The Celtics offense goes down the drain in the 4th quarter all the time. Primarily due to Pierce, Allen, and KG (Hollinger had an article on this.) I think Rondo was pressing a bit too much and trying to figure out how to attack and compensate for Dwight.
The team really didn't play great in the first two quarters. They could have made this a laugher - I'm hoping the close ending is a good "teachable moment" and the C's keep their boots on the Magic necks next time.
I disagree. The main problem in the 4th has been Rondo's decision making, poor pace setting, and play calling.
He's aggressive throughout the whole game, and then stops. He's the PG, the offense is in his hands since the playoffs in 08 (which was a mistake then).
I think it will be hard to prove, but the efficiency of those three guys goes down the drain:
Digging a little deeper, the problem appears to be almost entirely on one end: offense. Boston gave up about one point more in second halves than in first halves, which is completely normal -- second halves tend to have slightly more scoring because of late-game fouling situations.
What isn't normal is for an offense to score 51.4 points before the halftime buzzer and only 47.5 after, which is what Boston did. The quarter-by-quarter breakdowns are equally instructive: Basically, the longer the game goes, the worse the Celtics' offense gets.
And then:
Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen didn't bear a huge minutes burden this season -- they played 30, 34 and 35 per game, respectively. Nonetheless, their performances degraded the longer the game went on. While Rajon Rondo's stats had little quarter-to-quarter variance, his three star teammates fell off a cliff late:
• Garnett shot 54.2 percent in the first three quarters of games this season, with virtually no variation by quarter. In the fourth? He shot 43.7 percent.
• Pierce shot 49.8 percent in first halves this year, but declined to 45.7 percent in the third and 42.9 percent in the fourth. He also plummeted to 74.2 percent from the stripe in fourth quarters.
• Allen's splits weren't quite as extreme, but he shot 34.1 percent on 3s in the second half compared to 38.9 percent in first halves.
That's across 59 games this season where the C's lead by 12 or less after 3 quarters (i.e. not scrub time.) We're going to blame this all on Rondo? Anyways even if it is Rondo, the other three guys have to step up and stop things in the fourth.
In terms of tonight - at half time I felt like we could have been up 25 with all the little mistakes, no biggy. They looked great and in the postseason I'm glad to get the win.
I'm not saying it's ALL or Rondo, and the season doesn't mean much to me. I'm talking mainly about the last 3 postseasons more than anything.
Pace is such a big thing for this team, that when it's not there EVERYONE suffers, and that includes our big 3. Also, for all of those that complain about Pierce in the 4th, well I say that it's Rondo's job to say NO to him when he's not on. Rondo runs the offense he pretty much has the say so of through whom they'll play through, as such the play calling isn't there, they stop looking for KG at the post, etc.
The point of the matter is that Rondo since the playoffs in 2008 has been given a huge responsibility over our offense, and just as he gets a ton of the credit when it's going good, he should get the brunt of the blame when it's not going.
I'll agree that there are times when our guys simply aren't hitting shots, but to me that's secondary to the offense actually doing what it should whether they make a basket or not, and that's mostly on Rondo.
So while I also get angry at Pierce when he's not playing well, and still dominating the ball in the 4th, I get angrier at Rondo for simply not doing his job and just say "no" to Pierce and go in another direction.
