Time to put Brown and Hayward back in the starting lineup

[KGs Knee]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

[Rosco917]

If we had a replacement for Morris I would say to sit him down. Something has happened to Morris, I don't know what it is, maybe he heard from his agent the Celtics are not considering signing him, I don't know. But he has really checked out. He looks like he simply doesn't care.
IMO opinion he was never the answer at PF. He's a black hole that resents passing the ball, similar to Rozier.

If you put Brown back in the starting lineup you should put Tatum on the second unit, because he's way too soft to deal with true power forwards and both kids have a lack of court vision at this time in their careers. Both have trouble with their ball handling too.

Hayward is looking lost and tentative also but has a better handle, he's a better passer, and has more experience in general.

At this point, almost no one really knows their role, and that's on the coach.

[td450]

If we had a replacement for Morris I would say to sit him down. Something has happened to Morris, I don't know what it is, maybe he heard from his agent the Celtics are not considering signing him, I don't know. But he has really checked out. He looks like he simply doesn't care.
IMO opinion he was never the answer at PF. He's a black hole that resents passing the ball, similar to Rozier.

If you put Brown back in the starting lineup you should put Tatum on the second unit, because he's way too soft to deal with true power forwards and both kids have a lack of court vision at this time in their careers. Both have trouble with their ball handling too.

Hayward is looking lost and tentative also but has a better handle, he's a better passer, and has more experience in general.

At this point, almost no one really knows their role, and that's on the coach.

One possible thing to experiment with is starting Smart and having Brown doing some minutes at defending power forwards. He is considerably stronger than Tatum. Again, this will result in some awkward matchups for most teams.

[Jiri Welsch]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

I actually kind of like this the best. TP

[mmmmm]

Brown should start.

Hayward is killing us right now. In the last 10 games, I would start Hayward and sit some starters. This will make him the feature player and give him a chance to get right. He's trash right now.

Once playoff position will not change, let Hayward get 30 mins and majority of the shots. If he doesn't show much, take him out the rotation for playoffs.

LOL

Hayward had the highest plus and minus on the team last night.

Im curious to know how many minutes he played alongside Morris, must not have been much.

Hayward played 15 of his 27 minutes alongside Morris.  During that sample, the team was +7.   That means that Morris was a massive -15 in the 14 minutes he was on the floor without Hayward.

That said, 12 of those 15 minutes (and 24 of Hayward's 27 minutes overall) had Jaylen Brown on the floor.  And Jaylen pretty clearly played very, very well last night and had a lot to do with the positive results.

I concur with those indicating that Jaylen and Hayward seem to play pretty well together (even though Hayward's shooting is still awful).   Several times on _defense_ last night I saw the two of them execute switches perfectly in sync with each other.  It was really cool to watch those plays.

[mmmmm]

I agree about Morris.

With Smart I can’t make up my mind.  Earlier in the season when Brown and Hayward were in the starting lineup we were getting torched by shooting guards.  When Smart was inserted into the starting lineup that nipped the issue in the bud.

I don't believe that is true.   We have continued to have problems containing quick scoring guards, especially on teams with a pick & roll big.   This has been a problem all season.   And I think this is a scheme problem, not an individual player problem.

[mmmmm]

If we had a replacement for Morris I would say to sit him down. Something has happened to Morris, I don't know what it is, maybe he heard from his agent the Celtics are not considering signing him, I don't know.

I suspect what has happened to Morris is simple regression.   He's simply returning to the average player he has been over his career.

He's 29 years old.  He's played in this league for almost 7 seasons.   In not one prior season had he ever posted a scoring efficiency (TS%) higher than 55.2, which is slightly above league average and his career TS% is (including THIS year) a very mediocre 53.3%.  Not bad.  Just average.

So when he starts off this year posting scoring efficiencies of way over 60% for Oct, Nov & Dec, all kinds of red flag alarms should have been going off in people's heads that that was simply not sustainable.

Sure enough, his TS% for January dropped down to 53.4% and 51.6% for February.   His TS for the season is still a way-over-career best 59.2%.   He'll likely end the season still above his prior career best.  But I would not bet big money on him posting above 60% again any time soon.   That's just not who he really has been through his career.

Throughout his career, he's been a pretty much thoroughly average NBA player.  Not bad.  Not great.  Just average.

[arctic 3.0]

I agree and will go a step further.
Going to get roasted for this but, it’s the internet so I don’t really care.
The “team” on this team is pathetic.
The grit and cohesiveness that defined the Celtics the last few years is gone.
There are probably many reasons but none, in my opinion, greater then the kid running point, play acting as a grizzled vet leader.

I say bench Kyrie. Don’t care about late game heroics, don’t care that we can’t replace him if he walks. He isn’t “leading” us anywhere other than dysfunction.

Start Smart, Brown, Tatum, Hayward, and Horford.
See if we can recapture the magic.
If it works it works. If it doesn’t I don’t expect the results to be worse then then what we’re seeing these days.
Ok, go for it, I can handle it.

[tonydelk]

Brown needs to replace Morris.  Hayward still needs shots and he will not get them with the 1st unit.  I just wish Hayward would just take on Morris's persona and shoot it every time he is open.  He needs the in game shots badly.  Morris hasn't met a shot he hasn't liked. 

[Chris22]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

[KGs Knee]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

[Greengang5]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

Hayward has the highest net rating in February of any player avg over 20 minutes (8.1).  Semi and Baynes are ahead but smaller sample size. Of the regulars only Horford (1.0) and Tatum (0.2) are positive.  Net rating is better than +-

[KGs Knee]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

Hayward has the highest net rating in February of any player avg over 20 minutes (8.1).  Semi and Baynes are ahead but smaller sample size. Of the regulars only Horford (1.0) and Tatum (0.2) are positive.  Net rating is better than +-

So?

Put Hayward in the starting lineup, and playing against opponent's starters more often and I bet that rating would decrease to a number more similar to the other starters.

[Greengang5]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

Hayward has the highest net rating in February of any player avg over 20 minutes (8.1).  Semi and Baynes are ahead but smaller sample size. Of the regulars only Horford (1.0) and Tatum (0.2) are positive.  Net rating is better than +-

So?

Put Hayward in the starting lineup, and playing against opponent's starters more often and I bet that rating would decrease to a number more similar to the other starters.

Maybe.  I would like to find out.  Along with Brown.  My point is Hayward isn't as useless as some make him seem.

[KGs Knee]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

Hayward has the highest net rating in February of any player avg over 20 minutes (8.1).  Semi and Baynes are ahead but smaller sample size. Of the regulars only Horford (1.0) and Tatum (0.2) are positive.  Net rating is better than +-

So?

Put Hayward in the starting lineup, and playing against opponent's starters more often and I bet that rating would decrease to a number more similar to the other starters.

Maybe.  I would like to find out.  Along with Brown.  My point is Hayward isn't as useless as some make him seem.

Obviously, I can't say for sure that his net rating would decrease.  But my point was more to refute the idea that just because he has the highest net rating it means he's been playing the best.  Net rating, or +/-, which are just variants of one another, are highly noisy stats that require a lot of context to truly be meaningful.

I fully agree, though, that Hayward is not useless.