We Are Too Old

[LB3533]

Missing the 3's is not why we are losing consistently. We are losing because, when we miss our 3's, we don't have a plan B that is working. That is what worries me.

Actually we do, it's called Paul Pierce. And we hadn't gone to that enough.

[Reyquila]

Father Time started to catch up with us last year; It is the great Equalizer; we got our flag. Now we pay the Piper.

[slamtheking]

These average ages don't tell the story.  The Celtics are old because they are playing old.  Too slow.  Lazy. Perimeter oriented.

here is a novel idea......maybe, just maybe, they are in a funk/slump?!?!  it has nothing to do with age.

It's a funk/slump when it's the minority of their games.  That's not the case unfortunately since it's the majority of their games where they've played poorly or at a mediocre level at best.  Until they play at a high/quality level for the majority of their games, the poor/mediocre performances are the norm.

[Fafnir]

These average ages don't tell the story.  The Celtics are old because they are playing old.  Too slow.  Lazy. Perimeter oriented.

here is a novel idea......maybe, just maybe, they are in a funk/slump?!?!  it has nothing to do with age.

It's a funk/slump when it's the minority of their games.  That's not the case unfortunately since it's the majority of their games where they've played poorly or at a mediocre level at best.  Until they play at a high/quality level for the majority of their games, the poor/mediocre performances are the norm.

Because good teams never have 7 game slumps.

I'm pretty confident they'll come out of it, simply because it hasn't been the same thing every night. They keep playing wack-a-mole on particular issues, eventually they'll get into sync.

[footey]

This morning's Gary Washburn article in the Globe pretty much reiterates my thesis in this thread, that we are older and slower than prior two years. NBA scouts are starting to talk about it too.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2009/11/23/celtics_have_big_void_without_davis/?page=2

[Brickowski]

Well it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

[goz421]

People we are 10-4 when the best teams all have 3 loses.  Take a chill please.

Kg will take time, Sheed is finding his way, Peirce is getting back from a deep knee bruise.  Eddie is way off.

Things will come together.  We saw the first few teams what a healthy C's team can do.  The sky is not falling.

[moiso]

KG looked bad last night.  He's old and injured.  I saw several instances where he had a noticable limp.  I hope the knee is addressed before he has a major setback.  It doesn't appear like grinding through the season is going to allow it to get better at his age.
Yes, Sheed is ancient but I had very low expectations for him anyway; we're gettting exactly what he gave Detroit last year.  But we're never going to come close to the level we were at two years ago and the first part of last year unless KG comes much closer to that form than he is today.
I think he's probably lost a step injured or not, but the knee really has to improve if we are going to be a great team.  When healthy KG is our emotional and defensive leader.  A limited KG is our biggest problem right now.

[nickagneta]

This morning's Gary Washburn article in the Globe pretty much reiterates my thesis in this thread, that we are older and slower than prior two years. NBA scouts are starting to talk about it too.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2009/11/23/celtics_have_big_void_without_davis/?page=2

One scout saying they looked slower than last year does not convince me that what ails this team is age. I still say what ails this team is:

-Shooting slumps from three(Sheed, Ray, Eddie)
-KG's knee is still rehabbing
-Rondo's awful inconsistency
-Poor game preparation mentally
-A bad habit of going one on one on offense and away from team schemes and plays when they have 3-4 consecutive bad results down the floor
-Bad team and perimeter defense from just about every player

Iron these things out, get Baby back and contributing and I think this team will get young again very quickly.

[twinbree]

If we usually started strong and faded away or were playing hard but still got out-hustled and out-worked maybe but I find it hard to blame their lackadaisical play on old age. That's too easy an out for them. They're playing sloppy basketball a problem I'm confident they can fix if the play with better planning, focus and energy.

[slamtheking]

These average ages don't tell the story.  The Celtics are old because they are playing old.  Too slow.  Lazy. Perimeter oriented.

here is a novel idea......maybe, just maybe, they are in a funk/slump?!?!  it has nothing to do with age.

It's a funk/slump when it's the minority of their games.  That's not the case unfortunately since it's the majority of their games where they've played poorly or at a mediocre level at best.  Until they play at a high/quality level for the majority of their games, the poor/mediocre performances are the norm.

Because good teams never have 7 game slumps.

I'm pretty confident they'll come out of it, simply because it hasn't been the same thing every night. They keep playing wack-a-mole on particular issues, eventually they'll get into sync.

You’ve missed my point.
Last year when they started out hot at 27-2 and then hit that rough patch—that was truly a rough patch because they had established they could play at a higher level on a more frequent basis.

This year, the timeframe where they’ve played at a high level is much smaller than the timeframe where they’ve played poorly or mediocre.  Since the lower level of play has been what they’ve demonstrated on the more frequent basis this year, that has to be considered their normal playing level until such time as they increase their level of play to the point where that becomes the norm.

You can choose to believe this is a slump.  I hope that you are right.  However, until they show dramatic improvement and do it over the course of the season, this level of play is truly their norm because this is the level of play that they most frequently demonstrate.

[Fafnir]

These average ages don't tell the story.  The Celtics are old because they are playing old.  Too slow.  Lazy. Perimeter oriented.

here is a novel idea......maybe, just maybe, they are in a funk/slump?!?!  it has nothing to do with age.

It's a funk/slump when it's the minority of their games.  That's not the case unfortunately since it's the majority of their games where they've played poorly or at a mediocre level at best.  Until they play at a high/quality level for the majority of their games, the poor/mediocre performances are the norm.

Because good teams never have 7 game slumps.

I'm pretty confident they'll come out of it, simply because it hasn't been the same thing every night. They keep playing wack-a-mole on particular issues, eventually they'll get into sync.

You’ve missed my point.
Last year when they started out hot at 27-2 and then hit that rough patch—that was truly a rough patch because they had established they could play at a higher level on a more frequent basis.

This year, the timeframe where they’ve played at a high level is much smaller than the timeframe where they’ve played poorly or mediocre.  Since the lower level of play has been what they’ve demonstrated on the more frequent basis this year, that has to be considered their normal playing level until such time as they increase their level of play to the point where that becomes the norm.

You can choose to believe this is a slump.  I hope that you are right.  However, until they show dramatic improvement and do it over the course of the season, this level of play is truly their norm because this is the level of play that they most frequently demonstrate.

During that 27-2 streak they were playing poorly for the last 8 games or so of it. They just won a ton of very tight games, lots of games similar to the Magic one. They just managed to pull it off tied with 2:00 minutes to go instead of failing to make the 4 key plays.

The difference between an 8 game sample size and a 20 game isn't all that big. They played extremely well just as long as they've slumped this season.

You can choose to believe that this entire basketball team lost "it" after last season. I don't think they have.

[vinnie]

Call me a skeptic, but I just do not believe that the KG knee issues is being addressed truthfully by the Celtics. As an earlier poster wrote, he was noticeably limping several times in the Knicks game. I can understand conditioning, etc. being an issue, but why would he be limping if the knee is 100 percent?

[moiso]

Yeah, The C's are never going to reach their potential unless KG reaches his.  Time flies.  If they don't address the knee, before we know it, we will be heading into the playoffs with KG playing at a level a fraction of what he's capable of.  I hope they learned some lessens last year.  Address the problem so we are 100% for the playoffs.  Whether or not he needs time off to let the inflammation go down, I don't care.

[twinbree]

Last year when they started out hot at 27-2 and then hit that rough patch—that was truly a rough patch because they had established they could play at a higher level on a more frequent basis.

To be honest I'm also having trouble figuring out if we've hit a rough patch or whether the entire season has been one big rough patch.

Looking at our early wins - The Cleveland game we had the same issues quickly fell in a double digit hole in the 1st quarter then after recovering fell asleep at the wheel in the 3rd when we could have put the game away. Charlotte and Chicago are below average offense and poor 3 point shooting teams so the 3 pt shooting disparity helped us pull away I think. They had looks they couldn't make. Against better offenses since then we've been struggling.

All along we've had trouble starting and playing well for the whole game but the difference then was that the 3s were falling for Eddie and Sheed and allowed the bench to help us out.