blame on yesterday's big loss is on Stevens

[Meadowlark_Scal]

I would have tried both Zeller and KO at least once......Seeing as Zeller is a mover and cutter.....goes inside strong, KO needs to become more confident and decisive......He has shown that sometimes.....some mistakes are not good...his bringing the ball up.....okay cut that out....or try when we are up by 20...We have RONDO for that.....

Zeller, thornton, KO, Green, rondo...or some try with our two bigs.....Last night was at least a good learning night.....see where we are against one of the better teams.

We did not cut in much, and when we did it worked pretty good.....Still, I'd say this made ZELLER look VERY good against one of thetougher centers....refs and all.......

[SHAQATTACK]

Damage was done fast and quick in the first 12 minutes.   Maybe coach though they would play heir way out out of the situation. 

Houston's explosion to start the game combined with the poor shooting and offensive movement ,  seemed to just unwind the young Celtics.

They seemed sucker punched ,  waiting for somebody to reset the game , like start over in practice, but it was the real deal.  The boom was being lowered and they stood there and watched a beat down take place. Every bad habit KO I thought had shaken ..returned....the trash talking and refs got in their heads too. Too many enemies for a young club

I could see very early .....when it was like 2-9 Rockets.....things were going sour .....the guys looked dazed and lost.

When Smart got stuffed on his jam attempt ......I knew it was over.





Sully and Zeller didn't seem as rattled ..our wings were just horrible.  Bradley looked like junk.

[LarBrd33]

blame it on lack of talent.  Game 1 was a fluke.  We probably aren't going to have a shooting night like that for the rest of the season.  This team is what we saw yesterday... no alpha dogs... no consistent scorers.  A team that is supposed to share the ball and share the shot attempts.  It looks wonderful when everyone shoots out of their collective butt-holes, but on a normal night, mediocre talent will inevitably struggle and the team will get owned.  The second issue was that our interior defense is a complete joke.  We were brutalized inside... which most people predicted would happen against the Rockets.

You have a broken roster that will need to be fixed some day.  A 3-guard rotation that can't really shoot (Bradley is average and the other two are horrible), a mediocre starting SF,  two young PF's who might not be long-term starters and are complete non-factors in their attempt to protect the paint... and a handful of solid average bench players who are redundant with the mediocre talent in our starting lineup.  It's a recipe for 25 wins.  But when the team goes out there and randomly shoots 55%, it's going to look good.

[pearljammer10]

My worry is that Stevens and the team didn't adjust their offense to counter how the Rockets were playing it. Every possession the Rockets extended their D to push us way out to the three line and beyond and make it difficult to swing the ball quickly, which we are successful at... If the Rockets can defend us like they did and contain us, what will stop other teams from doing the same?

It's not about the Rocket's defense, it's about our offense
their defense isn't that good,(except in the paint of course)

Yeah but this is my point. The Rockets perimeter defense isn't that good but it still completely distrupted the flow of our motion offense. If the Rockets can do it, I fear that other teams will take note and be able to do the same. If we don't make any adjustments, like we didnt do last night, then we are in for a longer season than we expect.

And yes we had many open 3's that didn't go in despite being decent looks. But still, that's due to the offense being rattled by the way we were played. At that point, keep attacking the paint and looking to drive. Get some sort of momentum going with a slight adjustment.

[Rondo9]

blame it on lack of talent.  Game 1 was a fluke.  We probably aren't going to have a shooting night like that for the rest of the season.  This team is what we saw yesterday... no alpha dogs... no consistent scorers.  A team that is supposed to share the ball and share the shot attempts.  It looks wonderful when everyone shoots out of their collective butt-holes, but on a normal night, mediocre talent will inevitably struggle and the team will get owned.  The second issue was that our interior defense is a complete joke.  We were brutalized inside... which most people predicted would happen against the Rockets.

You have a broken roster that will need to be fixed some day.  A 3-guard rotation that can't really shoot (Bradley is average and the other two are horrible), a mediocre starting SF,  two young PF's who might not be long-term starters and are complete non-factors in their attempt to protect the paint... and a handful of solid average bench players who are redundant with the mediocre talent in our starting lineup.  It's a recipe for 25 wins.  But when the team goes out there and randomly shoots 55%, it's going to look good.

Bradley shot 39 percent from three last year and Marcus Throton is a decent 3 point shooter.

[LarBrd33]

blame it on lack of talent.  Game 1 was a fluke.  We probably aren't going to have a shooting night like that for the rest of the season.  This team is what we saw yesterday... no alpha dogs... no consistent scorers.  A team that is supposed to share the ball and share the shot attempts.  It looks wonderful when everyone shoots out of their collective butt-holes, but on a normal night, mediocre talent will inevitably struggle and the team will get owned.  The second issue was that our interior defense is a complete joke.  We were brutalized inside... which most people predicted would happen against the Rockets.

You have a broken roster that will need to be fixed some day.  A 3-guard rotation that can't really shoot (Bradley is average and the other two are horrible), a mediocre starting SF,  two young PF's who might not be long-term starters and are complete non-factors in their attempt to protect the paint... and a handful of solid average bench players who are redundant with the mediocre talent in our starting lineup.  It's a recipe for 25 wins.  But when the team goes out there and randomly shoots 55%, it's going to look good.

Bradley shot 39 percent from three last year and Marcus Throton is a decent 3 point shooter.

Bradley's not someone who can really create his shot or carry and offense, though.  He's a nice average shooter... probably would fit great off a contender's bench.  He's certainly a better shooter than Rondo/Smart, but you're not going to build an offense around a guy like avery bradley.  He'll be up and down this year as much as the rest of the average players on this team.   Gotta have star talent to win in this league.

[nickagneta]

Have we transported back to the days of blaming the coach when the players play bad defense and shoot poorly? I thought Celticsbloggers only did that for Doc Rivers!

[Snakehead]

Have we transported back to the days of blaming the coach when the players play bad defense and shoot poorly? I thought Celticsbloggers only did that for Doc Rivers!

A cycle starts anew.

[Chris22]

Not starting Zeller was bizarre.
And then putting Bass on Howard?
I thought maybe Doc Rivers had returned to coach the Celtics.

[kraidstar]

1. c's were a 25-win team last year
2. c's are a very young team and looked nervous, first road game, and on an opposing team's opening night
3. c's shot 1-25 from 3, and most of those shots were relatively uncontested (would be interesting to hear what the winning % is all-time of NBA teams shooting that poorly)
4. free throws: 40-18; refs really were stumping hard for houston early on. not that that's any surprise, we get hosed every time we play in texas. add to that the fact that it's opening night.

overall, considering the free throws, the location, the opponent, and the historically bad 3-point shooting, i almost think we should be happy with the result. most teams would have lost by 30+ with those numbers.

[Rondo9]

blame it on lack of talent.  Game 1 was a fluke.  We probably aren't going to have a shooting night like that for the rest of the season.  This team is what we saw yesterday... no alpha dogs... no consistent scorers.  A team that is supposed to share the ball and share the shot attempts.  It looks wonderful when everyone shoots out of their collective butt-holes, but on a normal night, mediocre talent will inevitably struggle and the team will get owned.  The second issue was that our interior defense is a complete joke.  We were brutalized inside... which most people predicted would happen against the Rockets.

You have a broken roster that will need to be fixed some day.  A 3-guard rotation that can't really shoot (Bradley is average and the other two are horrible), a mediocre starting SF,  two young PF's who might not be long-term starters and are complete non-factors in their attempt to protect the paint... and a handful of solid average bench players who are redundant with the mediocre talent in our starting lineup.  It's a recipe for 25 wins.  But when the team goes out there and randomly shoots 55%, it's going to look good.

Bradley shot 39 percent from three last year and Marcus Throton is a decent 3 point shooter.

Bradley's not someone who can really create his shot or carry and offense, though.  He's a nice average shooter... probably would fit great off a contender's bench.  He's certainly a better shooter than Rondo/Smart, but you're not going to build an offense around a guy like avery bradley.  He'll be up and down this year as much as the rest of the average players on this team.   Gotta have star talent to win in this league.

What does that have to do with being an average shooter? Bradley shot nearly 40 percent from three that's excellent to above average regardless of his offensive talent.

[chambers]

1- lineup needed a big change after the 1st
2- the rockets were taking away the three pt line. Congesting the perimeter
3- defensively AB and Rondo were both doing a poor job on canaan and harden. Harden got into the paint too many times and got to the line way many times

Solution i would of liked to see

1. Put in zeller vs howard(should of been done quicker, instead of having sully have to try to stop him)

2.  Have KO or Sully out with Zeller and keep feeding the ball into the post(vs smaller tjones).  Score or pass the ball back out for an open three or pass to the cutter

3. Have marcus smart also post up canaan. Pass out the ball for the open three. Pass to cutter

4. Have a more physical bigger smart guard harden. AB was on him like most of the night and it was not working

On the defensive end by the 2nd, you have smart on harden. Let him feed it to howard. If he drives in, zeller can rotate to try to alter.

BS just looks like he just stuck with what got us a nice win vs the nets instead of adjusting and trying to throw the rockets game off asap.

Regardless of coming up with a quicker solution/disrupt what the rockets wanted to do, we could of still lost. But at least it would of not been a blowout

They didn't put Smart on Harden because he would have torched Smart in the pick and roll.

I thought Stevens actually made the correct adjustments- we just couldn't hit a lick and that's what happens when you have a 3 point shooting team that isn't great at 3 point shooting.

 Stevens became much more aggressive on defense and started feeding the ball down low to Sullinger to get to the line and hopefully open up some three point shots.

He put Avery up on Cannon with full court pressure to try and spark a defensive run by the Celtics but Harden was too good.

The biggest problem for us was a lack of rebounding in the first half- they destroyed us in the paint. We are undersized and it was always going to be hard to stop Howard inside, Harden driving and Jones stepping out to leave Howard in isolation.

It wasn't a hard game for Stevens to adjust to coaching wise- he's a better coach than McHale, McHale just has far better players on his roster and that usually wins.

[Tr1boy]

BS inexperienced really showed last night.

We will see what happens next when we play teams that emulate what the Rockets did to kill us or against another elite big.

The raptors actually did the same thing against us to win both times (congest the perimeter). BS has not yet figured out a way to get around this.

[mgent]

Yeah, can't Stevens hit a freakin' 3?

[greece66]

I do not believe this thread is for real. I must be having hallucinations.
You actually watched yesterday's game, and you think that we lost due to bad coaching?
In any case, just to avoid getting over-dramatic over last night's defeat, pls remember that one thing Houston is pretty good at is winning weak teams. They are more efficient in these games than most other top-10 teams because they are a strong team with obvious weaknesses, but to take advantage of these weaknesses you need a really good roster. This is why they are destined to eternal mediocrity in the West: they build a good win record against the Bostons, Utahs and LAL and then get easily demolished by Portland.