CelticsStrong
Celtics Basketball => Celtics Talk => Topic started by: ScoobyDoo on January 21, 2013, 01:03:16 PM
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Just watched the game on DVR...
Fisrt question:
Rip Hamilton has always seemed like a bit of a bully at the off guard, meaning he throws a lot of elbows, hip and chest bumps, arms always flying all over the place, a very physical 2 guard.
I watched Doc put Bradley, Lee and Barbosa on him. He was able to shoot pretty easily over them once he got his position. And to be honest, as tough as I do think those three players are, Rip was just bigger and stronger than them and just beat them up basically. Finally Doc put Rondo on him and because Rondo is such a "nasty", scrappy little guy it was a little more effective but not much.
My question and first thought if I were coaching was the first time I see some player on another team giving my guys "the business" I'm immediately sending someone bigger and stronger in to kick the crap out of that player.
So, why not put Pierce on Hamilton immediately, put Green at SF, who is actually a better match for Deng, size wise.
I didn't see it once. Pierce can certainly beat the crap out of Hamilton defensively and Pierce also always struggles against Deng's length. The logical move to me then was get Deng off Pierce and get Pierce on Hamilton.
I would have put Pierce on Hamilton defensively and also posted Pierce on him offensively. Basically I would have immediately started beating Rip up on both ends of the court.
Never saw that once... Thoughts?
2. Just the rebounding. I watched a Jimmy Butler literally walk past (from the top of the key) Rondo, Bass and another player, get the offensive rebound and put in a layup.
A shot goes up and so many times these guys just turn around and look at the rim without putting a body on anyone. No one.
I get rotations and guys being out of place, but I've also watched Avery Bradley on multiple occasions being out of place but boxing out Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, any number of big guys, with success once the ball goes up. He may not get the board but those big men aren't either because they';d literally have to crawl over Bradley's back to get it.
Rebounding is largely about boxing out and being willing to lay a body on guys.
Sully doesn't get boards "mostly" because he's 6'9" and 260. It's "mostly" because he lays a body on guys, big time. Whoever is near him gets hit when the ball goes up.
I watch these games and it's absolutely mind boggling to me. They just turn around and stare at the rim when the ball goes up. How many times does someone have to walk by you, get the rebound and put the layup in before you start boxing out?
Are these guys morons or just amazingly undisciplined and/or lazy?
Thoughts?
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Lazy. When you've been a superstar blocking out for the 20k time in your career isn't a priority. In the playoffs they will all start blocking out.
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"The logical move to me then was get Deng off Pierce and get Pierce on Hamilton."
Pierce doesn't want to chase Hamilton around all those screens, just like KG didn't want to play center, and Doc doesn't have the stones to tell Pierce otherwise.
Now, I can understand Pierce not defending two guards all the time, especially at this point in his career, but you've brought up a great example of a time when it was at least something that should have been tried. I mean, it's not like Hamilton is going to break Pierce down off the dribble like Wade or Kobe might.
Mike
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2. ...the rebounding. I watched a Jimmy Butler literally walk past (from the top of the key) Rondo, Bass and another player, get the offensive rebound and put in a layup.
A shot goes up and so many times these guys just turn around and look at the rim without putting a body on anyone. No one.
I get rotations and guys being out of place, but I've also watched Avery Bradley on multiple occasions being out of place but boxing out Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, any number of big guys, with success once the ball goes up. He may not get the board but those big men aren't either because they';d literally have to crawl over Bradley's back to get it.
Rebounding is largely about boxing out and being willing to lay a body on guys.
Sully doesn't get boards "mostly" because he's 6'9" and 260. It's "mostly" because he lays a body on guys, big time. Whoever is near him gets hit when the ball goes up.
I watch these games and it's absolutely mind boggling to me. They just turn around and stare at the rim when the ball goes up. How many times does someone have to walk by you, get the rebound and put the layup in before you start boxing out?
Are these guys morons or just amazingly undisciplined and/or lazy?
This has been happening FOREVER. This is on Doc.
If it happens once, twice, maybe even occasionally, it's harder to pin on Doc. Since it happens so frequently and Doc tolerates it, it is on him.
If someone doesn't put a body on a guy, bench him. Remember when Doc first came here and benched Pierce: that fixed his ass.
Doc, if someone consistently doesn't put a body on someone>>>>>bench his ass.
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If they block out in the playoffs I'll be thrilled. Meanwhile, I think not blocking out during the regular season could at least "assist" in making the difference between a 3rd or 6th seed by the number of losses it contributes to along the way...
Yeah MBunge, that's my frustration. I agree Pierce shouldn't be permanently at the two and we don't want him chasing guys off screens all night.
But for 20 minutes on a night against a playoff competitor in order to get the win, I think he certainly could do it and do it very well. All we needed was alittle more length and muscle on Hamilton and he would have disappeared.
hell, i would have been happy to leave Pierce at the two if I had to and at least put Jeff Green on Hamilton. I think Green actually played him for a "few" minutes and Hamilton got nothing off. Of course we don't want that so let's put the midgets back on Rip...
if it's a case that don't won't tell Pierce "I don't care what you do or don't want to do..." that's a real problem. Everybody but the boss has a boss...
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Thank you! Hallelujah...!
Bass is 6'8" and 250 and guys just walk by him all night. "Walk... by him".
Rondo is criminal in this area, he never boxes out his man, ever. I think he was on Butler when the one specific example I'm talking about happened.
KG and Pierce are bad at it but I mostly give KG a pass because he's always in there fighting for the boards on pretty much every play, and he still get s a lot of boards.
Sully is making a huge impact on our rebounding numbers mostly because he boxes out. If our entire team boxed out like Sully, I guarantee you we'd be a top 3 rebounding team. Easily - it has very little to do with our overall size.
I'd sit Bass down and tell him I will "guarantee" him he will not see the floor for a week the next time he misses a box out. A personal guarantee... as a sign of my commitment to him as a coach.
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I don't think Doc was gonna change his game plan over someone like Hamilton.
The guy isn't a superstar. He should be easily handled by our plethora of guards.
Rebounding isn't about effort. Its a skill. Its why even supposedly lazy guys still board with the best of them like Randolph, cousins and blatche. I mean Rondo and Pierce are some of our best rebounders and people call them lazy all the time.
Sully has unbelievable instincts and just attacks the ball. He doesn't even box out much. The problem is that we are extremely limited in size and some of the guys who Fo have size like Bass, Green, Wilcox, Collins aren't good rebounders.
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I don't think Doc was gonna change his game plan over someone like Hamilton.
The guy isn't a superstar. He should be easily handled by our plethora of guards.
But he wasn't. That's the point.
Mike
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I didn't see the game but I don't think Pierce or J.Green are agile enough to chase Rip Hamilton through the myriad of screens Rip would run them through.
I don't think size is all that important with stopping Rip. It certainly hasn't been over the last few years. The most important attribute is a defenders ability to navigate screens and stay close to his body. Delonte West did that extremely well.
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How did doc put Avery on him when Avery didn't play in the Chicago game?
Shocker...we lost without Bradley
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I don't think Doc was gonna change his game plan over someone like Hamilton.
The guy isn't a superstar. He should be easily handled by our plethora of guards.
But he wasn't. That's the point.
Mike
My point is that you don't change a gameplan around a guy like Hamilton ever. You tell your more than capable shooting guards to stop getting punked.
You don't change your entire lineup for something like that. And if we did we wouldnt have a line up as we've been getting schooled by any and everybody.
I understand the point of Pierce maybe playing Hamilton better but this is about the players not playing to their capabilities and Doc shouldn't have to bail them out when someone who isn't that good is tooling on them
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Yeah, maybe it would be tougher for Pierce or Green to chase Rip through screens and I get that, but I think he was the leading scorer for Chicago and he was beating up on and then just shooting over Bradley, Barbosa and Rondo most of the night. I would have taken my chances with a little more size on him. You can always go back to what wasn't working in the first place...
And also agree, in general, that you don't necessarily want to change your game plan for one player, especially one like Rip Hamilton.
But I think one of the traits of really great coaches is having the flexibility to change small things, temporarily and on a game to game basis, including within a seven game series just as much as during a single game during the regular season.
Though I generally disliked Phil Jackson, I always thought he was brilliant at making small changes within a game that focused slowing down whatever guy on the other team had it going. He wasn't afraid, for example, to put:
1. Rodman on Shaq to pester him, rather than Longley.
2. Pippen or Jordan on a point guard to try and smother him
with length.
3. Or put Jordan on a bigger small forward to get up under him and crowd him on the perimeter.
I think Doc is very slow sometimes to make "small" adjustments like that which can change the outcome of a game.
But I also am a big fan of being the team bullying the other rather than vice versa and and Rip was definitely beating up on the little guys so i woudl have immediately gotten physical with him in return with bigger players.
But the other reason for making that change is that Pierce "always" struggles against Deng because of Deng's length on D. it happens almost every time we play Chicago.
So for this team and that game, I think you could have had a multiple benefit by getting pierce away from Deng and onto Pierce. Let Deng deal with Green's size and length, see how that goes.
And look, if it doesn't work, go back to the other thing that clearly wasn't working - I'm fine with that.
What makes me nuts is that nothing experimental is even tried a lot of the times.
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True re Bradley - point is, smaller guards... Barbosa, Terry, Rondo, etc.
I think there are just times when the off guards you have are not big enough or tough enough to deal with an opposing player who may have it going on a given night.
And on a night like that, which was the case with Rip, I am far less concerned about "why" the available off guards were unable to get the job done than I am with getting a different result on the floor immediately in the game that's being played. You can deal with the crap job by your available off guards later.
At least "try" something different.
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My point is that you don't change a gameplan around a guy like Hamilton ever. You tell your more than capable shooting guards to stop getting punked.
You don't change your entire lineup for something like that. And if we did we wouldnt have a line up as we've been getting schooled by any and everybody.
Why am I reminded of Pat Riley doing nothing as John Starks went 2 for 18 and cost the Knicks ANY shot at an NBA championship? If something isn't working, you fix it. You don't just sit on your butt and insist it really should work. How in the world was putting Pierce on Hamilton (and Green at small forward) going to have ANY negative effect on the team?
Mike
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Thank you! Hallelujah...!
Bass is 6'8" and 250 and guys just walk by him all night. "Walk... by him". ....
I'd sit Bass down and tell him I will "guarantee" him he will not see the floor for a week the next time he misses a box out. A personal guarantee... as a sign of my commitment to him as a coach.
Scoob, +1 .....my sentiments exactly....good OP
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Pierce is down for now. Better to stay on the bench
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"How in the world was putting Pierce on Hamilton (and Green at small forward) going to have ANY negative effect on the team?"
TP MBunge
I get not changing game plans as a general rule but when one thing is clearly not working, I'm willing to try anything different that might work. Again, you can always go back to the "first" thing that wasn't working on that particular night...
But I also think we should bring Melo up and give him a few minutes here and there.
I am really completely unconcerned about Melo messing up the dominance we are currently inflicting on the league with our size and superior skill at this point. Truly, I'm not worried about any irreversible damage melo could do to this team by playing 5 10 minutes in a a random game.
I actually don't think he's ready yet, but any 7 footer putting up 14 blocks one night, 16 boards another night, 26 points another night - I'll give him 5 minutes in a big league game, do a heat check on him...
I would have done a heat check with Pierce on Rip, Green at SF - see what's up for 3-5 minutes...
Long way to a point - trying something different is Ok. Especially when you are a border line lottery team.
The John Starks analogy is spot on as well. I think Phil Jackson is the best coach I've ever seen at making those types of little in game changes. In fact, he wouldn't hesitate to pull his entire starting unit if needed. I enjoyed that part of his coaching.
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Thanks 60's fan...
There are certain things that are unacceptable and guys should be called on it when it happens.
I mean I have literally watched off guards come from the top of the key, and not run, but literally walk by our bigs for a rebound and the put back. It's mind boggling.
I wish I could cut and paste the play I'm talking about with Butler going by Bass. Anyway...
I'm just a big believer that rebounding has far less to do with size than it does effort and discipline and boxing out.
Saying we don't have the size is a cop out to me. Just my opinion based on watching the games and having played against and boxed out much taller, larger, stronger guys all night on many occasions. Rebounding is a mentality as much as anything else.