It was a lot of fun watching the Larry Bird led Celtics and the showtime flakers. The passing on those teams was infectious, and that made the games exciting to watch. Magic Johnson racked up assists but it was all within the flow of the running game, and whoever ran with him was rewarded especially the big men. He made it fun to run with him, and this translated into aggressive defense to spur the fast break. On the Walton Celtic team, Bird and Walton would have a friendly wagers on which of them would have the most spectacular pass in a game, and these were both frontline guys and not pont guards. This attitude encouraged ball movement, team unity, and it translated into good basketball and wins.
The issue with the Rondo style of play is that Rajon gets his assists but it is usually at the expense of ball movement. He dominates the ball and does not give it up until very late in the shot clock so that the recepient of his pass seldom has a chance to make another pass. This creates stagnation on offense, and helps the defense because when a defendant knows the defense knows that your only option is a shot two things happen your man goes all in to challenge your shot because he knows you are not passing, and the rest of the defense crashes the board because they dont have to even think about defending the entry pass - in short the defense is given an easy job and the offense looks Edited. Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ty.
Since we keep stats on assists - and I believe those stats have been watered down because I dont see why a low percentage made basket off a pass should be given an assist - I think we should also track how many passes result in missed shots, just to see who is giving efficient passes.
We blamed Ray Allen that he stagnated the Boston offense because Rondo had to hold the ball until Ray could spring free from multiple screens, but Ray is gone now and Rondo before his injury was still pounding the ball. With hindsight it appears Ray was not really the problem.
The question left is Rondo is young, we know Rondo can run, so why did he play the slow down pound the ball system?