Taking Stock: Why is the team so bad?

[PhoSita]

I don't think it's  overly negative or reactionary to say that, right now, the Celtics are a far worse team than most people expected them to be coming into the season.  Personally, I felt very good about their roster. 

I felt that they were going to have a strong start to their season -- perhaps not as strong as 2009 or 2011, but pretty strong.  Instead, they are muddling around .500 and so far they have been superior only to the Raptors in the Atlantic division.

A quick look at the numbers -- which accords with my hunch based on just watching the games -- is that the defense, which the Celtics  have relied on to win them games in the past, is nowhere, absolutely nowhere, close to where it was just last season.

But let's put our heads together and try to make a comprehensive list to make sense of this very discouraging start to the season.  How do we account for the huge dropoff?  I don't think that just saying "the new pieces need to figure out how to work together" is a sufficient explanation.

There are plenty of teams with many new pieces playing much better ball already this season.  The Cs played such a team tonight and got their clocks cleaned.

[BIGTIME_CELTICS]

Bench Sullinger until he is willing to box out. Getting killed by Evans and Blatche.

[PhoSita]

Bench Sullinger until he is willing to box out. Getting killed by Evans and Blatche.

Jared was working hard early in the game, but he racked up fouls quickly because Evans and Blatche have years of experience being tricky and dirty under the basket, drawing fouls on other people and finding ways to not get boxed out by young'ns like Sully.

[cman88]

alot of new pieces still learning our defensive rotations and not comfortable in their roles. as well as some key pieces currently slumping (jeff green, Courtney lee) even Terry while showing flashes hasnt been consistent.

but, its fair to take note there are still 68 games left in the season...thats alot of games. and I see this team hitting its peak near the allstar break

[PhoSita]

alot of new pieces still learning our defensive rotations and not comfortable in their roles. as well as some key pieces currently slumping (jeff green, Courtney lee) even Terry while showing flashes hasnt been consistent.

Well, the question is WHY those guys all slumping?  With Green there's an excuse, but Lee and Terry are just baffling.

[LEHGOCELTICS]

We need to look into to make a blockbuster trade. In the NBA, depth doesn't win you championships, star-talent does.

[LEHGOCELTICS]

oops

[LEHGOCELTICS]

doublepost

[vinnie]

Shouldn't they be getting better by game 15? They aren't.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Shouldn't they be getting better by game 15? They aren't.

how many games will it take? we stunk the place up tonight. no excuses. Do we have too much depth and not enough starting talent?

[jdz101]

Would you have posted this if we won today?

Probably not.

I get we that we didn't play very well tonight. However not every loss is a sign of larger scale problems spelling doom for the entire year.

As for our problem in THIS PARTICULAR GAME. The biggest one I could see is perimeter defense. Players are switching faaaaar too quickly and not putting enough effort into staying in front of their man. This causes the D to collapse, leaving shooters open. Other guys then rush out to the shooters, which leaves rebounders open. It is a domino effect of the worst kind. Stop over-switching on defense.

[cman88]

I thought the defense looked better tonight..unfortunately we left our offense back in orlando. for all the hate on Lee. I thought he played some solid defense on williams out there

theres WAY too much overreaction on this site....I cant remember the last meaningful NBA game thats been played in november..its game 15..at allstar break last year people were calling for the team to be broken up and we came back and ended up playing inspired ball all the way to game 7 of the finals.

and that team looked ALOT worse than we do now...I expect that by January this team will look alot different than we do now

[AB_Celtic]

We need to look into to make a blockbuster trade. In the NBA, depth doesn't win you championships, star-talent does.

I really think it'll happen. Either December 15 or January 15.

Last time we had this much depth The Boston Three Party assembled.

[CelticSooner]

However the C's look in a month or two they don't have the players to solve their rebounding woes. Ainge will have to make a trade for a big man.

[Fafnir]

The team hasn't been bad, it has been mediocre. Which when you're in "win now" is a big problem.

Most of it is due to poor pick and roll defense. Pick and rolls are allowing offensive rebounding to occur and open threes for spot up shooters.