CelticsStrong
Celtics Basketball => Celtics Talk => Topic started by: chambers on October 12, 2013, 08:03:57 PM
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Just horrible to watch at the moment.
I mean in this second Knicks game we are hitting some shots but it's just not efficient basketball.
Stevens can't really be blamed but to sit through an entire season of this stuff is going to be painful.
Watching the Philly and Raptors games is like Groundhog day.
I guess Green and Avery Bradley/Sully/Olynyk/Rondo will all improve their shooting but it will come at the cost of our overall offense.
You can't play small ball without elite shooters- we don't even have above average shooters.
Meh I'll put down the bottle now.
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A lack of dribble penetration
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All this poor basketball is taking me back to time as a Celtic fan i wanted to forget
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I mentioned in another thread that Dave Cowens was criticizing Jeff Green for playing too much on the perimeter. He wants Jeff to attack the basket more and says the team will live and die by the jump shot if people dont attack.
Something to that effect anyway.
We have seen this scenario before and the worst times were after we had a game with a high percentage of made 3pters. It became bombs away for a couple games. This as recent as the last couple of years.
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Just horrible to watch at the moment.
I mean in this second Knicks game we are hitting some shots but it's just not efficient basketball.
Stevens can't really be blamed but to sit through an entire season of this stuff is going to be painful.
Watching the Philly and Raptors games is like Groundhog day.
I guess Green and Avery Bradley/Sully/Olynyk/Rondo will all improve their shooting but it will come at the cost of our overall offense.
You can't play small ball without elite shooters- we don't even have above average shooters.
Meh I'll put down the bottle now.
We don't really have much of anything. We lack talent. No coaching strategy can make that problem disappear.
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Outside of certain called plays, it truly looks like 5 guys playing a pick up game.
That doesn't mean we haven't shown some really nice movement and passing at times, but it seems to come from a "I don't really want to take the shot" mindset. Like a bunch of guys just running around like chickens with their heads cut off until the defense makes a mistake. I think it'll be a night and day difference once we have Rondo directing the troops. Having only one guy take care of the ball handling and the initiation of the offense should result in a lot more structure and decisiveness.
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The rebounding on the other hand I don't have much hope for. Bass can only do so much, especially with Olynyk giving up a huge disadvantage. Humphries hasn't been anywhere close to his previous level, while Green, Bradley, Crawford, and Brooks are nonexistent on the boards. That's right, 5/10 of our regular rotation completely sucks at rebounding and Wallace/Lee/Humphries/Bass are only average. We're somehow only counting on one good rebounder in Sully and he's averaging what? 6 per game?
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I don't think I can handle another year of celtics jumpshot basketball after the last five years of celtics jumpshot basketball.
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From what I've seen, there's more ball movement at least.
Doc's offense = 4 players play spot up shooters who stand and wait.
Maybe I'm just drinking that Brad Stevens kool-aid.
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From what I've seen, there's more ball movement at least.
Doc's offense = 4 players play spot up shooters who stand and wait.
Maybe I'm just drinking that Brad Stevens kool-aid.
Well, as much as I tired of Doc before he left, I don't think that was necessarily how he designed the offense. The 2008 championship team had beautiful ball movement. Then it denigrated into Rondo pounding the ball about a billion times a game, which it seemed like many accepted because, don't cha know, all his teammates are nearly frozen over. Doc let things get out of hand.
One thing I love about the new offense are the handoff screens that lead to jumpers. It's of the staples of the Triangle offense that I wished the Celtics would've copied but never did. It seemed like a very effective way to get role and star players alike makeable shots. I don't think Bradley's missed one of them yet.
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The rebounding on the other hand I don't have much hope for. Bass can only do so much, especially with Olynyk giving up a huge disadvantage. Humphries hasn't been anywhere close to his previous level, while Green, Bradley, Crawford, and Brooks are nonexistent on the boards. That's right, 5/10 of our regular rotation completely sucks at rebounding and Wallace/Lee/Humphries/Bass are only average. We're somehow only counting on one good rebounder in Sully and he's averaging what? 6 per game?
You think Bass is an average rebounder? If only. He's in the same bad and/or nonexistent category as Green and the guards are. I don't know how you could've watched Bass the last two seasons and categorized him as an average rebounder. His total rebounding rate is very good for a small forward, which means it's abysmal for a power forward.
Humphries, on the other hand, is a well-above average rebounder but may not be one if he has to go up against much bigger centers most of the time.
Wallace is a very good rebounder for a small forward. He's actually one of the best.
Whether the guards are good rebounders or not, that doesn't move the needle much overall. The Celtics would be a good rebounding team if they played a frontcourt of Sullinger, Humphries and Wallace. Since Bass, Green and Olynyk are likely to get ample playing time, rebounding should remain a problem this season. From Rasheed to Jermaine to Big Baby and Bass, the Celtics have had bad links in the chain in the rebounding department that have killed them.
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This was the one game where this wasn't the case as much in my opinion. People were finally attacking the basket and posting up.
Crawford is really a very important player to our team right now. We need him out there passing and more than anything creating and putting pressure on the defense.
Also, people are still killing Jeff, and yes he missed shots, but I loved how he played in last game because he was finally in there attacking the basket (and passing out when he was doubled). It opened things up.
We have great ball movement but we need players to create shots so we are going to have to figure out how best to do that.
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The pattern I notice after the first four games is that the team is either unwilling or unable to run any plays. I'd expect a squad so devoid of star power would have a lot more structure to what they're trying to do, but alas.
I agree that it's almost unwatchable at this point.
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There aren't enough offensive threats to create space to attack the basket or post-up in the half-court set. So they're going to move it around the perimeter a lot, occasionally try a pick and roll, and generally look to get out in transition and push the tempo so they don't get locked into the half-court.
This team isn't going to score much in the half-court.
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The pattern I notice after the first four games is that the team is either unwilling or unable to run any plays. I'd expect a squad so devoid of star power would have a lot more structure to what they're trying to do, but alas.
I agree that it's almost unwatchable at this point.
New coach, new system, a bunch of guys who have never played together before, only one true point guard active and he's an undrafted free agent.
Very difficult to run plays.
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It seems to me that the fact that we can have both of our bigs be jump shooting threats at all times is currently one of of our biggest weapons. I like the fact that so far Olynyk, Sullinger, and Faverani have all been given the green light to shoot it from beyond the arc.
It helps that none of our jump shooting bigs are exclusively jump shooters. Hopefully, we can mix it up so that the opposition won't be able to know who is going to pop and who is going to roll on any given high pick play.
This should really be able to spread the floor for us and allow more driving lanes for our guards and wings. With Rondo sidelined, we don't have any top level penetrators on the team. They will need all the help they can get.
If we can fine tune this spread offense (along with some well timed cuts and off the ball screens) while Rondo sits and watches, it could really open up an offense where he could end up being deadly at getting in the lane and picking out open guys on the perimeter or cutting to the basket when he returns.
I look forward to seeing how this all works out as the season progresses, particularly once Rondo gets back.
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A little concerned....to much street ball. But its early...
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Jump shooting? Classic 21st-century Celtics basketball.
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Classic reactionary celticsblog talk. Jeff's penetration will be fine. Anyone who has seen him drive knows he often barrels to the basket pretty recklessly, in my opinion he's opting not to do that and risk injuring himself during the preseason. Now I am a bit concerned with the low percentage of jumper that are going down for him, but that'll even itself out.