All of these things that I'm hearing, that rondo was back from his first game after an injury, is a very weak excuse, I feel.
This isn't some knee jerk reaction from what I witnessed in this last game, or from what I've witnessed this season. This goes all the way back to last season as well. Rondo has to go back to his strengths. He needs to tone it down a bit. Nobody is saying he can't be aggressive, nobody is saying he can't make a fancy pass or two, but let the game come to you, and stop trying so hard to force things.
It really seems to me that he has bought into the whole "Rajon Rondo is the best player on the Boston Celtics" hype. It isn't true. It has never been true. Was there a stretch where he stepped up almost more than anyone in the playoffs to lead the team to victories? Yes, there was, but the way this Celtics offense is being run is hurting the team's offensive options. Our defense is not really our problem. I notice that Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Pietrus, and even Bass, move around a whole lot more, and are just more fluid in how they run the offense when Rondo isn't in there.
With Rondo running the offense as he does now, the Celtics are predictable. Too predictable. When Rondo is there, the team plays not to score points, but to get Rondo's assists numbers up. Believe me, there is a difference between the two.
It limits our offense to, unless it's an immediate 2 or 3 points off of a rajon rondo pass, then we don't know we aren't interested. It makes it so that much fewer players on the defensive end have to work, because who gets and dominates the ball is so predictable. When Rondo isn't there, you see all kinds of movement going on on the court, besides Ray running off screens, you see every defender on the court having to work harder against everybody celtic on offense because you just don't know who's going to get it, and once they get it, what they're going to do with it.
I'm a defender for the other team, know what I do while Rondo is handling the ball? I just make sure that I'm up on my guy, while keeping an eye on rondo, to make sure that when he dishes the pass, often times later in the shot clock than an offensive team would prefer, that I'm up on the guy so he can't get a quick shot off, or possibly call for a bit of help defense, to force the guy to give it up. And when they give it up, where do I want them to pass it? Right back to rondo because you don't have to worry nearly as much about rondo's offense outside of the paint. At least with bradley, he's far more of an unknown quantity, and they don't know what the heck to expect when he's handling it.
Rondo, if he went back to playing the much more simpler style that he use to, it would benefit our offense greatly. And he could break up the action, or keep the other team guessing by mixing in his new aggressiveness where necessary, or when the team would least expect it. When teams start seeing Rondo hold onto the ball less, that's where his strengths that really begin to come alive.
Rondo should be giving the ball up sooner in the shot clock, and moving to all sorts of positions on the court. Come on, confuse the defense a bit, bother them a bit, Rondo should give it up soon, and then move away from the range of the guy with the ball, and go to a different spot, which inevitably causes other offensive players to play the role of the guy who bails out the person with the ball by having them pass it back to them, and if things really get sticky, then rondo comes to get the ball. Just like this, we have far more movement going on, and defenses are a lot less certain of what we're doing. Can you imagine the danger of ray running off screens while rondo, without the ball, is pushing further into the defense, or on the baseline, or going in the paint, and setting screens, too? And don't say rondo isn't big enough to set a screen. He doesn't need to be shaq or perkins, he just needs to get in the other guy's way.
The added benefit of this is then teams are a lot less certain of what the celtics are doing, and it even at times will open rondo up on the baseline for a occasional jumper. I've seen rondo do this already this season, and in each case, it worked fantastically. I wish I had the time to dedicate to showing the success rate of the celtics offense every single time this was done this season. They literally score about 75% of the time.
Topic: Hate to say it, but Rondo, I feel, hurting Celtics' offensive options, bigtime. (Read 22148 times)