Celtics actually not 'good enough' with Rondo and Green

[kozlodoev]

I guess I'm not sure what you expected given what Stevens has to work with.

I expected a little more direction. You know, an actual game plan, albeit poorly executed because of what "Stevens has to work with". I've seen none.

[KGs Knee]

I guess I'm not sure what you expected given what Stevens has to work with.

I expected a little more direction. You know, an actual game plan, albeit poorly executed because of what "Stevens has to work with". I've seen none.

Stevens can't really think his "system" is an acceptable NBA offense.  It's organized street ball.

[Chief]

Stevens is starting Bass and Wallace. You're not going to win too many games in the NBA doing that.

Every once in awhile, Stevens will put Rondo, Johnson, Green , Sully, and KO out together. They will play uptempo, look like a real NBA team, and then get pulled before the Celtics can sustain or make up a dominate lead.

[sed522002]

I guess I'm not sure what you expected given what Stevens has to work with.

I expected a little more direction. You know, an actual game plan, albeit poorly executed because of what "Stevens has to work with". I've seen none.

I can see somewhat where you're coming from. I think his game plan, offensively,depends on riding the hot hand until the wheels fall off. It would be nice if we had somebody on the team that we automatically knew was going to get us X amount of points.

[kozlodoev]

I guess I'm not sure what you expected given what Stevens has to work with.

I expected a little more direction. You know, an actual game plan, albeit poorly executed because of what "Stevens has to work with". I've seen none.

I can see somewhat where you're coming from. I think his game plan, offensively,depends on riding the hot hand until the wheels fall off. It would be nice if we had somebody on the team that we automatically knew was going to get us X amount of points.

I'm not hellbent about points, because I realize that with inexperienced players execution will falter. What I would like to see, though, is the team try to run plays that are designed to get players "their" type of shots.

As of now, I can't point to anything in our offensive game plan that indicates what the coaching staff thinks is a good shot (in terms of shooter and location on the floor).

I know it's not fair to compare this to the 2008 team, but I can still give you a list of the types of shot that team was trying to get, for example:

1. KG post-up on the left block,
2. Pierce on the right wing (either pull-up or dribble drive to the circle),
3. Ray Allen spot-up three in the left corner/sideline,
4. Rondo spot-up jumper along the right baseline.

[PhoSita]

I guess I'm not sure what you expected given what Stevens has to work with.

I expected a little more direction. You know, an actual game plan, albeit poorly executed because of what "Stevens has to work with". I've seen none.

I can see somewhat where you're coming from. I think his game plan, offensively,depends on riding the hot hand until the wheels fall off. It would be nice if we had somebody on the team that we automatically knew was going to get us X amount of points.

I'm not hellbent about points, because I realize that with inexperienced players execution will falter. What I would like to see, though, is the team try to run plays that are designed to get players "their" type of shots.

As of now, I can't point to anything in our offensive game plan that indicates what the coaching staff thinks is a good shot (in terms of shooter and location on the floor).

I know it's not fair to compare this to the 2008 team, but I can still give you a list of the types of shot that team was trying to get, for example:

1. KG post-up on the left block,
2. Pierce on the right wing (either pull-up or dribble drive to the circle),
3. Ray Allen spot-up three in the left corner/sideline,
4. Rondo spot-up jumper along the right baseline.

The '08 team was so hard to defend because they had those three guys who had elite, go-to weapons.  Each of them had something in their repertoire that they did better than nearly anyone else in the league.  It was pick your poison every trip down the court.

There's nobody with an elite offensive skill like that on this team.  Bass is a pretty nice mid-range shooter for a big, but he's left open so often on those pick and pop attempts because teams are happy to let him fire away. 

[hpantazo]

The lineup is not any worse vs hawks, suns, wizards

No, it really is not. All those teams have significantly more talent than the Celtics have.

Rondo hasn't gotten this team to win because the team stinks. Its being managed from the top to lose and the coach has a farce of an offensive system installed that takes away from Rondo's total effectiveness as a player.

I just do not understand those that are so gung ho to get young, unproven, college players on this team next year and want Rondo gone. Rondo is the exact type player you want running an offense with young players. He will demand they know their roles and he will make them better in every way offensively.

Let Rondo get back to 100% and play a whole preseason and season in a better offensive system and people will see that Rondo is the guy you want around all those unproven rookie and sophomore players that you have been drooling over playing in the NCAA and Europe this year.

They dont have significantly more talent. Look at their rosters

Do you really believe that he hasn't looked at the rosters before making that comment?

Comments like this do nothing to further public discourse, and come off as astoundingly arrogant.

I notice this is a trend with you.

None of the rosters below are considered significantly better than ours

Phx - dragic, green, frye, plumlee, tucker

Was- wall, beal, gortat, nene

Hawks - millsap, teague, williams

If this was the start of the year nobody would think they would be in playoff contention outside of Washington

Wow, you skipped a bunch of good players from those rosters in luring Eric Bledsoe, Trevor Ariza, and Al Horford. The hawks have been struggling without horford, but with him most people predicted them to be a playoff team

I left them out to signify my pt further. Even without those players (horford and bledsoe) those teams are doing better

I mean look at the hawks roster now and tell me they have significant more talent

Except that you are saying Rondo is not good enough to lead a team but he has played less so far this season than Horford or Bledsoe. Pierce was good enough to lead a contender , yet his teams with sidekicks like Al Jefferson, Ricky Davis, or Wally Sczerbiak sucked. If say Ricky or Wally were comparable to Green, and big Al is comparable to Sully. Rondo can not be judged by the success or failure of this years team. That's absurd.

[Tr1boy]

The lineup is not any worse vs hawks, suns, wizards

No, it really is not. All those teams have significantly more talent than the Celtics have.

Rondo hasn't gotten this team to win because the team stinks. Its being managed from the top to lose and the coach has a farce of an offensive system installed that takes away from Rondo's total effectiveness as a player.

I just do not understand those that are so gung ho to get young, unproven, college players on this team next year and want Rondo gone. Rondo is the exact type player you want running an offense with young players. He will demand they know their roles and he will make them better in every way offensively.

Let Rondo get back to 100% and play a whole preseason and season in a better offensive system and people will see that Rondo is the guy you want around all those unproven rookie and sophomore players that you have been drooling over playing in the NCAA and Europe this year.

They dont have significantly more talent. Look at their rosters

Do you really believe that he hasn't looked at the rosters before making that comment?

Comments like this do nothing to further public discourse, and come off as astoundingly arrogant.

I notice this is a trend with you.

None of the rosters below are considered significantly better than ours

Phx - dragic, green, frye, plumlee, tucker

Was- wall, beal, gortat, nene

Hawks - millsap, teague, williams

If this was the start of the year nobody would think they would be in playoff contention outside of Washington

Wow, you skipped a bunch of good players from those rosters in luring Eric Bledsoe, Trevor Ariza, and Al Horford. The hawks have been struggling without horford, but with him most people predicted them to be a playoff team

I left them out to signify my pt further. Even without those players (horford and bledsoe) those teams are doing better

I mean look at the hawks roster now and tell me they have significant more talent

Except that you are saying Rondo is not good enough to lead a team but he has played less so far this season than Horford or Bledsoe. Pierce was good enough to lead a contender , yet his teams with sidekicks like Al Jefferson, Ricky Davis, or Wally Sczerbiak sucked. If say Ricky or Wally were comparable to Green, and big Al is comparable to Sully. Rondo can not be judged by the success or failure of this years team. That's absurd.

I can judge on how he helps the team and his ind play. So far fail on both imo

Fail on helping the team bc 90 percent of the time he is walking across mid court. His ind defense is horrid and when his man gets past him everyone gets screwed

Fail on ind play bc maybe only like 4 out of 13 games he has outplayed his man and is usually being outplayed

He has a get out of jail free card due to his health for now. But his ways(walking up the court, cheating on defense even when healthy) dating back to the start of last season hasnt changed. And I dont think he will change either once back to optimal health or on a stack team. Dont like PGs that play this way and have never seen a team with a pg that plays like this win a championship

[kozlodoev]

The '08 team was so hard to defend because they had those three guys who had elite, go-to weapons.  Each of them had something in their repertoire that they did better than nearly anyone else in the league.  It was pick your poison every trip down the court.

There's nobody with an elite offensive skill like that on this team.  Bass is a pretty nice mid-range shooter for a big, but he's left open so often on those pick and pop attempts because teams are happy to let him fire away.

That's true, and that's why the '08 team was a title team, and this one isn't.

But on just about any team, some things work better than others -- and there is nothing on our team's offense that shows a concerted effort to exploit stuff that works better.

[mmmmm]

Also, this offense that Stevens is playing is just awful and will never succeed at this level of play. He needs to do something to get the ball into the hands of the players that will optimize his chances of scoring. This offense and its desire to put the ball in everyone's hands and generate points through creation from anywhere was designed to be a losing offense in the NBA. I wonder if Stevens installed this offense this year on purpose to lose more games and the full playbook will be introduced next year.

Ditto that.   I love Stevens.  I hate the offensive system we have been using most of this season.

Meh, I think this is the wrong attitude to have.


Stevens is trying to put in place an offensive system that will serve this team in the long run.  It doesn't fit the personnel we have right now, but the personnel we have right now stinks.  You could create the perfect offense for this team and it would still stink, and half of these guys will be gone in a year or two, so why bother? 

It doesn't make sense to me to focus on "getting the ball into the hands of your best scorers" when those guys are Jared Sullinger, Jeff Green, and whichever of the high-usage gunners is in the game (Crawford / Bayless / Bradley).  It's not like we're talking about high level weapons here.

Ball movement, spreading the floor, and finding the open man are important principles.  Furthermore, the teams that win at the highest level in this league generally play at a slow pace and hunt out high percentage looks in the half-court.  Again, the personnel currently on the roster isn't very good at that.  But I trust Ainge to find the kind of pieces that can thrive under Stevens' tutelage.



I agree, however, that the policy of resting players at every opportunity has definitely interrupted the team's flow and probably prevented the team from winning as many games as possible.  Again, however, seeing as this season is more or less like one long pre-season, that doesn't concern me too much. 

I'm interested in seeing certain pairings get maximum minutes together -- Olynyk and Sullinger, Rondo and either of the two young big men -- but I'm of the opinion that there isn't a four man group here that is likely to be around long-term, so the lack of extended playing time together for them doesn't worry me.

I do wish so many minutes weren't being given to guys with no future here, especially now that the trade deadline has passed.  Bass and Wallace should get no more than 15 minutes a game, if you ask me (Wallace obviously has a 'future' here, but hopefully he'll be relegated to street clothes as soon as next year).

With all due respect, but I think my 'attitude' about this is fine.   The system measurably stinks.  You are caveating and rationalizing around results here.

Blaming the players only works to a point.   This roster has several players who have histories of shooting at higher efficiencies.    Rationalizing that he is putting in a system in place for some hypothetical 'future players' is silly.   How does putting it in now benefit them?

Oh wait - my guess is that it will benefit them in the sense that Stevens will (hopefully) have learned that this system doesn't work in the NBA.

"Ball movement, spreading the floor, and finding the open man are important principles."

This is the NBA.  A more important principle is creating an open man.   Run actual plays.   Variations of pick and roll is run by pretty much every good team for a reason.   And for god's sake:  USE YOUR BEST PLAYERS MORE THAN YOUR LESSER ONES!!!!

At any rate, there are definite signs that my faith in Stevens is not misplaced.  Over the last half month -- notably since he made his OWN comments about needing to make better usage of Green, the USG% profile for this team has dramatically altered from what it was for most of the season.   Green (27.3%) and Rondo (26.3%) both have USG% up where you would expect in a normal team.   Obviously, that's with Bradley out so maybe that won't persist.  But we can hope.

My suspicion is that the crappy style of offense we ran for most of the season probably has more to do with lacking a real point guard than anything else.

I agree with your comments about wanting to see more minutes with certain lineups.

Last year, as the season ended, most everyone would have pointed to the foursome of Rondo, Green, Bradley & Sullinger as the 'core' of the future for the Celtics.  And then we drafted Olynyk.

So far, this entire season, we have seen that 'core four' play together all of 85 minutes.

So far, this entire season we have seen the 5-man unit of RR+AB+JG+KO+JS a grand total of:  9 possessions.

I, personally, would like to see a little bit more of those guys together.   I don't think we have really learned anything yet about whether that's a core for the future or not.

[celticbos]

This offense has slowed right down to a half court game, and for good reason. No need to push Rondo's knee this year, but next year watch this team go as the brace comes off and Rondo is much more fit to play his game. It sure is painful watching the games, but I am a true fan and see a good future coming for this team.

[kozlodoev]

"Ball movement, spreading the floor, and finding the open man are important principles."

This is the NBA.  A more important principle is creating an open man.   Run actual plays.   Variations of pick and roll is run by pretty much every good team for a reason.   And for god's sake:  USE YOUR BEST PLAYERS MORE THAN YOUR LESSER ONES!!!!

This pretty much sums up how I feel about it.

At any rate, there are definite signs that my faith in Stevens is not misplaced.  Over the last half month -- notably since he made his OWN comments about needing to make better usage of Green, the USG% profile for this team has dramatically altered from what it was for most of the season.   Green (27.3%) and Rondo (26.3%) both have USG% up where you would expect in a normal team.   Obviously, that's with Bradley out so maybe that won't persist.  But we can hope.

Green has had similar USG% in both January and February (24.2 and 26.7 per BB Reference). The problem is his shooting is 6 percentage points lower than it was in November-December, when his usage rate was 22% (38.5% vs 44.5%). I'm not particularly sure this indicates any sort of improved play-calling, perhaps just the opposite.

[Celtics4ever]

I don't think Red could win with this team.  Stevens is doing great with what he has folks.

[mmmmm]

"Ball movement, spreading the floor, and finding the open man are important principles."

This is the NBA.  A more important principle is creating an open man.   Run actual plays.   Variations of pick and roll is run by pretty much every good team for a reason.   And for god's sake:  USE YOUR BEST PLAYERS MORE THAN YOUR LESSER ONES!!!!

This pretty much sums up how I feel about it.

At any rate, there are definite signs that my faith in Stevens is not misplaced.  Over the last half month -- notably since he made his OWN comments about needing to make better usage of Green, the USG% profile for this team has dramatically altered from what it was for most of the season.   Green (27.3%) and Rondo (26.3%) both have USG% up where you would expect in a normal team.   Obviously, that's with Bradley out so maybe that won't persist.  But we can hope.

Green has had similar USG% in both January and February (24.2 and 26.7 per BB Reference). The problem is his shooting is 6 percentage points lower than it was in November-December, when his usage rate was 22% (38.5% vs 44.5%). I'm not particularly sure this indicates any sort of improved play-calling, perhaps just the opposite.

Could be.

It's hard to get a firm read because the lineups around Green change daily.

Some days, we do look like we are actually running screens and motion to get him a look in space.

Some games it does seem as if he's only getting a lot of shots because no one else will take one and he gets the ball at the end of the clock.

And other games it looks as if we are 'featuring' some other player and Green barely touches the ball.

As I've said many times, it would be really nice to have a stable starting 5 (preferably consisting of the supposed 'core' we might be building around) and a stable sub rotation for an extended time.   This season has been the opposite of consistency.   'Makes it extremely difficult, imho, to get a good read on our players.

[Vox_Populi]

Also, if Stevens is really billed as a defensive coach, then things are worse than I thought. Forgive me if I'm not impressed with a defensive strategy that is chiefly limited to man-to-man with a very occasional double-team, and which fails to contain basic pick-and-roll on most nights. I'm a little tired of watching an opposition layup galore every time the Celtics are on TV.

Quite a few of the predictions for this team put it in the bottom of defensive efficiency. The C's have been a top 10 team for almost half the season, and are currently tied for 15th. Again, considering the personnel, no true center, undersized backcourt, I don't see how Stevens could be doing any better.