this is a case of Doc poorly managing minutes against the heat

[cman88]

doc definitely overplayed our starters last night trying to pull out a win in miami, and unfortunately it lead to the team being exhausted out there and not being able to get anything done...

it was a gamble and he lost. but like I said, beating miami would be nice, but statistically a win against miami or a sub .50 team is the same

theres nothing I really take away from this loss other than our starters looked gassed, and our bench isnt a cohesive unit yet...for old teams like the celtics, mavs, lakers its goign to take a few games to get into the groove of things and get those nba legs back.

lets get a W friday night

[BudweiserCeltic]

No ball movement plain and simple. There are no bodies moving, the PGs are doing a poor job running the offense, waiting until there are 10 seconds left on the shot clock to start trying to do something. How about we start moving the ball to the open man? We've had plenty of players throughout the whole game open in the perimeter, while they were packing the middle.

[guava_wrench]

No reason to think that things would have played out any differently. We were bad from early on.

[theswitch]

Pretty clear that he cooked us by playing a ton of minutes in the NYC and MIA games. I can't say I blame him though, we were so close in both and winning either one would have been huge. Unfortunately, it didn't work out but we've got one game in the next three days so should be a chance to rest a bit.

[cman88]

No reason to think that things would have played out any differently. We were bad from early on.

against the Hornets? or the season? because I think better managing minutes when the heat were up 17instead of expending energy to mount a comeback wouldve put us in a better position to win tonight.

for the season, I thought we looked pretty good against the Knicks/heat once we found our bearings but werent able to ppull those out

in this condensed season Doc is goign to have to better manage the big 4's minutes if he wants to avoid games like tonight

[CelticSooner]

No reason to think that things would have played out any differently. We were bad from early on.

against the Hornets? or the season? because I think better managing minutes when the heat were up 17instead of expending energy to mount a comeback wouldve put us in a better position to win tonight.

for the season, I thought we looked pretty good against the Knicks/heat once we found our bearings but werent able to ppull those out

in this condensed season Doc is goign to have to better manage the big 4's minutes if he wants to avoid games like tonight

I agree. There's gonna be a lot of losses because of this though. We may be talking about fighting to finish as a 6th or 7th seed.

[PosImpos]

No ball movement plain and simple. There are no bodies moving, the PGs are doing a poor job running the offense, waiting until there are 10 seconds left on the shot clock to start trying to do something. How about we start moving the ball to the open man? We've had plenty of players throughout the whole game open in the perimeter, while they were packing the middle.

yeah, the team looks lost on offense and they look like they're just making it up as they go on defense, getting defensive plays through sheer reflexes and timing.

that sort of basketball works for teams like the Knicks, Heat, Hawks etc, but not for the C's.

[PosImpos]

We may be talking about fighting to finish as a 6th or 7th seed.

Yep.  Just do the math.  Roughly 25 out of the 66 games are on the second night of a back-to-back or the third game in four nights.  

Figure the team wins about 1/4 of those games.  That's 6-8 wins.  Then figure the team wins something like 2/3 of the remaining 41 games.  That's 27-28 wins.  


So I think we're probably looking at something like a 33-36 win season, which is equivalent to 41-45 wins.  So yeah, 6th or 7th seed sounds right.

[jdz101]

if you cannot play 30ish minutes of basketball two nights in a row you should not be a professional athlete. Im sick of the back to back tiredness that this team serves up. If you're too old to do it, retire. Enough is enough.

[cman88]

if you cannot play 30ish minutes of basketball two nights in a row you should not be a professional athlete. Im sick of the back to back tiredness that this team serves up. If you're too old to do it, retire. Enough is enough.

the problem is, our starts played alot more than 30ish minutes...more like playoff 40minutes last night

I still think we end up #4 in the east...

[jdz101]

if you cannot play 30ish minutes of basketball two nights in a row you should not be a professional athlete. Im sick of the back to back tiredness that this team serves up. If you're too old to do it, retire. Enough is enough.

the problem is, our starts played alot more than 30ish minutes...more like playoff 40minutes last night

I still think we end up #4 in the east...

Point still stands. Its not like its a constant 40 minutes of exercise. There are time-outs, subs, free throws and referrals in between game time. If you are too old or too unfit to deal with the travel and playing a game for 80 minutes in two nights, let someone else have a go whos willing to put in.

[cman88]

if you cannot play 30ish minutes of basketball two nights in a row you should not be a professional athlete. Im sick of the back to back tiredness that this team serves up. If you're too old to do it, retire. Enough is enough.

the problem is, our starts played alot more than 30ish minutes...more like playoff 40minutes last night

I still think we end up #4 in the east...

Point still stands. Its not like its a constant 40 minutes of exercise. There are time-outs, subs, free throws and referrals in between game time. If you are too old or too unfit to deal with the travel and playing a game for 80 minutes in two nights, let someone else have a go whos willing to put in.

I just think its a rediculous way to look at it...so, get rid of all older teams/players?? generally most older teams struggle on the 2nd night of  back to backs.

Doc needs to play his starters 30minutes on the first night of a back to back to at least preserve them for the 2nd night.

[jdz101]

if you cannot play 30ish minutes of basketball two nights in a row you should not be a professional athlete. Im sick of the back to back tiredness that this team serves up. If you're too old to do it, retire. Enough is enough.

the problem is, our starts played alot more than 30ish minutes...more like playoff 40minutes last night

I still think we end up #4 in the east...

Point still stands. Its not like its a constant 40 minutes of exercise. There are time-outs, subs, free throws and referrals in between game time. If you are too old or too unfit to deal with the travel and playing a game for 80 minutes in two nights, let someone else have a go whos willing to put in.

I just think its a rediculous way to look at it...so, get rid of all older teams/players?? generally most older teams struggle on the 2nd night of  back to backs.

Doc needs to play his starters 30minutes on the first night of a back to back to at least preserve them for the 2nd night.

Im not saying get rid of everyone that isn't young or super fit as that would ruin the whole fabric of the NBA. I also understand the nature of the start of this year and that guys will not be at peak performance due to the lockout and small preseason.

However, the notion or the "excuse" that some people have on here and in the media that the celtics will always play poorly on back to back games because they're old and tired from playing 35 - 40 minutes the night before is ridiculous.

If as a player you cannot deal with a situation like that and you are still accepting millions of dollars to entertain fans who have paid good money and put up with a royal f**k up of a lockout, then its time for you to go.

We're very lucky that new orleans are a shambles. If we served that up against a good team it would've been 45 points.

[pearljammer10]

so give up a big game against the heat to try and maybe get a non guaranteed win against NO?

No.

[Celtics4ever]

I think Pietrus and PP will help a lot in this regard.   Ray and Rondo I don't worry too much about as both are in good shape.  But just having those two will add scoring pop to both the bench and starting lineup.  The main reason we have to play our studs is we lacking scoring options without them.