A big part of that was the addition of Isaiah Thomas and willingness of Bradley, Smart, and Turner to step up to the big moment, unlike guys who had been traded away earlier in the season (Rondo, Green).
I get people love to hate Jeff Green, and love to pile criticism on him at every opportunity. I also get that a lot of that criticism (consistency, effort, heart) is justified.
But all that aside, lets at least give the guy credit when it's due - there might not be a guy since the Pierce/Ray/KG who has hit more clutch baskets for the Celtics than Jeff Green did. It's the one thing he did well, and consistently well.
Of course we'd like to believe our team has a superior "culture" and that there's just something different about the way our team approaches the game etc etc but what proof do we really have of that? A two month stretch where they out-hustled a series of opponents playing out the string until the playoffs started?
Is there any particular reason why people tend to completely ignore the fact that our rapid turnaround in team success coincided (pretty much exactly) with a series of major roster changes?
During the stretch where we looked like a lottery team, we had Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green starting and with Marcus Thorton as our 6th man.
During the stretch where we looked like a top 2 team in the East, we had Smart and Turner/Crowder starting, with Isaiah Thomas as our 6th man.
Even if you DON'T believe in advanced statistics (like Real Plus Minus) the eye test alone is enough to tell you what a huge difference that is.
If you DO believe in advanced statistics (like Real Plus Minus), then you'll see that Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green and Marcus Thornton were all had an RPM of something like -3.5 which is good enough to rank all three guys down around the bottom 25% of the NBA.
By comparison Smart and Thomas both had a positive RPM for the season, while both Turner and Crowder were up around neutral.
You say "A two month stretch where they out-hustled a series of opponents playing out the string until the playoffs started".
Have you considered that replacing Rondo and Green (who guys famous for their inconsistent levels of effort/motor) for guys like Smart and Crowder (two guys famous for their extremely high motor/hustle) could have something to do with why Boston was out hustling opponents after the All-Star break?
Likewise this whole 'garbage time' theory makes no sense.
The only teams in the NBA who really didn't have to win games over the past month or so were Atlanta, Golden Stats and MAYBE Clevleand - because those three teams were so far above the next seeded teams that they didn't have much fear of being caught or overtaken. We played barely any games against those three teams over the past month or so of the season.
A number of other teams (like Brooklyn, Miami, Indiana, OKC, New Orleans) were battling for playoff sports, so they were basically fighting for their lives...and we had games against almost all of those teams in the past month.
A number of other teams (Houston, Clippers, Toronto, Memphis, etc) were fighting for their final seeds, so for all of those teams the last month or so of games were extremely important.
For the bad teams (Philly, New York, Orlando, Lakers, etc) they entire season was a tank fest, so the last month or two was no different to the rest of the season.
The whole concept of those past two months being "garbage time" just makes no sense whatsover. Boston had one of the tougher scheduled over the past month or so - we played a number of teams that were either playoff teams fighting for seeds, or teams fighting for playoff spots. We absolutely did NOT get an easy run.
People keep insisting that Boston's success over the last two months was a fluke, but completely ignore the fact that this 'fluke' almost perfectly coincides with a series of very major trades made by the team...and if the change in personnel was one of the big reasons for that success, there's no reason to believe that similar levels of success aren't possible next season.
I should say, I like Kelly. If Lee weren't on board, I'd hope to see Kelly win the starting job and play 28-30 minutes a night. I'd be very interested to see what sort of numbers KO could put up if he were made a bigger, more consistent part of the offense.
That would require him to be prepared to take on that kind of role in the offense, and not foul out, however.
Nonetheless, the Celts have a solid 4-man rotation in the frontcourt. Between Lee, Amir, Zeller, and KO, I think the Celts can get 40 points, 20 rebounds, and a smattering of hustle and passing stats from their big men every night.
Of course, the presence of Sullinger, Jerebko, and Mickey, plus the possibility of going with smaller lineups featuring Crowder at the 4, means that the Celts may not ever get to settle into a regular big man rotation like that.
Right there is part of my problem with the roster right now. I don't see how this team will ever get into a rhythm with a regular rotation so long as there's such a long list of interchangeable parts for Stevens to tinker with.
I can see where you're coming from on this, and I do in some ways agree. We have a very deep roster. I say that because you could fairly argue we have 2-3 guys at every position who could start on an average team, and we also have many players who have the versatility to play multiple positions (which in a way is a form of depth in itself).
I've already tried looking at our roster and trying to figure out who will start and who will be in the second unit, and it leaves me scratching my head. We have so many quality players that almost impossible to come up with a rotation that doesn't lead to at least one or two quality players wasting away on the bench.
For example, I feel like David Lee is our 'best' big right now, while Olynyk, Johnson and Jerebko are our most versatile 'bigs'. Because of this, almost every rotation I can come up with ends up seeing either Sully or Zeller wasting away on the bench, and only getting minutes in special 'situational' lineups.
Both of those guys are way too talented to be end of bench players, and it would be heartbreaking to see either of them limited to that type of role.
But then in order to give all the guys minutes you'd need to ration playing time out so that essentially NOBODY gets much more than 17-22 MPG, and if you do that it's arguably an even bigger crime because you're limiting everybody's development.
That's not even getting down into the rookies yet.
On the other hand, for several years now the Celtics have been a franchise plagued by injuries - it's haunted us ever since the 2008 title. The extra depth we have adds a lot of comfort here, because a big reason why we were able to be so successful last year was because of that depth. We lost Olynyk and Sully for significant periods for a while there, and other guys (Bass, Crowder, etc) were able to step up by giving us meaningful minutes even while playing out of position.
There are certainly pros and cons to the situation.
As the saying goes though, you'd much rather have too many talented players rather than not enough of them. It's a good problem to have, and there's a good chance that this curse will become a blessing at some point in the season (if a good trade opportunity presents itself, or if we get hit by the injury bug).
Topic: Celtics too talented not to win 50 games in the East. (Read 29289 times)