my not-so-popular impression of last night's game

[Donoghus]

It's Game 1 of an 82 game season against a clearly inferior opponent.  They didn't have to feature their best players for extended periods.

Technically, no. But they didn't last year, and they show no intention of doing it this year. In fact Brad is on the record for the 10-man rotation, which makes no sense whatsoever. You'll hold Amir and Isaiah to less than 30 minutes so that your 10th best player can get some burn? That's not conserving strength, that's sheer lunacy.

It speaks more to the roster (and not necessarily in a good way) but how much worse are the 9th & 10th guys on this team than the best?  It's not a huge gap, unfortunately.   Last night, the bench probably outperformed the starters.

I'm also fine with working this out early in the season as I expect moves to be made by the trading deadline that should tighten up the roster and shorten the rotation.   If this long rotation somehow gets some showcasing in, so be it. 

I don't expect this to occur all year.  Circumstances & opponents will certainly call for it.

[Celtics18]

It's Game 1 of an 82 game season against a clearly inferior opponent.  They didn't have to feature their best players for extended periods.

Technically, no. But they didn't last year, and they show no intention of doing it this year. In fact Brad is on the record for the 10-man rotation, which makes no sense whatsoever. You'll hold Amir and Isaiah to less than 30 minutes so that your 10th best player can get some burn? That's not conserving strength, that's sheer lunacy.

Yet, the strategy yielded very positive results last year.  The post-Rondo/Green Celtics wildly outperformed almost everyone's expectations. 

Do you think they would have performed even better if Brad had shortened the rotation and given more minutes to his best players?

[Kuberski33]

This team will be better with Lee playing a lot of minutes.  He knows how to score and if you didn't notice last night, he's an excellent passer.  He's a real good fit on this team with the style they play.  Really looking forward to this team finally getting some consistency out of the 4 & 5 positions.

[PhoSita]

Perhaps partially true, but I'm still not sure how NOT featuring your best players is an optimal strategy -- no matter how marginally better they are for the lot.

Our best player is a bench guy who gets torched by starting caliber point guards, and the best guy to pair with him in the frontcourt is the best of our stable of all-pretty-good-but-not-great big men.

So it makes sense to bring Amir off the bench with IT and just let them make sweet music together for 24-30 minutes a game.

I like the Smart - Bradley - Crowder - Lee - Zeller unit, even if they struggle at times against opposing starters.  I'd like to see that unit get plenty of minutes together, and I'd like to see IT, KO, Amir, and Jerebko get plenty of minutes together.

The biggest thing I want to see this year is continuity.  How good can these combinations be if they get the chance to play a lot of minutes together and grow really comfortable with one another?

[MJohnnyboy]

I expect every game to have someone different stand-out. Zeller was awful last night. That's fine. I expect him to have a better game soon. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a great game soon enough. Sully played great, and though I like Sully and think he's under-appreciated around here, I'm sure he'll have a bad game soon enough. The only guy on this squad who I expect to give us around the same production night and night out is Isaiah Thomas because he can put the ball in the basket consistently. That is the beauty of this team. The depth that this team has makes it so that the Celtics can live with Lee and Zeller having bad games and still win by double digits because they can take advantage of mismatches with other options.

Even if it was the 76ers, I couldn't be more excited for this team to play.

[Evantime34]

Perhaps partially true, but I'm still not sure how NOT featuring your best players is an optimal strategy -- no matter how marginally better they are for the lot.

Our best player is a bench guy who gets torched by starting caliber point guards, and the best guy to pair with him in the frontcourt is the best of our stable of all-pretty-good-but-not-great big men.

So it makes sense to bring Amir off the bench with IT and just let them make sweet music together for 24-30 minutes a game.

I like the Smart - Bradley - Crowder - Lee - Zeller unit, even if they struggle at times against opposing starters.  I'd like to see that unit get plenty of minutes together, and I'd like to see IT, KO, Amir, and Jerebko get plenty of minutes together.

The biggest thing I want to see this year is continuity.  How good can these combinations be if they get the chance to play a lot of minutes together and grow really comfortable with one another?

I think that Lee could make similarly sweet music in the pick and roll with Thomas, while Amir can give us better output with the starters than Lee does.

Also I think Johnson needs to be playing more than 20 minutes.

[kozlodoev]

Perhaps partially true, but I'm still not sure how NOT featuring your best players is an optimal strategy -- no matter how marginally better they are for the lot.

Our best player is a bench guy who gets torched by starting caliber point guards, and the best guy to pair with him in the frontcourt is the best of our stable of all-pretty-good-but-not-great big men.

So it makes sense to bring Amir off the bench with IT and just let them make sweet music together for 24-30 minutes a game.

I like the Smart - Bradley - Crowder - Lee - Zeller unit, even if they struggle at times against opposing starters.  I'd like to see that unit get plenty of minutes together, and I'd like to see IT, KO, Amir, and Jerebko get plenty of minutes together.

The biggest thing I want to see this year is continuity.  How good can these combinations be if they get the chance to play a lot of minutes together and grow really comfortable with one another?

There isn't a lot of continuity to be had when you're just playing half the game.

Also, I'm not sure Thomas is struggling against starters all that much. Certainly not more than some of our starters who bring a lot less to the table offensively.

[Celtics4ever]

I thought Sully played well this game, but I doubt this will be the case most games.   Not all teams have slow big men that he matches up well with or run a slow down half court offense that he plays well in.

[SHAQATTACK]

I guess Celtics got enough good players ,  that most nights , when one or two important players are off ....their game .....CBS can look down his bench and insert someone else and not fall off too much.  Even though there's no KG or Pierce , there is enough players to come in fresh night after night. 

Celtics should be able to keep,lessen the wear and tear of the long season with so many options .

I look for Celtics to,surge at seasons end push past the .500 mark as other teams stars get decimated,  stars are benched to save them for playoffs .

Very simular to last season .
 All the best teams stars are healthy now ....so if the playoffs were in two weeks we d be destroyed. .....

[Vermont Green]

I don't understand why Lee or Zeller are starting.  The only explanation in my mind is showcasing for a trade.  I think Lee should be coming off the bench.  He might do alright against a second team and that might actually improve his trade value (if he actually has any trade value).

Zeller only played 11 minutes.  Him starting is just a charade. 

[Celtics18]

I don't understand why Lee or Zeller are starting.  The only explanation in my mind is showcasing for a trade.  I think Lee should be coming off the bench.  He might do alright against a second team and that might actually improve his trade value (if he actually has any trade value).

Zeller only played 11 minutes.  Him starting is just a charade.

Agreed.  I would love a starting lineup of:

Smart
Bradley
Crowder
Olynyk
Johnson

[mctyson]

Yes Noel and Okafor are both better individual prospects than any player we have

Nerlens Noel is not a better NBA player than Marcus Smart. 

[mctyson]

And my impression of last night's game is that the Lakers will be kicking themselves for the next decade for not taking Okafor.  Worst-case scenario for him is he is Al Jefferson.  I would argue he is already better than Al Jefferson.

[PhoSita]

There isn't a lot of continuity to be had when you're just playing half the game.

More continuity than they ever had last year.  The lineups were constantly changing and you'd be hard pressed to find many 3 or 4 man combos that consistently saw floor time together in the same situations over the majority of the season.

[chambers]

Yes Noel and Okafor are both better individual prospects than any player we have

Nerlens Noel is not a better NBA player than Marcus Smart.

But he's probably a better prospect.