Most used playoff lineups

[The Walker Wiggle]

Neil Paine of basketball-reference.com evaluates the four remaining playoff teams' most frequently used lineups.

The Celts have the potential for some truly bad lineup combinations, but Rivers apparently knows this, because his old standby of Rondo-Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins (+6.04) was one of the most oft-used (and effective) lineups in the league during the regular season. In fact, for all the talk about Celtic slippage, that unit was only slightly less dominant than it had been in 2007-08... it was just the other lineups that were largely responsible for the team's decline. Which makes the C's playoff run more explicable: Rivers has simply cut away the ineffective combinations. Some clearly still needed pruning in the playoffs - Rondo-T.Allen-R.Allen-Davis-Wallace (-18.46) and Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Davis-Wallace (-13.15), for instance - but Rivers' most frequent lineups over the past 10 games have all been positive except Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace (-9.06), a group that simply doesn't work well together (-6.40 in regular-season).

Here are the Celtics top 6 most used lineups.

Unit	Adj +/-	Min	ORtg	DRtg	Net Rtg
Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins	6.04	270.27	108.56	103.48	5.09
Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Davis	5.37	67.33	106.40	93.55	12.85
Rondo-T.Allen-Pierce-Davis-Wallace	12.98	44.53	106.49	103.66	2.83
Rondo-T.Allen-R.Allen-Davis-Wallace	-18.46	42.55	97.50	110.84	-13.34
Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Davis-Perkins	13.15	31.40	126.23	67.80	58.43
Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace	-9.06	27.92	111.54	109.80	1.73

First argument would seem to be for less Wallace (surprise, hrm...) and more of Glen Davis with four starters.

And here's what Paine has to say about our opponents:

The Magic like to play with a lot of different combinations outside of their Nelson-Carter-Barnes-Lewis-Howard (+10.22) core, but some need to fall by the wayside. Williams-Redick-Pietrus-Lewis-Howard (-17.36) has been horrible even during the Magic's 8-0 playoff start, as has Nelson-Carter-Redick-Lewis-Howard (-11.96) - although the latter has played better in recent games, and Redick has had Orlando's best raw +/- mark vs. Boston. Boston has largely played well against the Magic starters and have even neutralized the vaunted Gortat lineups (Gortat had a +13.73 APM during the regular season), so there isn't much Van Gundy can do beyond what he's been trying so far, but he might want to swap Redick (positive +/- in every Celtics matchup except game 3) for Barnes, who's been negative in every game of the Boston series (he was even -8 in Orlando's win on Monday).

[CelticSooner]

I thought this lineup would be pretty good

Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace

You would think it would spread the floor very well and let Rondo do his thing.

[PosImpos]

I thought this lineup would be pretty good

Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace

You would think it would spread the floor very well and let Rondo do his thing.

It's bad because neither KG nor Wallace hang out under the basket much to secure rebounds.  When Davis or Perk are in the game we have somebody anchoring us (at least somewhat) down low. 

[Who]

I thought this lineup would be pretty good

Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace

You would think it would spread the floor very well and let Rondo do his thing.

It only played 28 minutes during the entire playoffs.

I wouldn't pay any attention to the numbers for this lineup.

[The Walker Wiggle]

I thought this lineup would be pretty good

Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace

You would think it would spread the floor very well and let Rondo do his thing.

It only played 28 minutes during the entire playoffs.

I wouldn't pay any attention to the numbers for this lineup.

Except that same lineup was also a net negative during 180+ regular season minutes. It was, in fact, the worst of any lineup Doc used regularly.

[Who]

I thought this lineup would be pretty good

Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Wallace

You would think it would spread the floor very well and let Rondo do his thing.

It only played 28 minutes during the entire playoffs.

I wouldn't pay any attention to the numbers for this lineup.

Except that same lineup was also a net negative during 180+ regular season minutes. It was, in fact, the worst of any lineup Doc used regularly.

You are right, not thinking clearly ... although, I do think that lineup got most of it's minutes late in the year with the team struggling. I thought it had only 70 minutes or so at midseason.

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It should be avoided when playing against opposition lineups with good rebounding (three below average rebounders at SG, SF and C) and against teams with athletic big men (Wallace liability defensively against quickness).

I think the Rasheed + other starters lineup does well when used against teams with ... poor pick and roll defense (space the floor and let Rondo and Pierce do their thing) + against teams with a slow footed interior player that Wallace can check effectively + poor rebounding teams.

I think if you ran those numbers against teams with those type of characteristics exclusively you'd find that the lineup was useful in those situations.

This is one of the issues I have with that lineup data. It doesn't tell you what types of lineups they were playing against.