Any team that has the best point guard in the league is miles better with him then without him.
I will agree that the ball movement last night was much better. I dont think it had anything to do with Rondo, we just finally came to play.
Firstly, it's debatable whether Rondo is the best point guard in the league. You can definatley make a case for it, but it isn't certain by any means. He is definately a top 5 PG though, top 3 even. This is pretty hard to argue against.
Secondly, please allow me to introduce you to the Patrick Ewing theory.
If you haven't heard of this theory, the gereral idea is that when a team has a totally dominant player the other players on the team often grown to depend too much on that player.
Perhaps they start feeling like they are less significant, and so they play with less heart. Maybe they feel like they have a safety net because as long as "star player X" is on the team they can just ride that player to a win. In the case of Rondo maybe players feel they no matter where they are he will get them the ball...so they feel they can just stand around and he will magically make them open.
The opposite angle is that when a team suddenly finds themselves WITHOUT that player, guys suddenly feel a sense of urgency and desperation. Everybody feels like they now have more responsibility - "without (player X) out it's up to us to lead and to step up our game".
To me, yesterday's game was the ultimate example of this. When Rondo is in the game, how often do you see guys just standing around, as if simply having him there will get them open shots? How often do you see him pass the ball to a player, and then when that player finds that cannot make a move they just pass it back out to Rondo to reset the offense? When there is a fast break rather than throw it to the lead guy, they always pass it to Rondo. They treat Rondo as if he is the ONLY ball handler on the court and the only guy capable of setting up a play.
Yesterday instead of acting like this, guys were actively moving on offense, aggressively looking for their shot.
On the fast break guys would throw it to whoever is ahead of the field - we had Terry, Lee and Green all running the floor with the ball. Suddenly it's like we have three capable ball handlers instead of one. All of those guys are capable passers and scorers, so you need to respect their shot. It's harder for the defense to predict what's going to happen - that means it's easier for us to score.
Even in the half court when one guy didn't have a shot, instead of looking for Rondo he was just passing it to the first open guy he saw. THIS is why our ball movement was
so much better. Rather than overthinking and pausing for a few secons looking for Rondo, one guy would just instinctively pass to the next guy, who instinctively passes to the next guy, who instinctively passes to the next guy, who finds himself wide open. When Rondo is there guys stop, hold the ball, look for Rondo and by the time they get the ball to him the defense has already rotated over - the Rondo calls a new play, and the defense has time to set up while everybody gets into position.
Yesterday we were more or less playing without a PG. Sometimes Terry handled the ball, sometimes Lee, sometimes Pierce. Rather than forcing the ball into the hands of one guy (whom the defense can then focus on) we had multiple guys out there handling the ball and capable of making plays. Every one of those guys is also a capable scorer, so the defense couldn't play off them and just defend all of the possible pass targets - with guys like Pierce, Terry, Lee and Green you need to stick to them.
Hell today Lee, Pierce and Terry all showed flashes of being very capable playmakers and passers - I've never seen the slightest sign of that when Rondo plays because it's like nobody else is ever trusted to make a play.
The ironic thing is that this team actually has quite a lot of players who are skilled passers and are capable of making plays. Rondo, Terry, Lee, Green, Pierce, Garnett. Those guys are all cpable playmakers. Garnett especially is one of the best bigs in the league when it comes to making plays and passing out from the post. Ditto Pierce - one of the best playmaking wing players in the game. It's no surprise at all that we played very well with Rondo out because we have so many guys who are skilled at that task. When Rondo is in we basically waste all of that talent because Rondo is the one and only playmaker, so all of those guys get transformed into passive scorers.
It's not all on Rondo and it's not all on Doc. Rondo fans are going to say it's all Doc's fault BUT when the game is on Doc pretty much trusts Rondo to be his coach on the floor. Doc basically coaches substitutions, matchups and coaches during timeouts. Rondo is pretty much the active coach whenever the guys are out there playing. They both are partly to blame. The other teammates are also partly to blame.
What we need to do is treat Rondo as our PG ONLY during the initial setup of our defense. Rondo brings the ball up, sets up the play, makes the initial move. After this we forget that Rondo is our PG and play as if every guy on the court is a playmaker. Rather then looking to pass straight back to rondo on a failed play, look for the open man and swing it. Treat Rondo as one of five teammates, not as a bailout guy...because we dont have time to throw it back to him in desperation and waste another 10 seconds setting up a new play.
This is on the offensive side at least. On defense the situation is very different - this is where you could very easilly argue that we ARE better without Rondo. Rondo gambles far too much and lets his man penetrate far too easilly. This leaves either our SG and SF stuck with the responsibility of having to pick up Rondo's man AND stick with their own man. Only the most elite defensive players (KG, Lebron, T Allen, Bradley, etc) are capable of taking on that type of defensive responsiblity over an entire game and handling it, which is why Rondo looks like a superstar (and the Celtics look elite) when Bradley is on the court.
This type of defense makes good defenders (like Lee, Pierce, Green) look average and it makes decent defenders (like Terry) look horrendous. BUT it's not the fault of those guys. You ask any one of those players to defend their own guy and they do a very solid job. They just aren't good enough to take on a two-man load defensively.
so our offensive struggles with Rondo out there are on all of our players. Our defensive struggles are squarely on Rondo. In yesterday's we barely scored up around 100 points. It was our defense that had us leading by double figures the entire game. I'm quite certain that if Rondo were playing, the Blazers would have scored at least 10-15 points more. Lillard (or whatever their Rookie's name is) probably would have penetrated at will and scorched us for 25-30 points.
Topic: No Rondo=Simpler=Better Basketball (Read 6252 times)