Yeah, don't listen to Bankshot's third suggestion. Defense wins games it's what this team was built around and Rondo and Perk are two of the better defenders at their position in the league. This team needs stops and they need better offensive efficiency.
If that is indeed true, Rondo being one of the better defenders at his position, perhaps someone should remind Rondo of that fact. His defense lately has been abysmal. He can't keep anyone in front of him and that causes our entire defense to go into scramble mode.
I think that Rondo has been overrated by the majority of Celtics fans all this season and it started to go to his head.
Ever since people started talking about him for the all-star game his play has gotten measurably worse.
There's more to defense than poking the ball away after your man has blown by you or gambling off your man for steals.
Rondo needs to screw his head on straight and start playing team ball again.
That's what I was talking about. On the nights when Rondo is off and killing us, like last night, play Gabe! I wasn't talking about doing this permanently. Rondo is too inconsistent and with the current losing streak the Celtics can't afford to let him find his way while killing the team, especially not when we have another option. Doc did the same thing to Ray last year when he struggled mightily. He sat him and played Posey.
Huge difference.
Ray replaced by Posey just doesn't equal Rondo replaced by Pruitt. I think Gabe will be a decnt player one day. But he isn't now. Rondo is immensely better than Pruitt even on bad nights.
The goal here is not to win every single game it's to create a system that come June will be the best for this team. Doc belives having his best on the floor late is what matters most to win close games. It's a philosphy that Red lived by. Putting Pruitt, arguably your 11th best player in simply because Rondo is struggling a bit is not going to happen. That would be looked upon as a full fledged benching when the team needed him most.
Doc is not going to do that and I agree with this approach. So we lost 6 of 8. So freaking what. Is the goal to win every game now or 16 in the playoffs? Let Rondo know that although he is struggling, and believe me Rondo not only knows he is struggling but that it is also killing him inside, he is still your man and although he had a bad game you still believe he has what it takes to turn it around late and get this team a win and this team will be a lot better in the long run.
Benching him to attempt to justify to the folks on blogging boards that think they know how to coach and that you know better and then having Pruitt fail, thereby killing his confidence and then lose Rondo because he feels you have no faith in him is way to big a risk just to win one game in January.