their minutes. We have 3 talented guards (Pritchard, A Simons, D White). They should get all of the guard minutes. We have 2 quality SFs (Jaylen, Hauser). They should get all the SF minutes. These other perimeter guys (J Walsh) are 3rd stringers who should not be part of the regular rotation.

Thirdly, not a Mazzula problem

(3) We need a small trade or FA acquisition to improve the options at center. Queta has stepped up and been a legit rotation player. He is giving us 25mpg. The other 20+mpg has been killing us. Tillman hasn't done it. Garza hasn't done it. I am not ready to give up on Garza but we do need another big man option because based on what we have seen so far he is not good enough to play. We need a playable backup center. It doesn't need to be anything special. Just someone who can give us 20mpg without killing the team.

[Donoghus]

The PG defense has not been great, but I would argue that Maxey, Brunson, and Cunningham is a tough first three PGs to start a season with.  I do not think we can fix rebounding that much.  Pritchard was our leading rebounder yesterday.  More Hugo will help a little too, because he is really good at stopping the penetration that helps lead to offensive rebounds.

All that said, if Derrick White were simply to have equaled his career-worst shooting percentages prior to this year (2017-2018 season), the Celtics would be 2-1.  I do not expect him to be as efficient as prior years because he is not going to get quite as good shots, but I also expect he will shoot better than 32% from the floor.

Agree with all the above. I knew the rebounding would be bad but didn't it would be this bad.  It's killing this team more than anything right now.  Costing them games.  I'm not sure what can be done in the short term.

[Who]

The PG defense has not been great, but I would argue that Maxey, Brunson, and Cunningham is a tough first three PGs to start a season with.  I do not think we can fix rebounding that much.  Pritchard was our leading rebounder yesterday.  More Hugo will help a little too, because he is really good at stopping the penetration that helps lead to offensive rebounds.

All that said, if Derrick White were simply to have equaled his career-worst shooting percentages prior to this year (2017-2018 season), the Celtics would be 2-1.  I do not expect him to be as efficient as prior years because he is not going to get quite as good shots, but I also expect he will shoot better than 32% from the floor.

Agree with all the above. I knew the rebounding would be bad but didn't it would be this bad.  It's killing this team more than anything right now.  Costing them games.  I'm not sure what can be done in the short term.

Play Boucher!!

He is the best rebounding non-big on the team. Play him!

[keevsnick]

The defense has actually been GOOD. Looking at cleaning the glass, they've allowed 85 points per 100 possessions in the halfcourt, that's good for 5th best in the league. And its not like they've been lucky with three-point defense, they are 14th in the league in opponent three point percentage so dead average.

The problem is they are 30th in the league in OREB% at 42.1% and 28th in the league at opponent points/miss meaning they both give up a lot of rebounds and get scored on a lot off those rebounds. That's really the whole story on defense, if they could get rebounds they'd be a well above average defense.

On offense the issue is much simpler. They don't take shots at the rim ranking 29th at just over 20% of their shots at the rim, but there's no real way to fix that with their current big situation. They do take a lot of threes being 4th in 3 point frequency but are 27th in accuracy at 31%. Now, I don't think White/Pritchard/Simons are going to struggle the way they have so far for the entire season, that 3 point percentage will for sure improve. Those guys are too good on volume to keep missing. Hitting their threes will greatly help the offense and also greatly lower the opponent transition frequency which has also been a problem. I expect they finish the year as a top 10 three point percentage team.

To Summarize: The Celtics have two main problems. They are missing threes and giving up OREB's. I think the missing shots thing will fix itself, they have good shooters who have just missed so far.  The OREB problem will likely also slightly improve just because it can't get worse, but they may not have an answer to that until A) Tatum is back and B) They get a competent rebounding center.

How this all evens out will depend on EXACTY HOW BAD the OReb's stay. If they can get to "bad" and not "historically awful" they will be fine given that their defense actually looks solid. But all in all if Simons/White/Pritchard just shoot their career averages the Celtics are 2-1 right now.

[mobilija]

Three things

Mazzula is doing a bad job with the roster (1+2)

(1) His starting lineups with Hauser at PF. Then Hugo at PF. His refusal to play Boucher more. Boucher needs 30mpg. His height, length and athleticism will help our interior defense & rebounding. The team needs him on the court. He is no great player but he is the best option we have. Minott should be his backup at PF. Minott brings more athleticism and energy. Scrappiness. We need that at PF more than Hauser's shooting. Hauser needs to play SF behind Jaylen. Only situation minutes at PF when the team desperately needs more offense.

(2) Playing guys like Scheierman or Hugo. Mazzula needs to cut their minutes. We have 3 talented guards (Pritchard, A Simons, D White). They should get all of the guard minutes. We have 2 quality SFs (Jaylen, Hauser). They should get all the SF minutes. These other perimeter guys (J Walsh) are 3rd stringers who should not be part of the regular rotation.

Thirdly, not a Mazzula problem

(3) We need a small trade or FA acquisition to improve the options at center. Queta has stepped up and been a legit rotation player. He is giving us 25mpg. The other 20+mpg has been killing us. Tillman hasn't done it. Garza hasn't done it. I am not ready to give up on Garza but we do need another big man option because based on what we have seen so far he is not good enough to play. We need a playable backup center. It doesn't need to be anything special. Just someone who can give us 20mpg without killing the team.

I?m with you on 100% on 1). Not so much on 2).

Mazulla needs to manage the roster better. Boucher starting at PF backed up by Minott. This would help our rebounding, our size defensively and even our offense so that JB isn?t stuck guarding behemoths all year. I?d also start Simmons over Pritchard for the extra shot making, that would help set up our defense. 

I disagree in that I would like to continue to see Hugo/Walsh/Scheirman in limited minutes on a game by game basis. This is the year to develop them into useful players. If not now, when?

As for 3) Brad should absolutely be scouring for another developmental big or something even better to flow into next year. I doubt that happens soon but it?s necessary. Garza is so bad defensively and on the boards. If he?s out there it should be to flow some offense thru him, otherwise he?s the biggest net negative on the team.

[Celtics4ever]

We're seemingly getting killed on the offensive boards, our interior defense doesn't slow teams down. and our PG defense is suspect.

Barring a major trade or the return of Tatum, is there anything that can be done to be more competitive this season?

They have to play better help defense.  Nemi has the size and athletic ability to rim protect but he seems more focused to block shots than to really protect the rim.  I have noticed that teams will dish the ball off to a guy cutting behind him.  Our bigs must use one of their hands to block the passing lines and the other to block shots.  Al did it this way.

Bigs have to commit to rebounding harder and the whole team possibly to team rebounding.  Al was a servicable rebounder, Nemi stat wise is actually getting more rebounds that Al last year.   The trouble is Tatum got 8.7 per game and our present PF do not help much in that regard.

I would actually end the Payton Pritchard as a starter experiment.   I would go with Simmons, Brown and White with Brown playing the SF.   Payton is able to dominate over teams benches.   I would put Sam Hauser off the Bench to and go double big.  Nemi and Boucher.   We might be able to rebound a little better.  I would play some zone if teams have bad shooters in, it is usually easier to rebound an area than a man, unless your more physically dominant.

On offense, I would add some drives to all the three pointers.  I think Brown is at his best slashing.  Simmons can drive well too.  Drive and dish to our shooters.

I would run Hugo, Minot and Garza as need to change pace with Peyton and Sam being the offensive pop of the bench.   I would tell Garza your job is picks and rebounds.

I do not care much for Baylor he is a great passer, but he is  streaky shooter and is not a 3 and D player as his D is not great.   I think Walsh has the physical tools but I think he makes a ton of bad choices.

I don't know if this would help us or not.   You have more firepower and your putting Payton in a position in a spot where he has thrived in the past.

At the end of the day, we do not have the same level of skilled players as we have in the past.   You can coach your heart out, and it can help but other teams have more talent than we do.

If we make a trade it may be to shed more cap. 

I would think about singing Precius Achiwa and I would sign him over Charles Bassey.  He is not a world beater but he might rebound better than Garza and had a 111 defensive rating last year and six boards a game.   He is a free agent but the fact that we are not making moves, enforces the tank by roster theory.

I realize we might not have the cap space or a roster spot.   Cut someone and offer him a vet minimum that keeps  below that Second apron.  But if you want to fix the roster that is the best signing I could think of but Lord know I am not a cap guru,  and all that entails.

They may not want to fix this team...

[slamtheking]

is this roster fixable?  not this season. 

a tweak of the starting lineup to be White, Simons, Brown, Boucher and Queta could address some of the initial rebounding problems but with only Tillman and Garza as bench bigs, the bench unit will get demolished on the boards and by scorers in the paint.  Minott can add some energy at SF or a light PF but he's not going to be grabbing a lot of boards for us to make up for the lack of rebounding from Tillman/Garza.

any fix to the rebounding/big man issue will have to come at the trade deadline where hopefully Simons has shown some value to teams around the league that can offer up a rotation-quality big man. 

next season we'll have a pretty solid addition with Tatum's return but that only fixes the starting PF problem.  we need a legit center that's starting quality.  Not sure if Brad's able to land that player in a deadline deal this year or if we're going to have to take players off the offseason FA scrap heap going into 26-27 season.  Q's made some real improvements over last season where he's shown he's a very solid back up center.  he's not starter quality on a contender though.

[Celtics2021]

On a positive note, through three games the Celtics top lineup of Pritchard-White-Brown-Hauser-Queta has the top net rating of any lineup that has played at least 25 minutes (out of only 12, admittedly) at a whopping +52.8.  So that grouping is working very well.  With so many new faces of questionable quality, it may take a bit to find some other combinations that work, especially when the new guys are the majority of a lineup.

[Who]

One thing that annoyed me about Garza yesterday is the team made no effort to involve him in the offense. He is an offensive orientated big man. He is deficient in rebounding & defense. His value is offense. You have to utilize his strengths otherwise he is just a net negative (large net negative) out there. The only chance he has to be a contributor is to use his strengths offensively.

[wdleehi]

Maybe when a team decides they need the offensive punch of Simmons and the Celtics use it to find another 20-25 minute a game big man that brings rebounding and better paint defense.   Basically a big man that can still be a starter once Tatum is healthy.   


I also completely understand not wanting to play two of the bigs at the same time when it is the weakest part of the team.   They may just have to.

[Kuberski33]

Jaylen is the only player who can attack the basket. After him we shoot jump shots (i.e. 3's). On top of that no one can pass the ball very effectively so again, we pass it around the perimeter and take 3's. A lot of the time we're playing 3 guards because that's our best chance for scoring the ball.

Then because of our lack of size, Joe tries to make up for it by pressuring the ball all over the court. So he has to play a lot of guys. And our overall talent level is poor, plus it puts a heavy burden on our best offensive players. And that's before we get to the rebounding problems which can't be fixed.

I would argue that they've played well - for their talent level - over the first 3 games and are 0-3. 

How do you fix? Brad has to be patient and look for a move where he can get an athletic rotation player for a reasonable price - and ideally avoid giving up someone who can help next year.  In the meantime the losses will pile up. And if Jaylen gets hurt, forget about it.  Even with Jaylen, this is a lottery team right now.

[Vermont Green]

If the question is fixable for 2025-26, I say no it isn't and it doesn't matter anyway.  There is no reason to try and fix this season.  There is no way you can replace Tatum.  None.  This season is what it is without Tatum.

For 2026-27, we get Tatum back and in my mind, that will "fix" most of the problems but not all of them.  I feel like we would still be one good starting big away from being able to be a top team again (not an all star, just a legitimate 4th or 5th starter level player).  I don't think that starting big is currently on the team, it is going to require an acquisition to fix that.  Could be a FA, could be a trade.

[keevsnick]

One more stat: The Celtics as a team are 30th in the league in Defensive Rebound % at 58.4%. In the previous 11 full seasons no team has finished with a % lower than 67.8%.

That tells you two things: 1) The Celtics have been extremely bad at rebounding. 2) They should get at least somewhat better.