Is this possibly why we are struggling?!

[Fan from VT]

Mostly I think this C's team often cruises and gets by on entightlement, reputation, and rankings. So the teams that give them the most trouble are the teams that are athletic and/or don't care about the reputation and just go out and win. Let's face it: KG is really slow right now, as are pierce and allen, and teams that acknowledge that and attack are going to give us problems.

[RAcker]

While the offense hasn't been great, the reason the C's have lost these three games has been defense and rebounding.  The other teams have been getting wherever they want, and the  C's really have not been doing anything to slow them down.

Ultimately, I am getting a major "cruising" vibe from too many players on the team right now.  Hopefully KG rips into some of them (Rondo especially) in the next few practices.

I agree with the "cruising" vibe.  It's sickening to watch a team with as much talent as the Celtics go through the motions at times like it's a walk through instead of game.  I even notice it on the FT line.  Focus is zero at times and that is just odd for this team.

When you don't focus, you know what happens?  You don't rebound...you don't defend...and you miss FT's.

[Amonkey]

Offensively, for these last two games KG started well in the first half, but seemed to fade in the second half.  Ray Allen has been more aggressive then I have seen before, but this aggressiveness seems to be taking his 3s away, although I am not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing.  I was hoping to see step up offensively, but I think this was more of a matchup problem than anything.  Pierce didn't really have a favorable match up, and he was doing a great job on Granger (big reason why he cooled off in the second half).  Rondo needs to SHOOT the ball, I am not talking about just layups, which he can do and can do well, but actual jumpshots.  There were many times, at least 4-5 shots, that any other PG would've taken a jumpshot but Rondo just keeps on dribbling and either making a difficult play or not doing anything at all, missing an opportunity to score.  I can't really say much about Perk.  The bench has been doing well. 

I do agree, we need more cohesion on the offense.  Two years ago one thing we were really good at was finding the man that was "feeling it".  This year it doesn't seem like we are feeding the guy that is on fire.

[ACF]

Dont even want to think about next year if we don't win it all this year.

Let's play the remaining (approximately) 95 games before we start to worry too much 

[greenhead85]

Is there a possibility that we can arrange an Allen Iverson for Tony Allen trade so we may have somebody who can jumpstart our offense?

AI is obviously not the absolute answer but may somehow change the structure of our offense and get it going. Doc can easily tame the guy if he tries to become a volume shooter.

[wdleehi]

Is there a possibility that we can arrange an Allen Iverson for Tony Allen trade so we may have somebody who can jumpstart our offense?

AI is obviously not the absolute answer but may somehow change the structure of our offense and get it going. Doc can easily tame the guy if he tries to be a volume shooter.

No.  Lets not make the defense weaker.  Lets not make the chemistry an issue.

[wiley]

While the offense hasn't been great, the reason the C's have lost these three games has been defense and rebounding.  The other teams have been getting wherever they want, and the  C's really have not been doing anything to slow them down.

Ultimately, I am getting a major "cruising" vibe from too many players on the team right now.  Hopefully KG rips into some of them (Rondo especially) in the next few practices.

every time the Cs try to clamp down on defense the Refs are blowing the whistle. It happened on three or four big moments in this game and they are game-changers IMO.

In general, the Cs rotations have been slower than normal, but IMO the Refs in the last two games influenced the outcome. There was a stretch in the ATL game where the Hawks went to the line something like 12 or 13 times before the Cs did...and by that time the game had gone from being close to being 10 PTS...

Chris put it well with "cruising vibe", which may have been partly stimulated by all the hype, mainly in the media and some by Sheed, about winning mountains of games like no team in history.  Even before we lost I thought all that talk was silly...

whatever the reason, the cruising mode should stop, and I wish along with it all the time and energy-consuming trash talking that takes place.  Does trash talk have any meaning when it never ceases.  And beyond the psychological aspect, if a tennis player mumbled trash talk to himself all match long he'd never make it to the third set because he'd run out of energy.  Trash talking gets exhausting to watch and I'll bet it tires out the players too, right along with all that ref-focused energy.  Let the coach do the ref bashing and let winning be the trash talk.  I'm so sick of it, and yes, even when we win I'm sick of it...

Regarding the refs, the Celtics need to play aggressive and not worry about fouling out, and that includes the starters.  Let the backups play and let Doc yell at the refs when they screw up the game.

[kozlodoev]

Certainly it feels like our team has yet to really find an identity offensively.

Erm. No.

The starting five has been together for more than 2 seasons now. We're leading the league in FG% and in field goals made. This team has a pretty good idea about their offensive identity.

However, they're not even close to who they were defensively, both as compared to the championship season, and even as compared to last season without KG. This is both disturbing and inexplicable.

[moiso]

We have looked a step slow for a little while now.  I guess thats going to happen when you're an older team.  Offensively, we are seeing what happens when you rely on the 3pt shot.  If they don't go in, it's tough to win.  We don't have a consistent inside scorer.  Our two best offensive bigs are jump shooters.  We havn't been establishing anything on the inside.  Even Rondo hasn't been attacking the rim.  I think Doc should insist that KG and Wallace get their butts down on the blocks a few more times per game, because right now we have nothing going on down there except for Sheldon Williams' garbage baskets.
Another bad stat from last night- Wallace had 0 rebounds in 19min.

[Eeyore III]

We have looked a step slow for a little while now.  I guess thats going to happen when you're an older team.  Offensively, we are seeing what happens when you rely on the 3pt shot.  If they don't go in, it's tough to win.  We don't have a consistent inside scorer.  Our two best offensive bigs are jump shooters.  We havn't been establishing anything on the inside.  Even Rondo hasn't been attacking the rim.  I think Doc should insist that KG and Wallace get their butts down on the blocks a few more times per game, because right now we have nothing going on down there except for Sheldon Williams' garbage baskets.
Another bad stat from last night- Wallace had 0 rebounds in 19min.

Amen.  And Wiley is right that the trash-talking is completely counter-productive. And Rondo's refusal to take open jumpers is really hurting the total team game.

[vinnie]

Rgarding Rondo, anyone know how many jump shots he has taken this year? If it is more than 25, I would be shocked.

[ManUp]

Our offensive reboundind and defense has been the issue, IMO. Out of Garnett, Sheed, Baby, and Williams.?only Williams mixes it up consistently on the O.boards Baby rebounds less the more he scores, KG and Sheed are rarely next to the basket to grab any. We don't get a lot of second chance opportunities we tend to be one and done. As for our defense it's been MIA since we faced Minny.   

[elcotte]

Not going to the basket on offense and poor rebounding get this team in trouble.

[moiso]

Our 7 footers are way outside "spacing the floor" but it doesn't help much if nobody is slashing to the hoop.  Paul is the only one consistently driving to the hoop, Ray does on occasion, and I wish Rondo would do it far more.
I'll take a low post big man any day over a jump shooting big man, unless his name is Dirk.

[PosImpos]

We have looked a step slow for a little while now.  I guess thats going to happen when you're an older team.  Offensively, we are seeing what happens when you rely on the 3pt shot.  If they don't go in, it's tough to win.  We don't have a consistent inside scorer.  Our two best offensive bigs are jump shooters.  We havn't been establishing anything on the inside.  Even Rondo hasn't been attacking the rim.  I think Doc should insist that KG and Wallace get their butts down on the blocks a few more times per game, because right now we have nothing going on down there except for Sheldon Williams' garbage baskets.
Another bad stat from last night- Wallace had 0 rebounds in 19min.

This is what I meant about our offensive issues.

We've been very efficient against bad teams and when the 3's happen to go in, but when they don't, we don't seem to have much of a plan B.  Last night we ought to have abused KG's matchup and gotten Wallace to do the same.  We didn't.  Rondo should have been able to light up the Pacers inside, but he wasn't very aggressive at all.

We could have won last night's game with offense alone if we had played smarter, even despite our repugnant defense.  Yet the 3's weren't going in and we looked to be forcing the issue offensively for most of the second half.  The only reason we still scored as much as we did is because this team is so talented we can still score a fair amount even if we're forcing the issue.  But we have more offensive firepower than almost any team in the league; we ought to be able to score whether our long range attempts are falling or not.