Nick's right to an extent--the fault does lie with Doc. But it's our offense, mainly, to blame for our slow starts. Check out this rundown of our first 20 offensive possessions from Friday's game:
1.Multiple passes result in Pierce three (miss), Perk offensive rebound and put back for 2
2.Pick for Rondo, passed back to KG who found Pierce for jumper (assist KG, 'hockey' assist Rondo)
3.3-second violation--over-passing
4.Pick for Rondo, pass to Pierce, pick by Garnett, Paul to the line for 2
5. Ray goes against 2 men, drives into easy block by Howard
6. Pick for Rondo at top of key, dumped down to Perk for post attempt--missed.
7.Pierce iso attempt blocked, rebound by Pierce, pass to Garnett for jumper, missed.
8. Ray off a pick, 15 foot jumper (missed)
9. High pick for Pierce, pass to KG, iso attempt turns into jumper (miss).
10. Pierce iso attempt, doubled, passes to KG for jumper (miss)
11.Pierce in pick-and-roll with Perk, Paul called for travel
12. Pick for Rondo (by KG), passes to Perk for dunk (1 assist)
13.Double pick for Rondo, pass fumbled by Perk out of bounds.
14. Pick for Rondo by KG (below the 3 line), drive for miss by Rondo
15. Marquis misses layup in transition, missed tip by KG
16. Pierce missed three, offensive rebound (Sheed), pick for Rondo and KG pops for jumper, which he makes (assist Rondo, 2)
17. Rondo to the rim, blocked by Howard out of bounds, pick for Rondo by 'Sheed, Rondo dumps it down to KG for And-1 (Rondo assist 3)
18. KG post attempt, kicked to 'Sheed for 3, missed
19. Pick-and-roll w/KG and Paul, swung to Rondo in corner for miss, offensive rebound by 'Sheed, fed back to 'Sheed in post, missed fallaway.
20. Pick for Rondo in transition by 'Sheed, dumped back to 'Sheed for missed layup attempt.
We have 13 points so far...
Let's look at a breakdown of those possessions:
We had 4 isolation attempts: 3 by Pierce, 1 by Ray and we scored ZERO points off them.
We had 2 instances of good ball movement which led to 2 jumpers, which we missed (a 3 attempt by Pierce and a corner 15 footer by Rondo).
We had 7 plays where Rondo received a random pick sometime in the possession. In those 7 plays, we scored 11 of our 13 total points. Of those 11 points, Rondo assisted on 7 of them, and got the 'hockey' assist on 2 more. The other 2 points where on 2 free throws by Pierce, after he had received the ball from Rondo and gotten a pick by KG.
Breaking it down further, for the 7 picks Rondo received, they resulted in 4 'close' shots, 1 turnover (fumble by Perk), and 2 jumpers (1 made and the other resulting in 2 free throws)
Pick and rolls including Pierce: 3 for ZERO points, either resulting in turnover or missed jumpers.
What we can conclude from these 20 possession (we were down by double digits at this point).
1. Of our 13 points, 11 come on possessions when Rondo received a random pick. The other 2 come off an offensive rebound by Perk. It's pretty clear that we need to pick more for Rondo to get him free and to open up the offense.
2. Of any other play we ran, either instances where we ran our motion offense, went isolation with Paul or Ray, ran a pick-and-pop with Pierce, or gave KG a post attempt, we ended up getting a perimeter shot as a result. For a team that's become too dependent on jump shooting, we should limit this part of our offense on nights when we're not shooting well. Doc doesn't seem to understand this. He even said, according to Dickerson, that we were getting good shots. We actually weren't--we were playing isolation basketball, turning the ball over, shooting contested jumpers, and basically making ourselves very easy to defend. It was only after we started picking for Rondo that we actually got 'good' shots, and actually ended up converting them.
3. We also need to 'call' picks for Rondo. All 7 of the first quarter picks set on Rondo's man were random, i.e., they weren't called by Doc. He can definitely make things happen with a random pick, but he's much more devastating with 'high' picks. If you remember back to Wednesday's game, our big turnaround in the 2nd half coincided with Doc calling a ton of high picks for Rondo. Remember this quote from Rondo on what changed in the 2nd half:
"We started calling plays for me in the pick-and-roll," Rondo said. "Sometimes when they switch, they'd show and get back. We tried to keep mixing it up with the play call and just get to the rim."
from
http://espn.go.com/boston/columns/celtics/blog/_/post/4669562/name/forsbergThe thing is, a 'high' pick for Rondo (one that's set above the 3 point line) is one that allows Rondo's speed to become a factor, letting him get to the rim or kick for wide open jumpers. We didn't 'call' a single pick for him in the 1st quarter, nor do we hardly ever call one for him in the 1st quarter, something which in my opinion results in our slow starts. Even worse, I'm pretty sure we didn't 'call' one all game last night, which is very surprising considering the success it gave us just 2 nights ago.
In conclusion, our problem is one of play-calling. When we 'run' our motion offense, or give isolation or pick-and-pop opportunities to Ray/Paul, or feed KG in the post, we tend to come up with jump shot attempts. That's fine if we're converting, but it's another thing when we shoot 33% for the game. A good offensive coach would realize this and adjust. Doc doesn't do that. Instead, he puts more shooters on the court, thinking it's a 'shooting' problem. It's not--it's a coaching problem.
On the flip side, when we give Rondo random picks, or call for high picks, we tend to get inside shot attempts, or wide open jump shot attempts. As opposed to the contested jumpers that our motion offense gets us, picks for Rondo tend to get us open jumpers or inside opportunities. Outside of picking for Rondo, we rarely if ever get inside opportunities, unless they're off offensive rebounds, or the occasional inside post.
So, a good offensive coach would realize that when his team is struggling with their shooting that perhaps he should adjust the offense towards more inside shooting. A good offensive coach would recognize that picking for Rondo results in many more inside shots. A good coach, therefore, would put the ball in Rondo's hands more often.
But what does Doc do? None of the above--instead of using his top 5 point guard to get more inside shots and easy bucket opportunities, he subs in his shooters so they can shoot more jumpers, and then tells his superstars to get to the rim, resulting in low percentage isolation situations.
So, yeah, Doc is to blame--but that's because he's under-utilizing his point guard and compounding the problems of a perimeter oriented team by using his substitution and play calling to make us more perimeter oriented, even on nights when we can't hit a thing.
One last complaint: we all know Rondo has trouble finishing at the rim against Howard. You'd think Doc would try to get around that by putting Rondo on the court when Howard's resting. Nope. Rondo was on the bench for the 12 minutes that Howard didn't play and in his place was a 3 point chucking one-dimensional player who Doc said 'had it going'. It's pretty comical to call a 1 for 7 night, with several forced and contested jumpers, as a night where House 'had it going'--yet that's what our offensive architect thought. Yeah, Doc's to blame--because his offense is retarded.
