Rondo is the Problem

[StartOrien]

This is a huge part of the problem. Just because of Rondo's miraculous performance in the playoffs last year, the Celtics have effectively allowed the sports media, who all say that Rondo is the team's best player, to define the strategy and playstyle of the Boston Celtics, and it's absolutely ridiculous.

I disagree with your point almost entirely.

Last year was the second straight year that Rondo played exceptional in the playoffs nearly averaging a triple double against the Bulls. He does an excellent job of exploiting matchups against poor defensive players.

That's what was so dissapointing about yesterday. The team was asking him to do what he does best - exploit a matchup that he should have no problem exploiting: Mike Bibby is so defense that you could argue that he doesn't belong in the NBA despite being an exceptional 3 pt shooter and average ball handler.

Any starting PG in the league should be able to exploit him, and Rondo wasn't even able to sniff his per game averages

[GreenEnvy]

This is a huge part of the problem. Just because of Rondo's miraculous performance in the playoffs last year, the Celtics have effectively allowed the sports media, who all say that Rondo is the team's best player, to define the strategy and playstyle of the Boston Celtics, and it's absolutely ridiculous.

I disagree with your point almost entirely.

Last year was the second straight year that Rondo played exceptional in the playoffs nearly averaging a triple double against the Bulls. He does an excellent job of exploiting matchups against poor defensive players.

That's what was so dissapointing about yesterday. The team was asking him to do what he does best - exploit a matchup that he should have no problem exploiting: Mike Bibby is so defense that you could argue that he doesn't belong in the NBA despite being an exceptional 3 pt shooter and average ball handler.

Any starting PG in the league should be able to exploit him, and Rondo wasn't even able to sniff his per game averages

But he doesn't exploit inferior players, at least not nearly enough.

The offense has been atrocious because of him. The Big Three can only do so much with the defense sagging off him often. When he isn't on, not only does he not help the Big Three, he hurts them. They'd be better of with West who can make shots and find open men.

Then their is his defense. He makes Rose look like a shorter Jordan.

Even if he starts tearing it up in the playoffs, a 25-year-old "leader" shouldn't get a pass for coasting through the last trimester of the regular season. He isn't a HoF veteran.

[pjbigshow]

It's so frustrating watching the Bulls vs the C's cause you look at D Rose, and how he has improved and worked on his game, especially his jump shot and you can't help but wonder why Rondo hasn't been able to elevate his game to that level?!?! They say he works on his jumper in the offseason but it's never shown. He's so worried about his free throw shooting he won't attack the basket like D Rose either although I think he could be just as effective. What is it?? Work ethic or just lack of talent??

[StartOrien]

But he doesn't exploit inferior players, at least not nearly enough.

I dunno about that; he murdered Mo Williams last year and had his way w/ Jameer Nelson who's pretty terrible on defense - the same w/ Derek Rose the year before.

[BballTim]

This is a huge part of the problem. Just because of Rondo's miraculous performance in the playoffs last year, the Celtics have effectively allowed the sports media, who all say that Rondo is the team's best player, to define the strategy and playstyle of the Boston Celtics, and it's absolutely ridiculous.

I disagree with your point almost entirely.

Last year was the second straight year that Rondo played exceptional in the playoffs nearly averaging a triple double against the Bulls. He does an excellent job of exploiting matchups against poor defensive players.

That's what was so dissapointing about yesterday. The team was asking him to do what he does best - exploit a matchup that he should have no problem exploiting: Mike Bibby is so defense that you could argue that he doesn't belong in the NBA despite being an exceptional 3 pt shooter and average ball handler.

Any starting PG in the league should be able to exploit him, and Rondo wasn't even able to sniff his per game averages

But he doesn't exploit inferior players, at least not nearly enough.

The offense has been atrocious because of him. The Big Three can only do so much with the defense sagging off him often. When he isn't on, not only does he not help the Big Three, he hurts them. They'd be better of with West who can make shots and find open men.

Then their is his defense. He makes Rose look like a shorter Jordan.

Even if he starts tearing it up in the playoffs, a 25-year-old "leader" shouldn't get a pass for coasting through the last trimester of the regular season. He isn't a HoF veteran.

  First of all West has been doing a pretty poor job of running the offense, not too much better than Nate lately. Secondly, Rondo's at worst one of the best and arguably the best defensive pg in the league. He got beat a couple of times by Rose but kept him in check pretty well in the half court, much better than we did when he was out of the game.

[Capricious]

Lack of solid screens hurt, but ray is too hesitant even when he has space.  Its difficult to remember the last time he cut hard off the screen and quickly rose up to shoot like we were used to seeing.

[Mr October]

Rondo is definitely partly to blame. He is the engine on offense.

When Rondo plays at coasting speed he is a very average point guard. In order to play to the level of his all star title and paycheck, he needs to bring energy and speed into each game.

I loved watching him take it to another level against SAN a couple weeks ago. He still has it. Perhaps he just needs to play in blocks of time to allow him to pour the energy out.

[Senninsage]

Listen, I'm not saying Rondo isn't important to the Celtics team, he is.

However, from what I see and read out there, I've come to the conclusion that I see a team that is looking for an excuse to quit, and are cleverly pinning it on Rondo needing to be big for them. RUBBISH!

They don't strike me as anywhere near stubborn as they were at the start of this season, when you could literally tell they didn't want to give the Miami Heat any good press by allowing them to get a win on them. I'm not disappointed that the Celtics lost to the Heat, I'm disappointed with HOW the Celtics lost to the Heat.

I'm not disappointed that the Celtics lost to the Bulls, I'm disappoint with HOW the Celtics lost to the Bulls.

They, the Big three, need to be the very thing that got people so excited in the first place, when they all came together on the same team. Rondo's contributions should be the under the radar bonuses. We can't ask so much of Rajon Rondo. We simply can't. If he does great, then fantastic, but this team of superstars and future hall of famers, is using some young point guard with a jump shot you have to pray at least looks like it could have went in, who shoots about 50% from the free throw line, and sometimes, too many times lately, makes questionable decisions on the court, to be the anchor for their whole offensive execution.

It's a team looking for a bailout if I ever saw one. The big three don't seem like they want the monumental responsibility of doing what they were expected to do for the team. I'm not saying that they don't care, or that they aren't trying, but the degree to which they are praying that Rondo somehow does something miraculous to save them, is hurting the team. We got away with it a lot of times this season, but now teams have paid attention, and are now actually deciding to do something about it.

They see that, even when things are working for us, we make Rondo hold onto the ball sometimes a really excessive amount, waiting for him to spoon feed someone into making a basket, when we have talent plenty capable of catching the ball, and doing something with it. These other teams we play, they do their darndest for about 5 seconds in the shot clock to deny us the passes that Rondo likes to make, but they don't so much deny the passes that go back to Rondo.

THAT is the gameplan these teams are using. They want rondo to be the one to have the ball and orchestrating our offense. They want him to have the ball so much that they are going underneath every screen set for Rondo. Aa long as they deny Rondo ridiculous levels of penetration, and keep denying the easy passes for about 5 seconds out of the shot clock, they are golden.

[BballTim]

They, the Big three, need to be the very thing that got people so excited in the first place, when they all came together on the same team. Rondo's contributions should be the under the radar bonuses. We can't ask so much of Rajon Rondo. We simply can't. If he does great, then fantastic, but this team of superstars and future hall of famers, is using some young point guard with a jump shot you have to pray at least looks like it could have went in, who shoots about 50% from the free throw line, and sometimes, too many times lately, makes questionable decisions on the court, to be the anchor for their whole offensive execution.

  You're living in the past. Ray and Paul and KG aren't the players they were 3 years ago. Calling them future hall of famers is pretty much meaningless. Shaq's a future hall of famer. That doesn't mean that he's playing like a HOF player in his prime. Same for the big three. The dynamic of the team has shifted over the last year or two.

[winsomme]

They, the Big three, need to be the very thing that got people so excited in the first place, when they all came together on the same team. Rondo's contributions should be the under the radar bonuses. We can't ask so much of Rajon Rondo. We simply can't. If he does great, then fantastic, but this team of superstars and future hall of famers, is using some young point guard with a jump shot you have to pray at least looks like it could have went in, who shoots about 50% from the free throw line, and sometimes, too many times lately, makes questionable decisions on the court, to be the anchor for their whole offensive execution.

  You're living in the past. Ray and Paul and KG aren't the players they were 3 years ago. Calling them future hall of famers is pretty much meaningless. Shaq's a future hall of famer. That doesn't mean that he's playing like a HOF player in his prime. Same for the big three. The dynamic of the team has shifted over the last year or two.

I'd say they're better as a collective this year than they were last year...

[BballTim]

They, the Big three, need to be the very thing that got people so excited in the first place, when they all came together on the same team. Rondo's contributions should be the under the radar bonuses. We can't ask so much of Rajon Rondo. We simply can't. If he does great, then fantastic, but this team of superstars and future hall of famers, is using some young point guard with a jump shot you have to pray at least looks like it could have went in, who shoots about 50% from the free throw line, and sometimes, too many times lately, makes questionable decisions on the court, to be the anchor for their whole offensive execution.

  You're living in the past. Ray and Paul and KG aren't the players they were 3 years ago. Calling them future hall of famers is pretty much meaningless. Shaq's a future hall of famer. That doesn't mean that he's playing like a HOF player in his prime. Same for the big three. The dynamic of the team has shifted over the last year or two.

I'd say they're better as a collective this year than they were last year...

  Would you say that they're better as a collective than 2007-2008?

[ejk3489]

I think we have multiple problems.  Rondo, Doc, rebounding, the bench, etc.  First off Rondo sitting around for 10-12 seconds dribbling is ridiculous, but where does the blame lie there?  Sure some of it lies on Rondo, but Doc needs to be blamed for that as well.  Next, we haven't been getting any easy baskets as of late.  Sure we can say that's on Rondo too, but the first issue there is rebounding.  If we don't rebound, we can't get into the transition which is one of Rondo's strengths.  We need to be able to get Rondo into the open floor so we can start getting some easy buckets.  We have guys who can run the floor, it's time to use them.  Jeff Green is a very athletic guy, let's get him at the 4 so he can beat his man up the floor.  Are we going to suffer on the defensive end? Absolutely, but right now we need to figure out ways to get the ball in the basket because we are doing a terrible job of scoring.

I agree with this. Doc alluded to the same thing:

"For us to establish a pace -- and that's one of the things Rondo was saying: 'How can you?'" Rivers told reporters. "They're shooting 51 percent, if they miss they get the rebound, and we're turning the ball over, so it really, I thought, affected [Rondo] the most."

I mean I'm not saying Rondo shouldn't get any of the blame, he's definitely part of the reason why we're playing badly. But when you're getting out rebounded by a ridiculous 42 to 26 and Mike Bibby has more rebounds than our two centers combined, that's a problem.

[CaliCeltics]

I say just pull the plug on Rondo for these last two days. Give him the time off, along with Ray, because these two need it. Whatever the outcome is, we have the three seed. Rest up, Rondo has shown that after rest he comes off strong.

[BballTim]

I think we have multiple problems.  Rondo, Doc, rebounding, the bench, etc.  First off Rondo sitting around for 10-12 seconds dribbling is ridiculous, but where does the blame lie there?  Sure some of it lies on Rondo, but Doc needs to be blamed for that as well.  Next, we haven't been getting any easy baskets as of late.  Sure we can say that's on Rondo too, but the first issue there is rebounding.  If we don't rebound, we can't get into the transition which is one of Rondo's strengths.  We need to be able to get Rondo into the open floor so we can start getting some easy buckets.  We have guys who can run the floor, it's time to use them.  Jeff Green is a very athletic guy, let's get him at the 4 so he can beat his man up the floor.  Are we going to suffer on the defensive end? Absolutely, but right now we need to figure out ways to get the ball in the basket because we are doing a terrible job of scoring.

I agree with this. Doc alluded to the same thing:

"For us to establish a pace -- and that's one of the things Rondo was saying: 'How can you?'" Rivers told reporters. "They're shooting 51 percent, if they miss they get the rebound, and we're turning the ball over, so it really, I thought, affected [Rondo] the most."

I mean I'm not saying Rondo shouldn't get any of the blame, he's definitely part of the reason why we're playing badly. But when you're getting out rebounded by a ridiculous 42 to 26 and Mike Bibby has more rebounds than our two centers combined, that's a problem.

  Doc also mentioned that the rest of the team isn't looking for Rondo right away after they *do* get a rebound and they aren't running up the court so when Rondo pushes the ball up he's alone.

[RedsCeltics34]

Lack of solid screens hurt, but ray is too hesitant even when he has space.  Its difficult to remember the last time he cut hard off the screen and quickly rose up to shoot like we were used to seeing.

EXACTLY MAN!!! Thats what I said, I said A LOT of Rays struggles have been mentally because believe it or not he HAS been getting open looks, he just DOESNT SHOOT, He pumpfakes so much now, ive never seen him utilize the pump fake so much.