Brad Steven rotations - I am impressed

[Tr1boy]

Do you expect us to be 7-0??

Not at all. I fully expect people to acknowledge reality.

Like, for example, the reality that we have a young coach who's learning, who is still to find a reliable and functional rotation, and who's made as many bad decisions as he's made good ones.

Sorry to crash the party.

you are definitely a party crasher.

For all the mistakes he has done you say, somehow the celts are in the top tier in points allowed category. And that is over a 7 game span and with us losing the first four.

You want more consistency? Well there you

You have to realize he can't set a normal rotation now or even if Rondo comesback. We don't have a team full of stars and can't win this way. The sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be to deal with your strange frustration

[guava_wrench]

The rotations are not a big deal. When you have a bad team, there will be a lot of losses and fans will claim that if various decisions were different, we would have won. Last night on the chat, there was someone who would say something was a bad shot when it didn't go in, but was fine with the same shot when it did go in.

Rotations are just one of many ways that armchair quarterbacks like to pat themselves on the back as if they know better and have the formula for success.

[kozlodoev]

You have to realize he can't set a normal rotation now or even if Rondo comesback. We don't have a team full of stars and can't win this way. The sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be to deal with your strange frustration

As I have already mentioned, I'm absolutely ecstatic with our season so far. That doesn't make Stevens' coaching any better than it actually is. The fact that you seem to equate poor coaching with our losses is not my problem.

[Interceptor]

Stevens isn't Jesus, but he's not exactly unproven either. Given the headwinds here (lousy team, mismatched parts, no NBA experience, lack of clout), I say he's done better than could be expected. Sure, we got a "miracle" shot from Jeff Green (from a place where he was 45% or something ludicrous like that last season), but that's just a run of the mill garbage three unless they were actually close enough for a win.

Give the coach some credit.

[kozlodoev]

Rotations are just one of many ways that armchair quarterbacks like to pat themselves on the back as if they know better and have the formula for success.

Or, in other words, the OP is clearly clueless and is simply a Brad Stevens groupie? Or does your claim only apply when people bring up rotations to criticize the coach?

[Atzar]

The rotations are not a big deal. When you have a bad team, there will be a lot of losses and fans will claim that if various decisions were different, we would have won. Last night on the chat, there was someone who would say something was a bad shot when it didn't go in, but was fine with the same shot when it did go in.

Rotations are just one of many ways that armchair quarterbacks like to pat themselves on the back as if they know better and have the formula for success.

Agree strongly with this.  It's easy to use hindsight to second-guess a play or a situation that doesn't work out well.  The reverse is also true - plays that lead to a made shot rarely get criticized, even if they result in a last-second prayer from 25 feet. 

[LarBrd33]

Dude... Stevens must seriously have his players attention at this point.  3 wins in a row and a HUGE confidence booster vs the Heat.  Brad just walked it off like it was nothing.  Like "see... told you guys not to give up."   I still don't think we have the talent to win much this year, but Danny Ainge is a basketball god and Brad Stevens is A-Ok in my book.

I admittedly don't know a lot about the coaching side of the game, but so much of what I read about Stevens heading into this season was that he leans heavily on advanced statistical analysis.  I read about him having some whiz kid partner in his 20s who spends hours running numbers and concocting the best rotations.  It sounded very Moneyball-ish to me.  I have no doubt it's legit, but that kind of stuff probably takes a lot of time to build a base for.  The more games you play and the more rotations you throw out there, the more data you have to back up your statistical analysis.  That's what I assumed he was doing in the preseason... throw out every lineup possible just so you have some data on it.  I imagine a severe optimist would see our 4 game losing streak followed by the 3 game win streak and say, "We're starting to have enough data".   As the season goes on, the data will probably just get more and more accurate, right?

[Amonkey]

I dont wanna get into the chicken fight some of you are having but i will say this, what impressed me im this game was not the miracle shot. It was the fact that they were able to take every punch the reigning champs gave us and they still placed themselves im the position to win. Great win!

[tabletz19]

I really like the direction we're heading and that's developing the team, player talent and skills and culture, playoff or lottery bound it may be I don't care, will still watch them every game. Actually watched all games this year more than I did the same time last year. Like Stevens as a coach. We never lost by more than 10. All 4 game losses were close as were the wins so I think we're pretty much where we deserve based on our current W/L record and it's actually better than expected. and even when we lost games this season I still liked their performance except that Milwaukee game. and we're actually even better than what's expected of Brooklyn and New York. They had terrible losses.

Would we be better had Danny not traded KG and Pierce but just let Doc left? Coz instead of Humpries and Wallace, Stevens could have used KG and Paul. That's just a thought.

[guava_wrench]

Rotations are just one of many ways that armchair quarterbacks like to pat themselves on the back as if they know better and have the formula for success.

Or, in other words, the OP is clearly clueless and is simply a Brad Stevens groupie? Or does your claim only apply when people bring up rotations to criticize the coach?

Same thing. To be fair, there may be legitimately bad decisions. If Ainge and Doc and decide to draft JR Giddens earlier than anyone expects, they can also believe in players on the team that they shouldn't.

But the second guessing we see in sports discussions are surreal. A bunch of dudes watching the game on TV and claiming to have all the answers. When one of their 10 complaints pans out, they yell "I told you so" and hope we forget the other 9 things they complained about where they were wrong. They complain about minutia of decisions that obviously can't be redone another way since we can't go back in time, so they are safe from being proven wrong.

Small decisions are given an exaggerated importance as people rail against minor choices instead of realizing that teams lose, players miss shots, and you will often fail despite making the correct choice.

A lot of coaching criticism is like if I say I will give you $100 if you correctly guess whether a die will land on a 1 or on a number between 2-6. If you choose the 1 instead of choosing 2-6, you would be an idiot. 2-6 is the proper guess. If you picked 1 and a 1 was rolled, you would still be an idiot for making a 17% choice instead of an 83% choice. Conversely, if you picked 2-6 and a 1 was rolled, you still made the right choice.

Now imagine a person who doesn't understand that you make decisions based on expectations, not based on knowing the future. They would not be wise enough to understand that the decision that leads to success 90% of the time is still usually the correct move in the 10% where you fail. If you have Ray Allen take you technical free throw, it is the right move whether he makes it or not.

I am not saying that coaches don't make mistakes. Even the best talent evaluators get it wrong at times. But it gets ridiculous when fans go ballistic over these things due to the delusion that they have some sure knowledge about the situation. Express disagreement about the relative values of players on the court, but some people pretend to have some authoritative insights about what would have happened if a different decision was made.

[crimson_stallion]

When Boston registered their fourth loss, I was frustrated.

I was about to type up a big email explaining that the rotations were horrendous and were looking like they were set up specifically to lose. 

Some of the points I made:

1) Bradley playing PG has been historically proven to be a bad idea.  Not only does it hurt the team, it hurts his development.

2) Jordan Crawford was playing PG better than anybody else on the team up until this point, followed by Pressy.  Made more sense to play those guys at PG.

3) Wallace was not producing good stats as a starter, and starting him at SF was forcing Green to the SG spot, which was off-position and IMHO hurting his game.  Wallace is a pure energy guy, exactly the type of guy who you want coming of the bench as a 6th man, and I figured that would be the best role for him.

4) Hump played very well in the first or second game, then after that game was never played again.

Here are just a handful of my thoughts.  My theory was that the following lineups would be best..

Starting:
PG - Crawford
SG - Bradley
SF - Green
PF - Bass
C - Favarini

Bench:
PG - Pressey
SG - Lee
SF - Wallace
PF - Sullinger / Humphries
C - Olynyk / Humphries

About three games back Stevens made an adjustment and changed the rotation to almost exactly what I had suggested in my head would work the best.  Ever since he made that adjustment, the Celtics have yet to lose a game.

Thinking back to the Doc Rivers days, he would never have likely made that change.  He'd have kept playing those veterans like Wallace, and Pressey would likely not see one minute of playing time.  Stevens so far has shown that he's willing to reward the guys who play well by giving them more playing time, and I respect that method.  He plays guys based on who performs, not based on favourites.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Thinking back to the Doc Rivers days, he would never have likely made that change.  He'd have kept playing those veterans like Wallace, and Pressey would likely not see one minute of playing time.  Stevens so far has shown that he's willing to reward the guys who play well by giving them more playing time, and I respect that method.  He plays guys based on who performs, not based on favourites.

In Doc's defense, and honestly just playing devil's advocate, he was trying for a championship.

But Brad Stevens wins games. Isn't that an important part of winning a chip?

[kozlodoev]

I dont wanna get into the chicken fight some of you are having but i will say this, what impressed me im this game was not the miracle shot. It was the fact that they were able to take every punch the reigning champs gave us and they still placed themselves im the position to win. Great win!

Absolutely. I somehow always get very giddy when the Heat falter. Must be the "not seven" championships plan. 

[kozlodoev]

Thinking back to the Doc Rivers days, he would never have likely made that change.  He'd have kept playing those veterans like Wallace, and Pressey would likely not see one minute of playing time.  Stevens so far has shown that he's willing to reward the guys who play well by giving them more playing time, and I respect that method.  He plays guys based on who performs, not based on favourites.

See, the problem is this isn't true. First of all, these veterans are not the veterans Doc had last year. And this year's goals are not the goals the team had last year (or pretty much any other year under Doc's regime, with several exceptions).

Second, you only need to go back to the early Doc years to see veterans sit in favor of young players such as Allen, West, and Perkins.

With regard to the highlighted part of your statement -- Doc got a ton of flack on this blog for not playing guys until their earn their minutes. It was mostly the same thing, except Doc wasn't necessarily overreacting to one or two good (or bad) games. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

[SHAQATTACK]

Stevens always looks so stoic and calm.......this has a nice effect on the team executing and not panicking .

He frankly coached one of the most amazing games I ve seen in a long time,  and I go back a long time.

So we ll see if he is really Boy wonder.

The one difference between I can point to between Stevens as a college coach and other NbA college coaches who have failed  is this.......Rick Pitino and others came from schools with all blue chip players, Stevens was winning with pretty much the same thing he has now on the Celtics ,  not the greatest talent , but coaching Butler to levels far above their talent level .....is this what Danny saw?  I think so.....

Amazing stuff to consider.