Why does this team blow leads??

[FallGuy]

KG isn't KG anymore so we can't blow out teams like we use to when we had a superstar.

And our bench is garbage.   That's why we blow leads.

DING! DING!

We have a winner.

KG is probably not in the top 30 guys in the league anymore. PP has slipped too.

That's why we're losing.

[fairweatherfan06]

REBOUNDING.....

One more frontline body dedicated to rebounding.  Some more energy.  They didn't win the Celtics lost.

[Spicoli]

The problem is DOC. He is running his players INTO THE GROUND. Rondo and Ray are the kind of players that expend a LOT of energy on the basketball court with all the running that they do. Therefore both Rondo and Ray need to have guys come in for them and play well until they catch a second wind. But what does DOC do? He just plays Rondo and Ray for 40 minutes instead. This is beyond idiotic. Rivers refusal to play the best lineups, to call timeouts when needed to stop runs, and refusal to rest guys who need it the most, is the reason for all the collapses.

[guava_wrench]

KG isn't KG anymore so we can't blow out teams like we use to when we had a superstar.

And our bench is garbage.   That's why we blow leads.

DING! DING!

We have a winner.

KG is probably not in the top 30 guys in the league anymore. PP has slipped too.

That's why we're losing.

I miss when we could put teams away in the 3rd and empty the bench in the 4th.

[guava_wrench]

The problem is DOC. He is running his players INTO THE GROUND. Rondo and Ray are the kind of players that expend a LOT of energy on the basketball court with all the running that they do. Therefore both Rondo and Ray need to have guys come in for them and play well until they catch a second wind. But what does DOC do? He just plays Rondo and Ray for 40 minutes instead. This is beyond idiotic. Rivers refusal to play the best lineups, to call timeouts when needed to stop runs, and refusal to rest guys who need it the most, is the reason for all the collapses.

While I want to agree tonight, if he had sat them the extra minutes and then they performed the same way in the second half, other fans would have complained that Doc didn't go with the hot hands or he iced his own players. There is no satisfying armchair quarterbacks after losses.

We might want to acknowledge tonight that we were actually playing a superior team that can also play defense. I'm not sure we should expect that it would be easy to score on them for 4 quarters.

[P2]

Why? Because the team just watched LeBron play in the second half. On numerous occasions, they just stood there and didn't move at all - all 5 players!

[BballTim]

  You can blame this loss on Perk. If he hadn't injured Shaq the game was in the bag. Spread the floor and get Rondo 1v1 with Mo. Rondo get past Mo and Shaq doesn't have the quickness to stop Rondo from getting to the hoop. I doubt Z will fare much better. I like our chances vs the Cavs in the playoffs.

[PosImpos]

  You can blame this loss on Perk. If he hadn't injured Shaq the game was in the bag. Spread the floor and get Rondo 1v1 with Mo. Rondo get past Mo and Shaq doesn't have the quickness to stop Rondo from getting to the hoop. I doubt Z will fare much better. I like our chances vs the Cavs in the playoffs.

Shaq was injured by Glen Davis.

[greg683x]

Maybe part of the problem is game planning.  It seems like we jump all over teams but these teams make adjustments at halftime and we don't have an answer for it bc we didn't plan for it.

So that's my answer.…along with age and fatigue.  Like some other people said we don't have a guy that can just ice a game anymore so we need to rely on scheming more than we use to. 

[BballTim]

  You can blame this loss on Perk. If he hadn't injured Shaq the game was in the bag. Spread the floor and get Rondo 1v1 with Mo. Rondo get past Mo and Shaq doesn't have the quickness to stop Rondo from getting to the hoop. I doubt Z will fare much better. I like our chances vs the Cavs in the playoffs.

Shaq was injured by Glen Davis.

  My bad. That's what happens when you post in the middle of the night.

[nyceltsfan]

I feel like every single game is exactly the same.  When Barkley said during halftime that the Cavs would come back and win the game, I believed and agreed with him.  There are quite a few things i do not understand:

1. Why did we trade for Nate Robinson - Was it to be a backup point guard?  If so, why is he only playing WITH Rondo?
2. If Doc is going to keep the same exact rotations EVERY single game, maybe he needs to make a change to the starting lineup.  At some point, one of the big 3 needs to come off the bench and dominate.  Leaving one of them out there with the whole second unit does squat.
3. How can the Celts shoot some ridiculous percentage in the first half and only be up 8?  The defensive intensity is lacking and the rebounding is horrendous.  This was truly evident when Mo Williams had an eternity to think about his upcoming 3 point attempt 2 straight times down the court!
4. Sheldon Williams does not contribute at the beginning of the year and he is benched for the rest of the season.  Wallace continues to stand outside the 3 point line and toss up bricks and he gains minutes.  Huh?

At the end of the day, the team is lazy, the rotations are predictable and useless, the bench is used incorrectly and the starters are being burned.

The next time we play the Cavs, someone on this board will say that the game did not mean anything because Pierce was out.  I don't buy that for a second.  Championship contenders are able to compensate for a player being out.  The Lakers had a great record with Kobe out.  The Celts were 22-7 without KG last year.

This team is not winning a championship.  They should focus on whatever they can do to sign someone that can have an impact next season.

[Michael Anthony]

Because they are pretenders.

I can't really put it any other way than that.  I can't come up with any logical, reasoned explanation.  But the bottom line is this: with or without Paul Pierce, this team is a pretender.  They'll show you some exciting play, but when it comes down to it they can't go all the way - whether in one particular game, or a post-season as a whole.

This is the right answer. Team just isn't good enough.

Agreed

Rondo is still inconsistent within games; always good, but dominant at some times and passive at others.

KG's sudden decline and the Pierce/Allen slide have hurt this club.

Who is our energy guy on the bench? Robinson has not found his way yet and Baby cannot finish underneath.

The 2008 team beats this team in 5 games.

[sk7326]

our bench is awful - Sheed has been a disaster

KG has slipped - duh ... but if the bench was as advertised entering the season that should not have been a huge deal ... we knew KG was a 30 minute a game guy - he'd be productive within those minutes in rate stats, but that's it.

But nobody had a right to expect Rasheed to show up in need of breast reduction surgery and an Antoine Walker fetish. That has made this a 6-7 man team when Daniels is hurt (which is frequent).  A team with this many miles on it can't sustain that.  - even with a pleasant surprise contribution from TA.

[Chris]

This team blows leads because Rondo tightens up late in games, as do the defenses.  Combine that with the inconsistent shooting of Pierce, Allen, and Garnett, and you have stagnant second half offense. 

We have not seen this team in a while where they had multiple guys shooting above average.  Ray was pretty terrible during their big slump, and now that he has picked it up, Pierce was terrible, and is now out. 

You cannot beat elite teams with one shooter.  Plain and simple.

[Evantime34]

We blow leads because we go on scoring droughts in which every shot is a contested jump shot and we get nothing going to the hole.

That's what we got Nate for, in his first two games he hasn't been the rain maker to end the drought.