Again, nothing to do with his stats... I could care less on how his shot is falling or not, he simply hasn't been moving the ball well period. It's not about Paul, KG, or Ray not shooting well, it's when Rondo starts playing like Cassell that we're in trouble, and hes been doing it quite a lot during the playoffs. He starts holding the ball, not making intelligent decisions, etc.
If you can't see it, well I guess we can't discuss any further, but can't argue about something that you're not noticing. But I'm telling you, it's very apparent to me how he hasn't been moving the ball... not the team, him in particular. Last night he couldn've had zero points and zero assists, and I'd be happy with the way he played.
As a tangent, so that you can see where I'm coming from, even though Ray Allen underperformed, I thought he had a fairly nice game, where he didn't really hurt the team because he was doing everything well except shooting. When Rondo is not playing well, it drags our offense to the ground because it means he has stopped moving the ball, and the effects of it are magnified because of his responsibility in our offense.
Our poor PG play is what in part made Doc made the adjustment of having Pierce being our main ball handler to get us going, even with Rondo on the floor when he's not doing his job.
Giving the offense over to Paul seemed to be more about getting Paul going than us going. He was struggling offensively for a while, and every time he'd hit a shot or two we'd revert back to Rondo giving Paul the ball and heading for the corner.
Which wouldn't have been a need to do so if Rondo was running the team effectively.
No, there were games where Paul was struggling and the team was doing ok when Paul would hit a shot and they'd give him the ball the next 5 trips down. They were clearly trying to get him going.
All true, but again, no need to try and get someone going this way if your point guard is capable of distributing the ball properly. Of course they're trying to get Pierce going this way, but you also need to factor in Rondo's inability to run our offense... No one has said Pierce or other people in the team haven't had poor games, but those people haven't had the responsibility to run our offense in this playoffs as Rondo's had, and when our offense is running poorly, a big chunk of the blame has to go to Rondo especially when you see him pounding the ball without knowning what to do, and driving to the basket in a horrible manner, while taking ill advised shots. Regardless of the reason why Doc incorporated this Pierce pick and roll, it doesn't change the fact that Rondo has been very inconsistent in running our offense.
Again, if you can't see all those things about how Rondo has underperformed, then this discussion is meaningless because they're quite evident to me. I can't convince you of something that you apparently haven't been paying attention to or simply didn't see. So, either put faith on me that I'm seeing Rondo's struggles moving the ball, playing Cassell-like, or I don't know, let's give up on this discussion because it can't go anywhere. It's like trying to convince a person who doesn't know he's color blind that the grass in green because he clearly sees it differently. Not calling you color blind, but when something is very apparent to me and you simply don't seem to see it, then it's moot to argue about it without having some sort of evidence to present... like a game recording or something, which I doubt we have and I doubt we'd go study some tapes just to see how Rondo has performed in each game during the playoffs. I can't think of a way to make you see what I am seeing.
I know I'm very correct in my assesment of Rondo this post season. He's had some wonderful games, but just as many poor ones, and that's not good enough for someone running our offense... and by poor I mean failing to run an effective offense, not a poor shooting night, etc. Sadly, they've been almost hand in hand during this playoffs because Rondo hasn't been playing his role effectively... playing Cassell-like too often, and that's not his game.
I'd tell you this, if we start running the offense we were doing earlier in the season, when Rondo simply ran up the court and passed it to the wing, and then we incorporate Pierce's pick and roll to it, I wouldn't be as harsh on Rondo. But his responsibility has increased substantially since then, and he has to own up to it and perform.
Let me draw another comparison... when Rondo's shot is off, our offense should still be able to run fairly smooth because Rondo's responsibility is to get our offense moving. During this playoffs, he's has only had a positive impact in our offense when he's scoring. That's not good enough... that's Cassell's role. Our offense should flow positively regardless of how Rondo is shooting or not because he has the responsibility to distribute, and he should be very capable of doing it... he simply hasn't been doing it consistently. But what I've seen as of late, is that Doc is lessening the burden quite a bit on him, especially with the emergence of the pick and roll with Pierce.
Rondo's getting 7 assists, 4 boards, 2 steals a game with an assist/turnover ratio better than anyone who made it out of the 1st round besides Chris Paul. It's not the case that all he's doing for our offense is scoring. If the other players (like Ray, or Paul before the last few games) hit their shots our offense would be fine. During the season we were 4th in the league in fg%. Our playoff fg% would have been 19th.
Once again, I could care less about Rondo's stats. My complaints have nothing to do with it. As I said before, he could be getting zero points, and zero assists, but still moving the ball and running the offense effectively, and I'd be happy with him.
I wish I had a stat were I could show how many times he makes a poor decision or kills our offense, but there isn't one. I can only see him jacking up shots here and there, penetrating and taking ill adviced shots, and pounding the ball like Cassell does, only that isn't Rondo's game.
In fact, all you need to do is see how Rondo moved the ball last night and compare it to most games this playoffs, and you'll see a vast difference.
It's sad that I have to be this negative about Rondo and be the bad guy in this case because I love Rondo... but I'm a facts guy and I like to keep facts as straight as I can make them.
That's why most of the times I have problems with people on Doc's case or Cassell's case because I see many of the complaints unwarranted so I defend them for the most part, but I also think people need to be more critical of Rondo instead of turning a blind eye on him because it should be very evident that he has been underpeforming and doing an inconsistent job running our offense, and it bothers me that many here fail to see it.
My position on Rondo has been fairly the same all year, that although he has shown signs of being capable of doing it, he is not ready for the level of responsibility he has been entrusted with. So, if you guys want to blame Doc for Rondo's struggles (though you guys don't see it), I'm all up for that because I wouldn't have given this amount of responsibility to him yet even though many here wanted it.
