Losing Is A Team Effort

[Roy Hobbs]

This stuff needs to be ironed out before Cleveland, Detroit and/or Orlando come to town.

Right.  And the end of the regular season would have been the perfect time to do it, rather than playing five man bench squads.  But I digress.

I think Powe needs to get consistent minutes, regardless of whether he's struggled in his six minutes of playing time up until that point.  I mean, we don't sit Pierce, KG, Allen, or (thankfully) Rondo due to a poor six minutes of time, and we shouldn't do the same to Powe.  Every player is going to have stretches of time where he struggles, and a young player shouldn't be worried that if he has a couple of poor minutes, he's going to the bench for the rest of the game.

Also, it's not like Powe played terribly.  He played a 3.5 minute stint in the first quarter where the Celts outscored Atlanta by 1 (with Powe not really contributing statistically) and he played for three minutes at the end of the first / beginning of the second quarter, in which the two teams played evenly.  Powe was +1 one the game, so it's not like the reason the Celts were behind was in any way due to him.  (BBD was -8, including -10 in the second half).

Powe, Perk, and House all need to see more minutes in the playoffs.  Powe's lack of time was hopefully a one-time deviation, while House's and Perk's depressed minutes are simply unacceptable under any circumstances.

[nickagneta]

I see your point Roy, but I just think that philosphy of allowing players to play through tough stretches should apply more to guys who should be getting 35-40 minues and not to guys who are slotted to give you 10-15 minutes a game. Also, I didn't think Powe contributed mightily to the loss but using his plus minus in this particular game isn't fair because, in this game, I think that was more a reflection of the players he played with and less so of what he brought to the game.

And yeah, I'm pretty miffed that Doc didn't use the last 3 games or so of the regular season to establish his playoff rotations and who would be included in them. For House to enter the playoffs not knowing his role is just poor coaching.

[BringToughnessBack]

This game definitely took me by surprise but let me say that I am not surprised by why it happened. For me, the reason was pure and simple- mainly a coaching thing. If Doc is going to get rave reviews for the job he has done this year, then it should also follow that when he is clearly outcoached and does not prepare his team properly or make the necessary adjustments, he should take the blame. Last night he was outcoached.....he was outmaneuvered...his players showed no fire or intensity and his halftime corrections were invisible. Now is not the time to experiment...Great Teams that win championships usually do not lose to garbage teams in the first round. I expect nothing less then a 20 point blowout favoring the Celtics next game..anything less, then my free pass with Doc is over.

Things I had a big problem with last night in no particular order
1. Putting Perk back in so quickly after the bloody nose..his eyes were clearly glossed over when they put him back in. I am not a trainer but come on, let his gets his clarity back before putting him back in.
2. Not using Powe more
3. Not reacting to Sam I am missing shots and replacing him quickly with someone who might-House?
4. Where is the fire up your team speech at halftime? They came out flat as a straight line..I know the mysterious shot clock thing happened, but it should have been his job as a coach to keep them focused and fired up during this delay..Seeing Pierce with his head towards the sky on the bench was not the type of image I was looking for during a playoff game
5. Watching Pierce make a move towards there rookie late in the game...Please tell me the Indiana thing is behind us and our star is not going to go off again during the playoffs..this is unacceptable...Thank God Scali got between him and there bench. Doc needs to be on top of these things and he is the ultimate one responsible for how our players play on the court and how they react to
6. Our Defense...Once again this goes back to the Coaches..Our great D took most of the game off

[Bankshot]

7.  Pierce and Rondo playing only 30 minutes.  I'm sorry, but Rondo and most especially Pierce only getting 30 minutes in a playoff game is inexcusable!   Pierce didn't shoot well, but he didn't play bad either (17 pts, 8 ast).  Who knows what would have happened, had Pierce and Rondo played 40 minutes.  That would also mean less Cassell and that couldn't have been a bad thing.

[expobear]

This stuff needs to be ironed out before Cleveland, Detroit and/or Orlando come to town.

Right.  And the end of the regular season would have been the perfect time to do it, rather than playing five man bench squads.  But I digress.

I think Powe needs to get consistent minutes, regardless of whether he's struggled in his six minutes of playing time up until that point.  I mean, we don't sit Pierce, KG, Allen, or (thankfully) Rondo due to a poor six minutes of time, and we shouldn't do the same to Powe.  Every player is going to have stretches of time where he struggles, and a young player shouldn't be worried that if he has a couple of poor minutes, he's going to the bench for the rest of the game.

Also, it's not like Powe played terribly.  He played a 3.5 minute stint in the first quarter where the Celts outscored Atlanta by 1 (with Powe not really contributing statistically) and he played for three minutes at the end of the first / beginning of the second quarter, in which the two teams played evenly.  Powe was +1 one the game, so it's not like the reason the Celts were behind was in any way due to him.  (BBD was -8, including -10 in the second half).

Powe, Perk, and House all need to see more minutes in the playoffs.  Powe's lack of time was hopefully a one-time deviation, while House's and Perk's depressed minutes are simply unacceptable under any circumstances.

I thought Powe had reached a certain level of acceptance by Rivers and would be given the benefit of the doubt if he played poorly for a few minutes (not that he played poorly in the minutes given to him so far) but apparently not.  Sometime during game 2, Rivers made the decision to drop Powe out of the rotation, which is his choice but I think Powe can still help the Celtics during the playoffs.  The Celtics certainly can be successful without Powe, but I think Powe can make it easier for the Celtics to be successful.

[WedmanIsMyHero]

How can you tell if someone has it in SIX minutes if they are looking over their shoulder for the hook all the time?

I don't have a problem with last night's flip of minutes with Powe and Baby. One thing those two have shown is they can be wildly inconsistent, although less so for Powe in the second half of the season. Last night Powe showed nothing. Zip. Zero. He didn't have it.

So what's wrong with going to another option? Some would call it jerking around. I say it's foolhardy on Doc's part to continue to play a player in a game where he obviously is struggling or not giving it his all.

I hate P. J. Brown in the rotation and I think the rotation of 10 is too big, but if he must go with 10, Doc should be going with Eddie and not Brown. Have a little more confidence in Perk, Doc and play him more and that will make Brown unnecessary.

I think Redz is correct in that Doc seemed to take out his top 7 players at similar times as he usually does and play them about the same minutes. But that's not good enough. His best should be on the floor more in the playoffs, I mean isn't that the reason for cutting back there minutes during theseason and especially in the last 10 games.

All questionable stuff. And this from a Doc supporter. This stuff needs to be ironed out before Cleveland, Detroit and/or Orlando come to town.

[Who]

And can there please be a set playoff rotation.  Stop the jerking players around.  Give them roles, and play those roles every game.

Yeah, I tend to agree.  This is one of the things Doc should have been using the last few games of the regular season to establish.  His supporters reassured us all that Doc would do so, and he didn't.  The supporters assured us that Atlanta would be a warm-up series where Doc could get his rotations in order, and that hasn't happened. 

I'm not blaming the loss on rotations, but that particular concern could bit us in a big, big way in potential later rounds of the playoffs.

I've said it for quite some time now and I'll say it again - I think it's going to very difficult for Doc to establish a set rotation

This bench doesn't have a pecking order once you go beyong James Posey. The rest are of comparable ability but offer different skill sets.

What type of point guard do you need on the night? Do you want the playmaker or the shooter? What about the big? Do you need PJ's experience, poise and defense? BBD's hustle? Powe's scoring and rebounding? More Defense or more offense? Can Eddie defend the shooting guard or do we need Tony out there?

This bench is very difficult

[Redz]

This game definitely took me by surprise but let me say that I am not surprised by why it happened. For me, the reason was pure and simple- mainly a coaching thing. If Doc is going to get rave reviews for the job he has done this year, then it should also follow that when he is clearly outcoached and does not prepare his team properly or make the necessary adjustments, he should take the blame. Last night he was outcoached.....he was outmaneuvered...his players showed no fire or intensity and his halftime corrections were invisible. Now is not the time to experiment...Great Teams that win championships usually do not lose to garbage teams in the first round. I expect nothing less then a 20 point blowout favoring the Celtics next game..anything less, then my free pass with Doc is over.

Au contraire...since they moved to the 7 game format, no NBA champion has swept a first round series.

2007 SA 4 DEN 1
2006 MIA 4 CHI 2
2005 SA 4 DEN 1
2004 DET 4 MIL 1
2003 SA 4 PHO 2

[nickagneta]

How can you tell if someone has it in SIX minutes if they are looking over their shoulder for the hook all the time?

I don't have a problem with last night's flip of minutes with Powe and Baby. One thing those two have shown is they can be wildly inconsistent, although less so for Powe in the second half of the season. Last night Powe showed nothing. Zip. Zero. He didn't have it.

So what's wrong with going to another option? Some would call it jerking around. I say it's foolhardy on Doc's part to continue to play a player in a game where he obviously is struggling or not giving it his all.

I hate P. J. Brown in the rotation and I think the rotation of 10 is too big, but if he must go with 10, Doc should be going with Eddie and not Brown. Have a little more confidence in Perk, Doc and play him more and that will make Brown unnecessary.

I think Redz is correct in that Doc seemed to take out his top 7 players at similar times as he usually does and play them about the same minutes. But that's not good enough. His best should be on the floor more in the playoffs, I mean isn't that the reason for cutting back there minutes during theseason and especially in the last 10 games.

All questionable stuff. And this from a Doc supporter. This stuff needs to be ironed out before Cleveland, Detroit and/or Orlando come to town.

Yes, six minutes is enough time to judge if a player has it or not that night. And since when has Powe been looking over his shoulder wondering if he's about to get yanked? He's gotten consistent minutes for the last 40 games or longer. For more than a month he has been the first big off the bench. I've seen no quotes saying that Powe is unhappy with his minutes or unsure of his playing status.

I hoping, and am pretty sure in my mind, that this was a one night thing where Doc decided Baby was needed because for whatever reason Powe didn't have it. Powe will be getting his normal 15 minutes tomorrow night.

[WedmanIsMyHero]

Fair enough.  Doc in the playoffs just makes me nervous.  People get nervous about the lack of winning playoff experience on the part of many Celtics, and especially the younger Celtics, in comparison with the teams they are likely to play in later playoff rounds.

This is true of the coach as well. . . . .

How can you tell if someone has it in SIX minutes if they are looking over their shoulder for the hook all the time?

I don't have a problem with last night's flip of minutes with Powe and Baby. One thing those two have shown is they can be wildly inconsistent, although less so for Powe in the second half of the season. Last night Powe showed nothing. Zip. Zero. He didn't have it.

So what's wrong with going to another option? Some would call it jerking around. I say it's foolhardy on Doc's part to continue to play a player in a game where he obviously is struggling or not giving it his all.

I hate P. J. Brown in the rotation and I think the rotation of 10 is too big, but if he must go with 10, Doc should be going with Eddie and not Brown. Have a little more confidence in Perk, Doc and play him more and that will make Brown unnecessary.

I think Redz is correct in that Doc seemed to take out his top 7 players at similar times as he usually does and play them about the same minutes. But that's not good enough. His best should be on the floor more in the playoffs, I mean isn't that the reason for cutting back there minutes during theseason and especially in the last 10 games.

All questionable stuff. And this from a Doc supporter. This stuff needs to be ironed out before Cleveland, Detroit and/or Orlando come to town.

Yes, six minutes is enough time to judge if a player has it or not that night. And since when has Powe been looking over his shoulder wondering if he's about to get yanked? He's gotten consistent minutes for the last 40 games or longer. For more than a month he has been the first big off the bench. I've seen no quotes saying that Powe is unhappy with his minutes or unsure of his playing status.

I hoping, and am pretty sure in my mind, that this was a one night thing where Doc decided Baby was needed because for whatever reason Powe didn't have it. Powe will be getting his normal 15 minutes tomorrow night.

[Who]

I thought the biggest part of Leon's six minutes was Glen Davis, if Glen struggled a bit Doc probably would have gone back to Leon. He played excellent post defense (especially against Horford), got on the backboards, brough great energy on a night where the team needed it. He was the best bench player of the first half (more by default than anything else) and he played much better in the second half.

[guava_wrench]

Can we auto-delete all posts where people complain a certain player should have more minutes without saying who should sit? We can't play 6 or 7 men at a time.

It would have been nice to see more Rondo and less Cassell.

But, in the end, Atlanta played well. They switched things up and hit their jumpers. They beat us and should be applauded.

I'm not sure I buy the cop-out where people point to intensity to explain everything. Intensity doesn't make us not miss 9 in a row, nor does it make Josh Smith miss his 3's. Intensity also doesn't get rid of mistakes, nor does it make long rebounds fall shorter. We should see in game 4 if game 3 was just a perfect storm.

[Bahku]

I agree that Rondo should have been on the floor more, and less Sammy. Hate to say it but PJ was close to useless as well, and the rotation coming into the forth quarter just made no sense to me at all. I sift through the myriad reasons listed here and almost all are valid. Just my point, really, that every win and loss is no single person's fault or one man's doing ... this game just magnified it for obvservation, I think. Hope the boys have learned a few lessons from it. We'll see tomorrow ... and I expect the C's to be burning!