imagine a player who twists his ankle and hobbles around on the court until the next time out. They take his shoe off and tape up his ankle so he can run fine but put the wrong size shoe back on his foot. He can barely run in the too tight shoe but you keep telling him he doesn't need a different shoe because he's running a little bit faster than he was with the twisted ankle.
I think you're right. I am missing your point, because I really don't have any idea what you're talking about.
What the first part of your answer boils down to? Basically the Cs miss sizzle, even if it doesn't result in anything tangible.
So maybe we can try this a different, more productive way. Do you think Rondo can learn anything from how the Cs have been playing without him? If so, how do you see him taking that knowledge and applying it to improve his play and approach?
First of all it's not about sizzle. I don't see why you can't get this. We didn't suck on offense all year long and suddenly start playing good when Rondo left. We started out playing very good offense (even with Green, who's playing very good now, playing much less consistently). We went from playing very well to playing poorly. Since Rondo was controlling the offense when we were playing very good on offense and he was still controlling the offense when it slumped it doesn't take a genius to figure out that something other than Rondo controlling the ball led to the slump.
So for whatever reason, the team was in a slump. You can see it in PP and KG and Terry's numbers for various months. They're no longer in that slump. So considering how well Green is playing and our main offensive players are all playing better we should be *better* than we were earlier this year. We're not. That's because we're missing our best player.
And it's probably a mix of Rondo, Doc and the other players all learning things based on how the team's played over the last month or so. I know that people here think that Rondo rules the team with an iron fist and oppresses his teammates but that's not the case. He's probably doing pretty much what Doc wants him to, and there's probably a lot of truth to what Danny and KG said about the team relying too much on Rondo.
Ha, a 43 game slump? That's epic.
He's not wrong though. This has happened in almost every regular season since 2009, where the Celtics either start out hot and end cold, or vice versa.
08-09: went on a huge win streak (19 in a row) to start the season out 27-2, followed that up with 7 losses in 9 games, and went 9-9 from Feb to mid-March.
09-10: again, went on a win streak (11 in a row) to start the season out 20-4, then promptly lost 17 of their next 33 games.
10-11: once again, started the season on fire (23-4, 14 game win streak), but cooled down significantly and went .500 in their last 20 or so games.
11-12: much like this year, they started out with a mediocre 15-17 record, but caught fire around the all star break and ended the season on a 24-10 run.
Inconsistency in the regular season for these Celtics (08 team aside) is nothing new, and shouldn't be blamed solely on Rondo - injuries/coasting had to do with most of those lulls and average play. For that reason, I think it's foolish to discount the various obstacles this team has had to go through. With Bradley and Wilcox still sidelined, Green recovering from surgery, and 10 new additions to the roster, Doc essentially had to incorporate a completely new team before the start of the season. Also, the rotations for the first two+ months were very inconsistent, to put it mildly. From Nov 1st to Jan 5th, the Celtics went through 9 different starting lineups, featuring a 6 game stint with Collins at center where they went 2-4. The constant change in roles (specifically for Lee/Terry) made it very difficult for both the starters and the bench to get into a groove. Once Bradley came back and the rotation was more or less set, we saw a huge improvement from the bench play and the team as a whole.
I don't ignore or dismiss the fact that Rondo had some part of the C's struggles this year, but it's not very fair to point to our W-L record without him while discounting the other circumstances surrounding the team at the time. I just don't understand why it has to be so black and white when it comes to discussing Rondo on here.
Topic: (Merged) Celtics better with/without Rondo debate (Read 37038 times)