Good win last night, but I'm with Jeff...

[Yogi]

Win or loss, both Lebron and Rondo received criticism because they both did not play to their natural capabilities.

Despite producing big numbers, both players did not play up to their standards.

This. I don't care what anyone says, no one can critique Rondo here, it's like if you don't call RR God, people will lay into you! Rondo was asleep out there most of the game!! I'm not saying it's the worse trib dub b/c frankly I could care less that he got one... if we didn't win, people would be more honest about his triple double! We win and all of a sudden his stats at the end say he had an amazing game. Watch the game, not the stats... if you look at the game and not pay attention to stats or the commentators, at the end you probably wouldn't think he had one... you'd say he had a great 4th Q but other than that you'd probably be shocked! Most every time they mic up Doc, he is in the huddle upset we are just walking the ball up and getting into sets too late! When we play better, second halves, what is ALWAYS the difference? We pick up our pace/effort! No RR can't be great every game and every quarter but if he didn't play so lackadaisical for most of the game we wouldn't have to have so many come-backs and late game rally's! More effort throughout the game is all I want... he is the leader (so I hear)!

Lackadaisical 12 rebounds for a 6ft guard, lackadaisical 4 steals with a huge Triple double?  Rondo can and should be criticized when he deserves it.  For the last couple of months he added several pages to the history books AND KEEPS WINNING.  Support your own teams and players!

[BballTim]

Win or loss, both Lebron and Rondo received criticism because they both did not play to their natural capabilities.

Despite producing big numbers, both players did not play up to their standards.

  That's nonsense. On any given night, the league is littered with players who don't play up to their natural capabilities, including players like KG, Pierce, CP3, Deron, Dirk and the like. Only a select few get a high level of criticism when it happens. On top of that, Rondo shoulders the blame when the other players on the team play poorly.

[thestackshow]

You know you are a superstar when you have a game like that and some people are disappointed in the effort.

[LarBrd33]

I'm sorry I didn't see this disinterested thing in the first half. I saw an entire team except KG come out flat. I saw Rondo making passes and everyone missing. I then saw him trying too hard to get his team the best passes possible and causing turnovers because of them.

Yeah I saw some bonehead plays to but everyone has them. Every game.

Philly came out with energy as a team. Boston came out flat as a team. Boston's best scorer was awful. Boston's three point shooting was awful. And when that happens the opposition sits back making it tougher for Rondo to drive.

Its no coincidence that the middle didn't open up to Rondo until people started hitting outside shots.


BTW, to the OP...you are complaining that when the Celtics rebound so well they should win by more than one and say its Rondo's fault they didn't win by more than one but you also fail to admit that Rondo led the team in rebounds.

He had 17 assists and the Celtics shot the ball like crap most of the game.

How many PGs in the league can get 17 assists when their team shoots less than 40% for most of the game?

Nice post.  To add a little more perspective on that game, Rondo scored or assisted on 23 out of 36 Celtic made field goals.

Good find.  Rondo is pretty ingrained in the system.  Is there a stat somewhere that shows how many shot attempts the Celtics had that DIDN'T come off a Rondo assist opportunity?  In other words... how many times did the celtics shoot the ball without Rondo first passing it to them?  I couldn't believe the dude had 12 assists when the graphic flashed.  I must be missing something.  It's like this offense is set up where players exclusively take shots on Rondo assist opportunities.  It would be an interesting stat if it exists.  How may assist opportunities Rondo gets when compared to some of the other point guards out there. 

[thestackshow]

Rondo is the least of my worries to be honest.

Pierces knee, Allens ankle, and Brandon Bass jumpshot are far bigget concerns right now.

[BballTim]

I'm sorry I didn't see this disinterested thing in the first half. I saw an entire team except KG come out flat. I saw Rondo making passes and everyone missing. I then saw him trying too hard to get his team the best passes possible and causing turnovers because of them.

Yeah I saw some bonehead plays to but everyone has them. Every game.

Philly came out with energy as a team. Boston came out flat as a team. Boston's best scorer was awful. Boston's three point shooting was awful. And when that happens the opposition sits back making it tougher for Rondo to drive.

Its no coincidence that the middle didn't open up to Rondo until people started hitting outside shots.


BTW, to the OP...you are complaining that when the Celtics rebound so well they should win by more than one and say its Rondo's fault they didn't win by more than one but you also fail to admit that Rondo led the team in rebounds.

He had 17 assists and the Celtics shot the ball like crap most of the game.

How many PGs in the league can get 17 assists when their team shoots less than 40% for most of the game?

Nice post.  To add a little more perspective on that game, Rondo scored or assisted on 23 out of 36 Celtic made field goals.

Good find.  Rondo is pretty ingrained in the system.  Is there a stat somewhere that shows how many shot attempts the Celtics had that DIDN'T come off a Rondo assist opportunity?  In other words... how many times did the celtics shoot the ball without Rondo first passing it to them?  I couldn't believe the dude had 12 assists when the graphic flashed.  I must be missing something.  It's like this offense is set up where players exclusively take shots on Rondo assist opportunities.  It would be an interesting stat if it exists.  How may assist opportunities Rondo gets when compared to some of the other point guards out there.  

  If you figured out the averages (from that handy John Wall missed assist tracker), in an average game for the Celts they'd need 26 shots to make 17 baskets off of passes from Rondo. It was a bad shooting night overall, so figure 28 shots. Throw in the 6-15 Rondo shot and you're looking at 23-43 or so on shots from Rondo or his passes, 13-39 for shots that Rondo wasn't involved with. Again, that's an average based on past performance. I haven't seen that stat kept in general.

 Edit: From that missed assist tracker, we're more than 60% more likely to score off of a pass from Rondo than otherwise. When people talk about Rondo playing an awful game but getting a large amount of assists, consider that we're scoring off of those assists much more efficiently than we would otherwise. Rondo's still making a significant contriution to the team.

 People are talking about Rondo playing terrible but having 12 assists. Consider that, over the last 4 years in the playoffs, we're 13-4 when Rondo has 12 or more assists, 19-18 when he doesn't. You can argue that in some of those games he got a lot of assists because the team was shooting well, this game obviously wasn't one of them.

[RajonRondOWNED]

Rofl haters.

[ACF]

Rajon Rondo is tied for fifth all-time (with The Big O) at 8 playoff trip-dubs. Oscar had 8 in 14 years, Rajon's got 8 in six years. Magic leads with 30 in 13 campaigns. In comparison, LeBron James has 6 (six) in nine seasons. Kobe is not even on the list.

http://www.sportscity.com/nba/nba-all-time-triple-doubles-181/



I'll take a "bad" Rondo triple-double any day of the week and twice on Sundays. We usually win games where he gets the crazy numbers going. We're 1 and 0 now and Philly is 0 and 1 and that's really all that matters.

[myteamisbetterthanyours]

Rondo dropped a triple double and won us the game when everyone except KG was struggling... and you guys want to criticize him.. I'm done with this site.. seriously.. you guys are weirdos

[BballTim]

Rajon Rondo is tied for fifth all-time (with The Big O) at 8 playoff trip-dubs. Oscar had 8 in 14 years, Rajon's got 8 in six years. Magic leads with 30 in 13 campaigns. In comparison, LeBron James has 6 (six) in nine seasons. Kobe is not even on the list.

http://www.sportscity.com/nba/nba-all-time-triple-doubles-181/

  Just to put a point on how dominant Rondo's been in certain areas in the playoffs, since 2008-2009 he's got the top 4 games in the league in terms of most assists, 7 of the top 9 and 17 of the 41 games with 12 or more assists. For point guards in the playoffs over that period he has the 4 games with the most rebounds, 7 of the top 8 and 16 of the 28 games with 9 or more rebounds.

[wdleehi]

Rondo played three bad quarters for Rondo (because I have high expectations for him now)



Rondo player a really good 4th quarter that contributed to the Celtics taking control of the game. 





What this team could really use right now is for Rondo to come out next game with that 4th quarter level of play contribute to putting the 76ers away early so the older Celtics players can play closer to 36 minutes instead of 40 this next game. 


And I can say that because we know Rondo is capable of that. 

[Roy H.]

Rajon Rondo is tied for fifth all-time (with The Big O) at 8 playoff trip-dubs. Oscar had 8 in 14 years, Rajon's got 8 in six years. Magic leads with 30 in 13 campaigns. In comparison, LeBron James has 6 (six) in nine seasons. Kobe is not even on the list.

http://www.sportscity.com/nba/nba-all-time-triple-doubles-181/

I think this is why a lot of people -- myself including -- find the triple double emphasis to be a bit misguided.  Rondo has more triple doubles than Michael Jordan.  Does that suggest in any way that he was more impactful of a player?  Of course not.  Yet, when people see "triple double", they automatically assume a player had a dominant game.

Rondo has probably had 50 games where he was better than in Game 1.  He played pretty poorly for most of three quarters (3 points, 1-for-7, 6 turnovers).  However, because he reached some arbitrary statistical plateaus, people are talking almost like this was a historically great game.  It wasn't.  It was a great final 13 minutes, and that should be celebrated.  However, it would have been a great fourth quarter even if his final stat line didn't include the requisite 10-10-10.

I'll take KG's last two games over Rondo's last two triple-doubles.  Most importantly, though, each of those efforts came in a win, so the rest is just nit-picking.

[BballTim]

Rajon Rondo is tied for fifth all-time (with The Big O) at 8 playoff trip-dubs. Oscar had 8 in 14 years, Rajon's got 8 in six years. Magic leads with 30 in 13 campaigns. In comparison, LeBron James has 6 (six) in nine seasons. Kobe is not even on the list.

http://www.sportscity.com/nba/nba-all-time-triple-doubles-181/

I think this is why a lot of people -- myself including -- find the triple double emphasis to be a bit misguided.  Rondo has more triple doubles than Michael Jordan.  Does that suggest in any way that he was more impactful of a player?  Of course not.  Yet, when people see "triple double", they automatically assume a player had a dominant game.

  How many people are saying this makes Rondo better than Jordan? Plenty of players average more rebounds, assists or blocks than MJ. Does that imply that all of those players are more impactful than he was?

  It's easy to statistically show that someone's a top scorer or rebounder or passer. There's no "non-arbitrary" way to show that a player is very good at multiple categories. Over the last 5 playoffs Rondo's 3rd in AST%, first in Reb% for point guards, and he's the leader in DRtg and DWS for point guards to boot. All of those contributions matter, all of them help us win. Triple doubles don't measure that versatility, but they're representative of it.

Rondo has probably had 50 games where he was better than in Game 1.  He played pretty poorly for most of three quarters (3 points, 1-for-7, 6 turnovers).  However, because he reached some arbitrary statistical plateaus, people are talking almost like this was a historically great game.  It wasn't.  It was a great final 13 minutes, and that should be celebrated.  However, it would have been a great fourth quarter even if his final stat line didn't include the requisite 10-10-10.

  Your assessment of his first three quarters (3 points, 1-for-7, 6 turnovers) conveniently leaves out the 7 rebounds, 12 assists and 4 or so steals he had as well. It wasn't pretty, and it was far from his best game, but even though he was struggling in some aspects of his game he was contributing much more than you're implying. It would have been a great 4th quarter even if his final stat line didn't include the requisite 10-10-10, but we never would have won without the 7 boards, 12 assists and 4 steals that he put in when he was playing "poorly".

I'll take KG's last two games over Rondo's last two triple-doubles.  Most importantly, though, each of those efforts came in a win, so the rest is just nit-picking.

  KG's getting plenty of credit for his last two games, both here and nationally. But the overall theme of this (and many other posts by other posters) seems to be that triple doubles don't mean much because they're arbitrary, that people can have better games without getting triple doubles, and that Rondo can get a triple double while "playing poorly" (which I would interpret as meaning he's not contributing much to help the team). If it's true that triple doubles are so wildly overrated, how do you explain the fact that they lead to victories so often?

[BudweiserCeltic]

They don't lead to victories, we win inspite of it. It's an uphill battle, and the main culprit is missing open shots (from everyone) and poor playmaking and pace setting by someone who's supposed to be a dominant PG in these areas. Yet he constantly fails to perform his role. But when he shows up, it's a thing of beauty.

It's cool that Rondo can contribute in all these different areas, but I would trade off all that crap if he just did his job, and ran the team as he's been tasked to do.

Rondo controls the ball so much for us that the margin for error is very slim.

[BballTim]

They don't lead to victories, we win inspite of it. It's an uphill battle, and the main culprit is missing open shots (from everyone) and poor playmaking and pace setting by someone who's supposed to be a dominant PG in these areas. Yet he constantly fails to perform his role. But when he shows up, it's a thing of beauty.

It's cool that Rondo can contribute in all these different areas, but I would trade off all that crap if he just did his job, and ran the team as he's been tasked to do.

Rondo controls the ball so much for us that the margin for error is very slim.

  Teams win "in spite of" triple doubles at an awfully high rate, I doubt it's the uphill battle that you imply. I'd also say that a lot of what people refer to as Rondo showing up is really the team showing up. The team plays a lot differently when they hit their open shots than when they miss them, Rondo has limited control over that. And, loathe though people are to admit it, the offense runs better when Rondo controls the ball than when he doesn't. Having the ball in Rondo's hands doesn't make the margin of error slim, it gives us the margin of error to begin with.