Heinsohn: Sit Rondo if bad habits continue

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

Punish him because this issue seems to me to be team wide, and the fish soup from the head.

[Rondo9]

So just punish the team not just Rondo.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Well, I don't think you can have it both ways.  If Rondo is the best player on the team, and he is truly a star, then the burden is on him to lead the team and do the right things to help the team succeed.  Arguably, with the talent and experience being what it is on this team, that means that we should expect Rondo to adjust. 

Rondo's preference clearly is to dominate the ball, and to really slow down the pace and run plays at the end of tight games.  That style made sense a few years ago.  It doesn't play to the strengths of the current team -- insofar as this team has strengths -- at all.


I guess what I'm saying is that you can't tout Rondo's passing ability and general prowess as a floor general on the one hand (i.e. he makes the players around him better), and then when the team is failing to score points late in games despite having such a good passer say, "Well, you can't blame Rondo for having bad teammates."

  Exactly how is he supposed to change his game to play to the team's strengths? Specifically I mean. He generally makes an effort to get players open shots. What strategy would be better than that in terms of getting the best out of his teammates?

Hold onto the ball less.  Push the pace.  Look for opportunities earlier in the shot clock.  Force the issue and try to get to the line or create his own shot.  In general, keep the team running and try to take advantage of the fact that the Celtics have more young legs on the floor than most of their opponents do.

Grinding down the shot clock and running Green or Bradley off multiple screens, or trying to set up a pick and pop play with Bass or Sullinger, is just not likely to yield good results.  Those guys are several tiers below Pierce, Allen, and Garnett.

Like I've said before, Rondo probably needs to know his teammates and know the scheme well. The fact that he's jumping in mid-season is very counterproductive to that.

Without full access to the playbook (not having learned the tendencies of his teammates well, and not having had much practice with new schemes), with a team full of mismatched young guns, there are plays where the team looks like they're playing pickup basketball. For instance, I feel like Rondo kind of "winged it" with Kris Humphries and only really figured how well Kris plays during the game.

On the flip side, there are plays where Rondo is probably hesitant to pass. Missing a beat probably hurts the offense a lot.

On the rebounding, we're having our guards crash down the defensive glass since the first month or so. We were terrible on the defensive glass and Stevens talked about having the perimeter guys make sure to hunt down more boards while sully/humph/bass boxed out more. This allowed the team to get to average to somewhat above average on the defensive glass.

Rondo and Bradley are both putting up career high DREB% because of this scheme.

Awesome.

One of the things that I was excited about before getting Stevens was rebounding. It's an important aspect of the game that Doc did not seem to care much about and was a source of great frustration. [http://www.winninghoops.com/pages/Breaking-News---Breaking-Down-Butlers-Brad-Stevens-Advanced-Statistics.php]

I was hoping JG would get more boards. He did have a back to back points-rebounds double-double, which I'm not sure he's ever had. And around the time he got the b2bdd, he was also streaking on the boards. But otherwise it's been par for course for JG.

I have been under the impression that Bass has been grabbing more rebounds (seems he's had a bunch of double digit rebounding games, more this season than I've ever seen since he joined).

But AB grabbing more rebounds is something I've overlooked. I remember he's had beast stats rebounding which was shocking.

I am of the opinion that Brad is a strong, positive force. Nice to see it quantified in some way in this atrocious season.

[Fafnir]

Yeah I don't see how the triple post offense has much in common with Steven's motion offense. The principal of reading the defense and making plays off of that is certainly similar but the details are very different. Especially the version that the C's are running, idealized maybe they're closer.

[BballTim]

Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Well, I don't think you can have it both ways.  If Rondo is the best player on the team, and he is truly a star, then the burden is on him to lead the team and do the right things to help the team succeed.  Arguably, with the talent and experience being what it is on this team, that means that we should expect Rondo to adjust. 

Rondo's preference clearly is to dominate the ball, and to really slow down the pace and run plays at the end of tight games.  That style made sense a few years ago.  It doesn't play to the strengths of the current team -- insofar as this team has strengths -- at all.


I guess what I'm saying is that you can't tout Rondo's passing ability and general prowess as a floor general on the one hand (i.e. he makes the players around him better), and then when the team is failing to score points late in games despite having such a good passer say, "Well, you can't blame Rondo for having bad teammates."

  Exactly how is he supposed to change his game to play to the team's strengths? Specifically I mean. He generally makes an effort to get players open shots. What strategy would be better than that in terms of getting the best out of his teammates?

Hold onto the ball less.  Push the pace.  Look for opportunities earlier in the shot clock.  Force the issue and try to get to the line or create his own shot.  In general, keep the team running and try to take advantage of the fact that the Celtics have more young legs on the floor than most of their opponents do.

  Rondo does push the pace when there's something to be gained, keeps the team running when they aren't significantly outnumbered in the front court and doesn't arbitrarily pass up scoring opportunities earlier in the shot clock. Holding the ball less won't inherently get better play out of his teammates. There are plenty of possessions where he goes up court and immediately passes the ball to Green or the other guard. If you think we're noticeably more successful when that happens then I would disagree.

Grinding down the shot clock and running Green or Bradley off multiple screens, or trying to set up a pick and pop play with Bass or Sullinger, is just not likely to yield good results.  Those guys are several tiers below Pierce, Allen, and Garnett.

  It's true that those players aren't as good as the players that Rondo's used to playing with. It's also true that the plays we used to run won't be as successful with those lesser players. But that's because they are lesser players. It's not because they'd be much more successful if you run something else. If you're in the half court and the defense is set (which, whether people claim we should "run more" or not, happens frequently), what are you expecting to run that's going to be more successful than the plays you're panning?

[BballTim]

Rondo doesn't even try to push the pace. When was the last time you saw him score a transition layup or pass up the ball quickly so one can be scored?

Come on now...let's not say that he doesn't try to push the pace...he walks the ball and he does run the ball as well. You may only notice when he's walking the ball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cEo9FZR-O0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTnpDH_R1Nc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ9sI9MucBA

  Yeah, the whole thing's nonsense. Look at the first play in the middle clip. Rondo gets the ball and all 5 players are back on defense. Three of Rondo's teammates are in the back-court with him, so he walks the ball into the front court. People are outraged that he doesn't rush the ball up court so they can press their 1v5 advantage. They see a dozen or so plays like that a game, disregard all of the plays in those games where he does push the ball up court and walk away claiming that he doesn't push the pace or that he never tries to get transition baskets.

[Roy H.]

  Yeah, the whole thing's nonsense. Look at the first play in the middle clip. Rondo gets the ball and all 5 players are back on defense. Three of Rondo's teammates are in the back-court with him, so he walks the ball into the front court. People are outraged that he doesn't rush the ball up court so they can press their 1v5 advantage. They see a dozen or so plays like that a game, disregard all of the plays in those games where he does push the ball up court and walk away claiming that he doesn't push the pace or that he never tries to get transition baskets.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the play with Rondo specifically, but overall the Celtics are slightly below average in transition (18th in pace, 19th in fast break points per game), but not horrible.

I do think there's something to the criticism of Rondo holding the ball too much, though.  We have a largely stagnant half-court offense, and part of that is because there's very little ball movement.  I don't know what percentage of blame gets assigned to Rondo vs. Stevens vs. inferior talent, but it's not working.

[BballTim]

  Yeah, the whole thing's nonsense. Look at the first play in the middle clip. Rondo gets the ball and all 5 players are back on defense. Three of Rondo's teammates are in the back-court with him, so he walks the ball into the front court. People are outraged that he doesn't rush the ball up court so they can press their 1v5 advantage. They see a dozen or so plays like that a game, disregard all of the plays in those games where he does push the ball up court and walk away claiming that he doesn't push the pace or that he never tries to get transition baskets.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the play with Rondo specifically, but overall the Celtics are slightly below average in transition (18th in pace, 19th in fast break points per game), but not horrible.

I do think there's something to the criticism of Rondo holding the ball too much, though.  We have a largely stagnant half-court offense, and part of that is because there's very little ball movement.  I don't know what percentage of blame gets assigned to Rondo vs. Stevens vs. inferior talent, but it's not working.

  They keep track of things like number of touches or time of possession for individual players on nba.com. The top of the list is dominated by point guards. Whether you look at number of touches, time of possession or divide them out and get average length of time possessing the ball per touch Rondo's a little towards the high end but doesn't really stick out in any of the categories.

[Fafnir]

  Yeah, the whole thing's nonsense. Look at the first play in the middle clip. Rondo gets the ball and all 5 players are back on defense. Three of Rondo's teammates are in the back-court with him, so he walks the ball into the front court. People are outraged that he doesn't rush the ball up court so they can press their 1v5 advantage. They see a dozen or so plays like that a game, disregard all of the plays in those games where he does push the ball up court and walk away claiming that he doesn't push the pace or that he never tries to get transition baskets.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the play with Rondo specifically, but overall the Celtics are slightly below average in transition (18th in pace, 19th in fast break points per game), but not horrible.

I do think there's something to the criticism of Rondo holding the ball too much, though.  We have a largely stagnant half-court offense, and part of that is because there's very little ball movement.  I don't know what percentage of blame gets assigned to Rondo vs. Stevens vs. inferior talent, but it's not working.

The ball wasn't moving well with earlier either. I think its a combined issue, our wings can't handle the ball either.

We had Wallace handling the ball a ton because he was more comfortable doing so than Green (and that way team's couldn't completely not guard him like they would off the ball)

System, Rondo's habits from playing under Doc with PP/KG/Ray, and lack of talent across the board.

[Fafnir]

That's the one area of the game that I think holds Jeff Green back the most. He never developed a comfort or nba skill level handling the ball.

[slamtheking]

That's the one area of the game that I think holds Jeff Green back the most. He never developed a comfort or nba skill level handling the ball.

I think that's a problem with our wings in general.  better teams have a SG and/or SF that can handle the ball well for their position and act as a second playmaker.  We really don't have that.  We barely have backup PGs that I have that confidence in.  Bayless is an ok ballhandler and while Pressey is a good ballhandler I think some of that skill is negated by some really foolish TOs he's committed.

[nickagneta]

Getting past the hyperbole that has littered this thread regarding Rondo, I have to agree with the pragmatic opinions of Faf and Roy.

I'm one of the biggest Rondo supporters on this site but he does hold the ball a bit too much, but then again, in today's game, most PGs do. And it really doesn't matter the type of PG either. Whether you are a floor general type like Paul and Rondo or a shoot first guy like Rose or Westbrook, you tend to dominate the ball and the ball moves a whole lot less. It what the game has become with the advent of the three point line, stretch offenses, and smallish SGs with great handles that are too small to play the SG position in the much larger, current era of the NBA.

I think Stevens needs to change his offense. He's definitely at fault here. The system is awful.

The pace has to be improved when the efficiency isn't there, that's on Rondo.

The talent and general makeup of this team(loads of PFs and small guards, no centers, and a lack of ball handlers and shooters) is also to blame, that's on Danny.

The players in the system stink, that's on them.

Loads of blame to go around here. Singling out your one star and the team captain with 4 games to go in a season is ludicrous, Tommy. Respect for your knowledge and experience, but at this point, this is an off season matter to deal with between Stevens and Rondo. Sitting Rondo now for doing these things is just a ridiculous idea.

[pearljammer10]

AKA Tommy saying:

Come on Stevens, sit Rondo to officially tank the rest of the season.

[vinnie]

Tommy Heinsohn was a great player and a great guy that knows a lot about basketball. He also has made some of the most ridiculous statements about the game and he has told us numerous times how guys were going to be the second coming of some great, former player, only to see them cut after a season or 2. He is a parody of himself and I take almost everything he says with a grain of salt. Again, a great Celtic and a great guy, but one of the last guys I am going to listen to when I want to hear expert advice about a player or team.

[nickagneta]

If I am Stevens and I see Rondo slowing the pace, against my wishes(yeah, the one thing not discussed here is has Stevens told Rondo to slow the pace down at certain times of the game), I am pulling him aside and telling him:

"Okay, I get it. You aren't used to running a team at the pace I want. This season is done, fine, run it slow. But your ass better be doing wind sprints all summer long because come next season we run and if you aren't on board with that, you will be sitting at the end of the bench and watching Pressey run this club. Period end of story!"

And my tone would be far from friendly.