This team need a real coach....

[D.o.s.]

Every time I watch Boston, I get a little more confident Brad Stevens is going to be a great NBA coach. Has BOS moving, cutting, sharing

https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/534712678523359232

I know at least some posters hang on Lowe's every word, so consider it a nice bit of perspective.

That said, Jeff Van Gundy delivered the quote of the season re: Stevens earlier this year when he said it takes great players to make a great coach.

[MBunge]

Every time I watch Boston, I get a little more confident Brad Stevens is going to be a great NBA coach. Has BOS moving, cutting, sharing

https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/534712678523359232

I know at least some posters hang on Lowe's every word, so consider it a nice bit of perspective.

That said, Jeff Van Gundy delivered the quote of the season re: Stevens earlier this year when he said it takes great players to make a great coach.

There are plenty of great assistant coaches who excel at X's and O's and turn out to be complete disasters when given the head job.

If Stevens can get his players to perform so well on offense, how come he can't get them to be just slightly-below-average on defense?

Mike

[D.o.s.]

'Because our team sucks on that side of the ball' would be the easy answer, there.

I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect world beating defense when your three best defenders are all guards, especially since so many people on this blog deliberately or honestly aren't aware of any form of defense beyond 'must stay in front of man at all times.' Not saying that's you, of course.

[Pvictor11]

I see a lot of people talk about that "stay in front of your man" stuff. ANYONE who plays a little basketball knows that the best way to defend someone is to force him to his weak side, if he is right, force him to go left and vice-versa. You don't stand right in front of a guy, if you do, you give him the option to choose which side he wants to go, and it's harder to guard. So that $hit needs to stop, please.
Our defense problems are all about lack of rim protection, period. If you have a guy under the rim that you can trust is gonna get some stops, you can fully concentrate on defendind the perimeter. If you don't have that player (like us), guys will be too concern about helping the interior defense and the perimeter will be unguarded. We are allowing opponents to shoot 41% from deep and millions of points on the paint.
Congrats to Stevens for the offense he is running, our roster is not quality enough to be that good on the offensive end, players are too inconsistent. He is a big part of our offense so far. The problem is our defense and he will figure it out, he is very SMART. oh, by the way, i miss Smart like hell. Didn't want him in the draft, but now I love him, kid is so intense, he likes to defend, hope he can be a celtic for a long time, love when players give their hearts for the green!

[D.o.s.]

I agree with that post. Have a TP.

[MBunge]

Our defense problems are all about lack of rim protection, period.

Who's the great rim protector for Phoenix?  Alex Len?  Who were the great rim protectors for the Bulls in the 90s?  Luc Longley?  Bill Wennington?

I'm not saying rim protection is unimportant but  the idea that it's the only problem we have is ridiculous.

Mike

[D.o.s.]

As an aside: The Bulls are far enough removed from the current state of NBA basketball to be largely extraneous to that discussion. Go watch the game tape -- they could get away with it because of the way the game was played in that day and age, particularly since the pace of the NBA was comparatively glacial.

Rim protection, in and of itself, is not the only problem we have, but it's illustrative of the fact that we've got subpar defensive bigs, to put it kindly.

[kozlodoev]

Our defense problems are all about lack of rim protection, period.

Who's the great rim protector for Phoenix?  Alex Len?  Who were the great rim protectors for the Bulls in the 90s?  Luc Longley?  Bill Wennington?

I'm not saying rim protection is unimportant but  the idea that it's the only problem we have is ridiculous.

Mike

Miles Plumlee, in 25 mpg, averages more blocks per game than anyone on the Celtics by a good margin. Not everyone in the NBA has a Ben Wallace on their roster, but most teams have someone that can challenge shots.

There are 40+ players who average a block per game in the NBA today, and none of them are Celtics. I don't think I've ever seen a Celtics team that's so pathetic in their own paint. Heck, we had more rim protection when the calcified remains of Raef LaFrenz were manning the middle together with the immortal Mark Blount.

[MBunge]

Our defense problems are all about lack of rim protection, period.

Who's the great rim protector for Phoenix?  Alex Len?  Who were the great rim protectors for the Bulls in the 90s?  Luc Longley?  Bill Wennington?

I'm not saying rim protection is unimportant but  the idea that it's the only problem we have is ridiculous.

Mike

Miles Plumlee, in 25 mpg, averages more blocks per game than anyone on the Celtics by a good margin. Not everyone in the NBA has a Ben Wallace on their roster, but most teams have someone that can challenge shots.

Plumlee averages 1.1 blks a game.  Sully averages .8 blks a game.  If you think that .3 blocks a game is the major explanation for why Boston is letting opponents shoot .483 from the field and Phoenix is letting them shoot .459, you are wrong.

I'm not saying rim protection isn't a big issue.  It is.  But Utah has Favors and Gobert averaging nearly 3 blocks a game between then and they're allowing opponents to shoot .472 from the field.

Is losing Kris Humphries' .9 blocks a game from last season the explanation for the Celtics defense falling off a cliff?

There's a lot more than a lack of rim protection that's wrong with this defense and unless it's being done intentionally to tank, a good bit of that wrong has to fall on the coach.

Mike

[Fafnir]

Every time I watch Boston, I get a little more confident Brad Stevens is going to be a great NBA coach. Has BOS moving, cutting, sharing

https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/534712678523359232

I know at least some posters hang on Lowe's every word, so consider it a nice bit of perspective.

That said, Jeff Van Gundy delivered the quote of the season re: Stevens earlier this year when he said it takes great players to make a great coach.

There are plenty of great assistant coaches who excel at X's and O's and turn out to be complete disasters when given the head job.

If Stevens can get his players to perform so well on offense, how come he can't get them to be just slightly-below-average on defense?

Mike

He did last year. That team was 18th in defense and 27th in offense. We've swapped our problem area this year, but at least we're actually scoring at a rate this year that'd lead us to being a .500ish team if we stay at this level of play for the entire year.

[kozlodoev]

Our defense problems are all about lack of rim protection, period.

Who's the great rim protector for Phoenix?  Alex Len?  Who were the great rim protectors for the Bulls in the 90s?  Luc Longley?  Bill Wennington?

I'm not saying rim protection is unimportant but  the idea that it's the only problem we have is ridiculous.

Mike

Miles Plumlee, in 25 mpg, averages more blocks per game than anyone on the Celtics by a good margin. Not everyone in the NBA has a Ben Wallace on their roster, but most teams have someone that can challenge shots.

Plumlee averages 1.1 blks a game.  Sully averages .8 blks a game.  If you think that .3 blocks a game is the major explanation for why Boston is letting opponents shoot .483 from the field and Phoenix is letting them shoot .459, you are wrong.

I'm not saying rim protection isn't a big issue.  It is.  But Utah has Favors and Gobert averaging nearly 3 blocks a game between then and they're allowing opponents to shoot .472 from the field.

Is losing Kris Humphries' .9 blocks a game from last season the explanation for the Celtics defense falling off a cliff?

There's a lot more than a lack of rim protection that's wrong with this defense and unless it's being done intentionally to tank, a good bit of that wrong has to fall on the coach.

Sullinger also plays nearly 5 more minutes per game.

The Celtics interior defense wasn't exactly the stuff of legend last year either. But you take a sizeable chunk of minutes from average defenders who can challenge shots in a pinch (Humphries, Bass), and give them to Sullinger, Olynyk, and Zeller.

Having a shotblocker is not automatically going to solve our interior defense issues. But in the absence of players who can provide consistent positional defense, it may help.

[ChainSmokingLikeDino]

Another game not managed well in particular in last 2-3 minutes. Cannot lose games in this way against a mediocre team. Hard to understand how can Bradley can play the ball in the last minute when is important to manage wisely the ball. Where is the coach?! 

Plus...Rondo missed 3 of 3 free throw in the end. Ugly moment clearly tells he is not a player than can change or decide the game...Can you imagine Lebron or Carmelo to lose 3 of 3 three throws???

like that no good bum Paul Pierce: http://www.nba.com/games/20020527/NJNBOS/recap.html

[ChainSmokingLikeDino]

Our defense problems are all about lack of rim protection, period.

Who's the great rim protector for Phoenix?  Alex Len?  Who were the great rim protectors for the Bulls in the 90s?  Luc Longley?  Bill Wennington?

I'm not saying rim protection is unimportant but  the idea that it's the only problem we have is ridiculous.

Mike

The Suns just gave up 114 and are the 26th rated defense in the league. They could use a rim protector as well. [Edit: That is ppg. They are bottom 10 in dRtg, the point stands]

Comparing the value of a rim protector today against the 90's is futile. Just hand-checking alone changes the picture drastically. Those Bulls teams did have Jordan/Pippen/Rodman, a pretty formidable defensive threesome, especially with the rules of the day.

[Billz401]

I think alot of you consider "rim protecting" as shot blocking.. Dont get me wrong shot blocking is important for a rim protecting big but more so than that is altering shots. You dont have to get a block to successfully defend the rim. As long as you make the offense alter their shot, youve done your job for the most part. How many times have you seen a big run over to defend a shot late and not get the block but he forces the offense to throw it higher off the glass or make them take a fadeaway as opposed to their normal jumper. Little things like that make a HUGE difference in games

[Billz401]

Also as a side note, i had a dream (nightmare) last night that the celtics fired Stevens after this season. There was a press conference with ainge saying Stevens would no longer be coaching the team and i couldnt help but think why??? give the guy a chance. If only i couldve gotten to ainge in my dream, maybe i couldve ripped off his mask only to find eugen underneath... it all makes sense now... STAY OUT OF MY HEAD with your propaganda!