stevens team: defense first, fast paced offense

[fitzhickey]

At the end of the day, the main things I want from this team is to establish an identity (whatever that is) and to always play to their own strengths.

In the earlier days of the big-3 era Doc used to always talk about not matching up with other teams, and instead playing to the Celtic's own strengths.  He'd always say that it didn't matter who they played against, they always played the same way - defense first, grind it out. 

The last two seasons (when the Celtics started struggling) Doc has been talking a lot less about playing to the Celtic's strenghts, and a lot more about matching up with opponents.  Every day it seemed he was changing the roster around to match up with the strengths of Team X or Team Y. 

If Boston played the Heat, then Doc would go small to 'match up'.  If they played a quicker team, then he'd use a three guard rotation to try to get quicker.  If he played a big team, then he might give Jason Collins some minutes.  If a team uses a certain playing style, it's usually because they are very good at that playing style, and they beat a lot of teams by exploiting it. If your team doesn't play that style, it probably means that your team is NOT very good at playing that way, and DOESN'T beat many teams by exploiting that play style.  So, why intentionally try to "match up" your playing style to match the strengths of your opponent?!?!?! It makes no sense because they are almost always going to do it better!

Great teams don't "match up" with their opponents.  Great teams always play to their own strengths.  Great teams understand what they do well, and they make use of those strengths to win games.  Great teams love to play against a team that is different to theirs, because it means that somewere along the line your team has a competitive advantage...you just have to find it. 

You play against a team that excels at small ball?? Go big and hammer them in the post.  Playing against a team that loves to run in transition?  Play grind-it-out defense, control the boards and slow the tempo of the game.  Playing against a team that is bigger and slower than you are?  Go with a quick lineup and run them in to the ground.   The whole idea is to take the opponent out of their comfort zone, not try to play into it. 

Miami won the title last year, but the they really struggled to beat teams that had big, dominant front lines (San Antonio, Utah, Indiana, etc).  It seems like those teams that had the most success against the small-ball Heat lineups, which makes perfect sense because smaller front-line guys like Lebron and Bosh don't have the skills to defend guys like David West, Tim Duncan and Al Jefferson in the low post. 

Doc instead tried to match Miami by running small-ball, but there is probably no team in the entire league who has a better small-ball frontcourt than that of Lebron James and Chris Bosh.  This entire plan was ludicrous and a recipe for defeat.

I like what I'm hearing about Stevens because I think he is more of a strategic coach.  I think he will look at statistics a lot more to analyse what opposing teams/players struggle against, and I think he will work his gameplan to take advantage of that.   At least that's what I'm hoping, because I'm sick to death of watching Celtics teams try to beat opposing teams at their own game...and failing.

it's like you took all the thoughts in my head and made them into and awesome post
TP

[Fafnir]

Its a lot easier to dictate match ups rather than adjust to other teams when you have:

1. MVP caliber player in his prime (KG)
2. An all-nba SF who is skilled anywhere on the floor
3. An all-star SG who still could have scored 26 PPG as your third option
4. The best defense in the NBA

When Doc hasn't had that, he's had to be more reactive. Which is the sign of a good coach, you can't just "stick with your identity" if its not working. Now the C's never got crazy out of character or out of system, but they adjusted quite a lot as veteran team.

That OKC game last year comes to mind, right before the hot streak. The C's were getting blown out and the players went into half time talking adjustments. IIRC Doc cursed them out, said they weren't changing anything, and that they needed to play harder. Every coach prefers to use "their" system, but you can't just go down with a sinking ship if your personal or talent doesn't support it.