Stevens: Monitoring Rondo/Bradley duo "huge, huge priority for me"

[pokeKingCurtis]

Sure there are, but how hard is it going to be to bring in a player that's a good defender and plays offense the way you're talking about a "good match for Rondo"?

I've got no idea. I'm not sure you do, despite implying it should be hard.

The point is maybe it'd be be prudent to keep AB.

It's true that Bradley isn't a perfect fit with Rondo. If he was there would be no reason to evaluate things. The question is, will a Bradley/Rondo backcourt be good enough that you can go forward with it (and give a contract to Bradley) or whether you need to spend whatever assets are necessary to upgrade your starting backcourt.

Again, what gave me the chuckle were the "good fit on paper" comments, not the need to evaluate. I see them as mostly a bad fit on paper, though possibly a better one in action.

Maybe they're alluding to their play styles rather than their height and physical attributes. Defensively and offensively.

With AB's backdoor cuts, love of playing off the ball and scoring in volume, he finishes Rondo's passes well. On defense, AB applying on ball pressure while Rondo trolls the lane for steals seems pretty ideal.

Not that I'm saying they're a good fit on paper. Just guessing what others are thinking.

[CelticG1]

Wonder if on paper he means advanced stats paper

those must be good right?

[kozlodoev]

I have no idea where kozlodoev is getting his idea that Rondo and Bradley don't fit each other. They're perfect for each other. I remember 2011-2012 stretch where the team posted some of the best defensive numbers in the league with the Bradley Rondo backcourt. They also really improved the offense.

Forgive me if I refuse to hang my hat on a stretch of 15 or so games where Bradley shot a completely unsustainable .500+ on three-pointers.

[BballTim]

“Huge. Huge priority for me," said Stevens. "I think that those guys seem to be, on paper, really good fits, but it’s better to see them in person. ... Their strengths fit each other well on both ends of the floior, and so hopefully that can continue to be accentuated as we get further along into that -- we add to those 30 games [they've started together during their careers].”

I'm not sure what this means. As in... lots of words, very little substance.

I'm also not sure how two defense-first, smallish guards who cannot create their own shot and are not dead-eye three-point shooters are "really, really good fits[sic]", but that's just me.

My suspicion is that the Celtics' in-house data-crunching suggests that Rondo and Bradley have a synergistic effect together.  I think I've seen Ainge making comments alluding to that.  I've gotten the sense that it took a while for Ainge to convince Doc to start Bradley.

My guess is that Ainge's Plan A involves Bradley and Rondo as the starting backcourt for the next five years and Stevens wants to evaluate that the numbers on paper match what he sees with his eyes.

I'm not sure where they've seen this "on paper". Last year, the Rondo-Bradley pairing was by far the worst offensively from any other lineup that also included Pierce, Bass, and Garnett (the other regular three starters). Defensively, it was kind of a mixed bag where the Rondo-Terry pairing was pretty much as good as Rondo-Bradley.

The Cs brass probably has more advanced metrics than I do, but if there is some sort of fantastic, under-the-cover synergy there, I'm not seeing it.
http://www.82games.com/1213/1213BOS2.HTM

 I'm having trouble getting the link to work, but got to the link below, choose player vs player and change 1 player to Rondo and the other to Bradley. Check out their 2012 numbers. During the season they were a +8.3 playing together, in the playoffs it was +10.6.

http://www.nba.com/advancedstats/player-vs-player.html

  When you're looking at the 2013 numbers keep in mind that they had a limited amount of time on the court together and it all occurred in the first few games when Avery was coming back from shoulder surgery. You won't be able to draw any useful conclusions from that sampling.

[BballTim]

I have no idea where kozlodoev is getting his idea that Rondo and Bradley don't fit each other. They're perfect for each other. I remember 2011-2012 stretch where the team posted some of the best defensive numbers in the league with the Bradley Rondo backcourt. They also really improved the offense.

Forgive me if I refuse to hang my hat on a stretch of 15 or so games where Bradley shot a completely unsustainable .500+ on three-pointers.

  You can always always hang your hat on the much smaller sample size of last season I suppose.

[bobbyv]

I have no idea where kozlodoev is getting his idea that Rondo and Bradley don't fit each other. They're perfect for each other. I remember 2011-2012 stretch where the team posted some of the best defensive numbers in the league with the Bradley Rondo backcourt. They also really improved the offense.

Forgive me if I refuse to hang my hat on a stretch of 15 or so games where Bradley shot a completely unsustainable .500+ on three-pointers.

  You can always always hang your hat on the much smaller sample size of last season I suppose.

/thread

[saltlover]

I have no idea where kozlodoev is getting his idea that Rondo and Bradley don't fit each other. They're perfect for each other. I remember 2011-2012 stretch where the team posted some of the best defensive numbers in the league with the Bradley Rondo backcourt. They also really improved the offense.

Forgive me if I refuse to hang my hat on a stretch of 15 or so games where Bradley shot a completely unsustainable .500+ on three-pointers.

He was 20-41 over an 18-game stretch in which he started all but one game, and played a majority of every game.  So you're right, approximately 50%.  But he was taking barely over two 3s per game.  In that 18-game stretch, the celtics won by an average of 8 points per game.  Over the prior 18 games, the celtics lost by an average of 3 points per game.  Take away 6 of Avery's 20 3-pointers and he shoots a much more sustainable 34%, and that's an average of one fewer three pointer made every three games, and the celtics win by an average of 7 points over those 18 games.

Sure, it's a small sample size of success.  Few would disagree.  But accordingly, many of us would like to see that pairing a lot more, to see if it was just the randomness of a small sample, or actually something worth building around.  Regardless, while Avery shot lights out from 3, he didn't shoot from 3 with anywhere near enough frequency to be all, or even most, of the story.

[BballTim]

Sure there are, but how hard is it going to be to bring in a player that's a good defender and plays offense the way you're talking about a "good match for Rondo"?

I've got no idea. I'm not sure you do, despite implying it should be hard.

  Frankly I think it's fairly hard to compile a decent sized list of good offensive shooting guards that are good defenders, let alone pry one away from their team. Who would you put on the list that you think would be relatively obtainable?

It's true that Bradley isn't a perfect fit with Rondo. If he was there would be no reason to evaluate things. The question is, will a Bradley/Rondo backcourt be good enough that you can go forward with it (and give a contract to Bradley) or whether you need to spend whatever assets are necessary to upgrade your starting backcourt.

Again, what gave me the chuckle were the "good fit on paper" comments, not the need to evaluate. I see them as mostly a bad fit on paper, though possibly a better one in action.

  Bradley's a pretty good off the ball player and is pretty good in transition. Again, while he's not the ideal partner for Rondo they've played very well in the past at times, so they're probably a better match than you think.

With the qualifications that Bradley was playing exceptionally well at the time and Manu and Harden (at the time) were coming off of the bench, you probably could have made the argument in 2012 that if not for Bradley's shoulders we might have had the best (current form) starting backcourt in the playoffs that year.

Given the qualifications, this argument is pretty pointless. Also, Chalmers and Wade were not exactly chopped liver that season.

  Not really all that pointless. The fact that they've played well together in the past isn't really meaningless when evaluating them as a duo. And I think they'd have stacked up pretty well against Wade and Chalmers if all of them were healthy.

[mmmmm]

Everybody sees matchups that they struggle with at times (such as Felton killing Bradley in the playoffs last year) but with Bradley those matchup problems are pretty rare.

In that series, Felton did most of his "damage" in two games, games 4 & 5, when he scored 27 & 21 points ... but lost both games.

In Game 4, Felton did have success "killing" Bradley ... by making 4 of 9 long 3PT bombs despite Bradley contesting them.   That isn't something I'd worry about long term.  Felton shot just 30% from 3PT land that season and I wouldn't have guarded him tight outside the arc either.  Other than that one game, he sucked from 3PT land the rest of the playoffs.

In the next game, Game 5, Felton went 0-for-3 from 3PT land, but enjoyed "success" this time by working switches on Paul Pierce, who was not fast enough to cover Felton. 

As I said, NYK lost both those games.

I think the mythology that Felton 'killed' Bradley in that series has grown out of proportion with reality.

[RockinRyA]

I have no idea where kozlodoev is getting his idea that Rondo and Bradley don't fit each other. They're perfect for each other. I remember 2011-2012 stretch where the team posted some of the best defensive numbers in the league with the Bradley Rondo backcourt. They also really improved the offense.

Forgive me if I refuse to hang my hat on a stretch of 15 or so games where Bradley shot a completely unsustainable .500+ on three-pointers.

Oh and yet you want to make something off the smaller 11 games of him coming out of injury? yeah very logical

[D.o.s.]

I'm going to be utterly unscientific and guess that their astronomical numbers on defense had to do with playing with KG (against starters) and against reserves while KG was out of the game.

Just a guess. I find most of the lineup measuring sticks to be clunky.

[crimson_stallion]

The fact that statistically, Terry was one our best players last year.  His defensive rating andoffensiverating were both along the best on the team, and I think he was the only player on our roster who was statistically positiveon bothends of the floor.

This is not true. Terry was a net negative offensively with the team scoring nearly 1 point per 100 possessions more with him off the court.

Pierce and Garnett where the MVPs in the on/off department, with Pierce having an on/off +5 per 100 possessions offensively, and Garnett having a +9(!) per 100 possessions defensively.

The point on Bradley's health is well-taken, and I'll stipulate that most of the Rondo-Bradley pairing minutes came while Bradley may have still been recovering. However, that's probably the bulk of the sample from which the Celtics brass has been drawing its conclusions, given that there isn't much else to lean on.

Well it must have changed toward the end of the year, because when I checked  the stats about 3/4 through the year Terry was a  positive for both Def Rtg and Off Rtg, and the only player on the team who was.

Actually that's not correct - I think Sully also had positive stats for both.

Yes, Pierce and KG were both net positives for their Overall Rtg but that's because they had enough of a positive Olin one area to offset a significant negative in the other.  When I last checked Terry had one of the better defensive ratings on the team AND one of the better offensive ratings. From memory he was top three in both categories for the Celtics.

[Eddie20]

They have played reasonably well together, especially with the chemistry they have on backdoor cuts. However, I've always believed that Bradley would excel playing with a ball dominant combo or 2 guard, where he could play off the ball offensively and guard PG's defensively. On the other hand, Rondo is best suited to play alongside an excellent catch and shoot guard, one that doesn't need the ball in his hands to be effective.

[Fafnir]

Everybody sees matchups that they struggle with at times (such as Felton killing Bradley in the playoffs last year) but with Bradley those matchup problems are pretty rare.

In that series, Felton did most of his "damage" in two games, games 4 & 5, when he scored 27 & 21 points ... but lost both games.

In Game 4, Felton did have success "killing" Bradley ... by making 4 of 9 long 3PT bombs despite Bradley contesting them.   That isn't something I'd worry about long term.  Felton shot just 30% from 3PT land that season and I wouldn't have guarded him tight outside the arc either.  Other than that one game, he sucked from 3PT land the rest of the playoffs.

In the next game, Game 5, Felton went 0-for-3 from 3PT land, but enjoyed "success" this time by working switches on Paul Pierce, who was not fast enough to cover Felton. 

As I said, NYK lost both those games.

I think the mythology that Felton 'killed' Bradley in that series has grown out of proportion with reality.

Pick and Roll destroying a player doesn't have to involve Felton scoring a ton of points. I recall Felton getting to the paint far too easily for much of that series. We had a very good game plan on Melo and good individual defenders to handle him, it was Felton's penetration that kept them afloat.

Plus Bradley didn't really pressure the ball effectively for much of the series as well, which is something that I thought he was going to do against Felton. (and he did do it in game 6 when the C's made that crazy 20-0 or something run to get back in the game)

Still our D was solid that series overall, we just couldn't score at all and lacked a lead guard to handle which wore Pierce out pretty quick.

[BballTim]

The fact that statistically, Terry was one our best players last year.  His defensive rating andoffensiverating were both along the best on the team, and I think he was the only player on our roster who was statistically positiveon bothends of the floor.

This is not true. Terry was a net negative offensively with the team scoring nearly 1 point per 100 possessions more with him off the court.

Pierce and Garnett where the MVPs in the on/off department, with Pierce having an on/off +5 per 100 possessions offensively, and Garnett having a +9(!) per 100 possessions defensively.

The point on Bradley's health is well-taken, and I'll stipulate that most of the Rondo-Bradley pairing minutes came while Bradley may have still been recovering. However, that's probably the bulk of the sample from which the Celtics brass has been drawing its conclusions, given that there isn't much else to lean on.

Well it must have changed toward the end of the year, because when I checked  the stats about 3/4 through the year Terry was a  positive for both Def Rtg and Off Rtg, and the only player on the team who was.

Actually that's not correct - I think Sully also had positive stats for both.

Yes, Pierce and KG were both net positives for their Overall Rtg but that's because they had enough of a positive Olin one area to offset a significant negative in the other.  When I last checked Terry had one of the better defensive ratings on the team AND one of the better offensive ratings. From memory he was top three in both categories for the Celtics.

  You really can't get any real useful data from on/off or the like from last year because the team was pretty much the definition of inconsistent. Winning streaks, losing streaks, injuries, players who were good for long stretches and bad for others, a defense that was poor for a few months and near the top of the league for a few months.

  Which months you played the most minutes and who you were on the court with played a huge role in your numbers. I think that if you checked the defensive numbers for the guards before the all-star break the main factor in their defensive numbers was how many minutes they played with KG and how many minutes they played with him on the bench.