Are we really better w/o Rondo or will his return vault us back to eliteness?

[j804]

I'll let the captain respond to you.......

[2short]

Odd season for the team so far.  Beginning of year, pp injured/no training camp and kg looked old.  Ray & Rondo were possibly the best backcourt in nba.  Anyone notice bradley's bad turnovers or lack of offensive knowledge, moore making the offense at times look stagnant or pierce's turnovers affecting the game?  rondo will make us better of course
I think its been great to get minutes for the 2 young guys who will help us.  I wonder where dooling fits in when he gets back?
With our subs we can always have 1 hall of famer or rondo on the court at all times.  Last night we saw a lineup of moore, wilcox, bass, pietrus and sasha i think.  Take any of those guys out and put in ray, paul, kg or rajon things change immediately.
We haven't had our whole team healthy at the same time yet.  I personally think we are only rebounding away from being very very good.  KG's foot speed seems to be back to pre injury or the best I've seen since.  I hope rondo will play all out knowing we can give him a breather with moore or bradley.  A double defensive dosing of rondo then bradley would give team's fits.
starting lineup coming soon:
rondo, ray, paul, kg and bass
that is a strong lineup, get jermaine healthy and really ready to play then see if he can help

[CelticsFanNC]

  Suggesting we're better off without Rondo is silly.  We've been beating the worst teams in the NBA without Rondo sometimes just barely.   We cannot beat the elite teams of the NBA without Rondo.

  Apologies to Paul Pierce but Rondo is the only guy on this team who can consistently break down defenses and get guys good looks.  Pierce can still do that but I don't believe he can consistently do so against the best defenses the NBA has to offer. 

[Dante]

Were we an "elite" team before Rondo went done this last time? Nice to know. I thought we were a "run of the mill" team. O guess it doesnt take at least a  winning record anymore to be an "elite" team in the NBA.

[Celtics4ever]

Rondo is twice the player that Bradley is and it isn't even close.   Bradley almost doesn't put up the numbers that Moore does in twice the playing time.   Why guys are so high on him is beyond me.  His D looked pretty sub par in the CLE games against Irving.  We both lost late leads with him at the PG spot and guarding Irving.   I guess the grass is always greener to some folks

I think Bradley has a definite place in this league as a defensive specialist.  But some folks think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that is not true.

[Celtics18]

We now have the two best defensive point guards in the league.  That's scary.

[CelticsFanNC]

  Avery is a good defender and is finding his NBA niche' but he isn't a floor general/facilitator and may never be one.

[SHAQATTACK]

Ray Allen is a great player, but he needs to come off the Bench with BASS .  I would start Moore and Rondo..... Moore is getting better so fast . 

AB and Moore are a powerpack of energy, they compliment each other VERY VERY VERY well.  AB works the inside looking for points and Moore the outside, and neither are afraid of going inside and screwing with the big guys (cheat them out of a bucket)

I think the Problem is Ray Allen.  He still shoots well, but its time he came off the bench ..to do just this ...be a Steve Kerr .......we need the energy or Moore and AB out there

FROM THE START of the game. !!! Putting AB and ROndo out at the same time is not so good.   Moore and ROndo or Moore and AB need to be playing all the time . With Ray Allen comming in provide points at times the offense struggles.

[BballTim]

Okay we have an 8 game sample now w/o Rondo; that's 12% of the season this year.  We've gone 6-2 and really deserved to be 7-1.  That one loss to PHO was the very first game w/o Rondo and clearly the kids were not ready to step in yet.  We've beat our first quality opponents during this stretch as well.

We are scoring points and playing good defense; but the rebounding is still suspect.  Now on offense, teams just zone off Rondo.  On defense Rondo gambles too much and it can collapse our D at times.  But at the same time Rondo brings a lot to the table.

Now we're playing the way most people thought this team would play like this year; not exactly a top level contender, but just outside of that and probably a 3-4 seed in the conference.  But all w/o Rondo.

So with a healthy Rondo back in tow, are we going back to mediocrity or this team going to make some noise? 

  That's really what you see when you watch the games? You haven't noticed any improvement in KG and PP since they're getting healthier/into better shape? Wow.

[BballTim]

When Rondo is ready, he will be back in there as he should be but I hope he is really watching what is going on.  Even though Bradley is not the player that Rondo is, the offence has look very different.  Rondo dribbles too much and is always waiting and trying to make the perfect pass (get the assist).  Bradley just makes a safe pass to keep the ball moving.

The result has been that without Rondo, the ball is moving more on offense.  Every one is touching it (no one person is trying to control it as Rondo does) and we are ending up with much more consistent possessions.  We are scoring more points without Rondo.

Pay attention Rondo.

  Unless the last couple of games have really skewed things, we were probably scoring more with Rondo playing than we have since, in spite of the fact that KG and PP were playing very poorly on the offensive end before Rondo was hurt.

  In fact, from 82games, as of Jan 29th we score just over 13 more points per 100 possessions with Rondo playing than out of the game. We have a higher fg% and a higher percentage of our baskets assisted as well, despite the number of players that were playing poorly and despite the fact that most of our games without Rondo haven't been against good defensive teams.

[Moranis]

When Rondo is ready, he will be back in there as he should be but I hope he is really watching what is going on.  Even though Bradley is not the player that Rondo is, the offence has look very different.  Rondo dribbles too much and is always waiting and trying to make the perfect pass (get the assist).  Bradley just makes a safe pass to keep the ball moving.

The result has been that without Rondo, the ball is moving more on offense.  Every one is touching it (no one person is trying to control it as Rondo does) and we are ending up with much more consistent possessions.  We are scoring more points without Rondo.

Pay attention Rondo.

  Unless the last couple of games have really skewed things, we were probably scoring more with Rondo playing than we have since, in spite of the fact that KG and PP were playing very poorly on the offensive end before Rondo was hurt.

  In fact, from 82games, as of Jan 29th we score just over 13 more points per 100 possessions with Rondo playing than out of the game. We have a higher fg% and a higher percentage of our baskets assisted as well, despite the number of players that were playing poorly and despite the fact that most of our games without Rondo haven't been against good defensive teams.

just to play devil's advocate, maybe they were playing poorly because they were playing with Rondo

[BballTim]

When Rondo is ready, he will be back in there as he should be but I hope he is really watching what is going on.  Even though Bradley is not the player that Rondo is, the offence has look very different.  Rondo dribbles too much and is always waiting and trying to make the perfect pass (get the assist).  Bradley just makes a safe pass to keep the ball moving.

The result has been that without Rondo, the ball is moving more on offense.  Every one is touching it (no one person is trying to control it as Rondo does) and we are ending up with much more consistent possessions.  We are scoring more points without Rondo.

Pay attention Rondo.

I agree with you. Ball movement has been a huge huge part of this run we've had...

But to play devil's advocate a little...Isnt Pierce playing the role of being the guy dominating the ball? He has had the ball in his hand A LOT during our offensive possessions, kind of filling it what Rondo was doing anyway.

  Our offense has been worse during our run, the defense has been much better since some of the players (especially PP and KG) get into shape and the newer players are learning the system.

[bfrombleacher]

AB and Moore are a powerpack of energy, they compliment each other VERY VERY VERY well.

Well said.

But I don't think either of them should start. As many have said before, starting is just that. Starting the game. You can play starters less minutes.

I agree completely though. The starting lineup needed energy and Avery provided that. I think of Moore as the catalyst. They feed off each other. The old guys are the nonreactive elements that need Avery to create colorful sparks.

Together, chemistry.

[BballTim]

I'd say we are definitely better off with Rondo around. Watching the Cleveland games proved that for two reasons:

1) The opposing PG doesn't need to concern himself with defending Avery Bradley. Irving and other elite PGs are going to light us up late in the game if they don't have to worry about the PG spot being a factor offensively.

2) Pierce looked completely gassed at the end of both games. With the PG spot being so weak, he's forced into a point forward role. For a guy we rely on late in games to score points, that's not good.

If we were talking about almost any other PG in the league, I'd understand this argument, but with Rondo I dont think it makes sense.  Opposing PGs DONT need to concern themselves with defending Rondo.  He scores all his points in transition, and off cuts (very similar to Bradley). 

  Rondo's scored roughly a third of his baskets in transition and on cuts. People give Rondo more space when he's on the outside to prevent his penetration, but it's far from true that they don't concern themselves with guarding him.

[BballTim]

When Rondo is ready, he will be back in there as he should be but I hope he is really watching what is going on.  Even though Bradley is not the player that Rondo is, the offence has look very different.  Rondo dribbles too much and is always waiting and trying to make the perfect pass (get the assist).  Bradley just makes a safe pass to keep the ball moving.

The result has been that without Rondo, the ball is moving more on offense.  Every one is touching it (no one person is trying to control it as Rondo does) and we are ending up with much more consistent possessions.  We are scoring more points without Rondo.

Pay attention Rondo.

  Unless the last couple of games have really skewed things, we were probably scoring more with Rondo playing than we have since, in spite of the fact that KG and PP were playing very poorly on the offensive end before Rondo was hurt.

  In fact, from 82games, as of Jan 29th we score just over 13 more points per 100 possessions with Rondo playing than out of the game. We have a higher fg% and a higher percentage of our baskets assisted as well, despite the number of players that were playing poorly and despite the fact that most of our games without Rondo haven't been against good defensive teams.

just to play devil's advocate, maybe they were playing poorly because they were playing with Rondo

  If you watch the games, I can't believe that you haven't noticed an improvement in how PP and KG are moving around compared to earlier in the year, but I guess I shouldn't really be that surprised. But when Rondo was playing we were outscoring opponents by about 4 points a game when Rondo was in the game and getting outscored by about 22 a game when he was on the bench. So, I'd tend to disagree with your claim.