The recent clump of lost games by a heretofore scintillating Celtic team, led by prize catch Kevin Garnett, has re-opened the door for many to question the verisimilitude of the team’s championship aspirations.
It all began after a highly anticipated, emotional, and pivotal contest against fellow NBA title contender Detroit Pistons. The Celtics won that match, in Detroit, in convincing enough fashion. They then promptly lost 3 of the next 4 games against teams they would normally be expected to beat. They had what could be considered an emotional let down. They played uninspired, lackluster ball and were 5-5 over their next 10. (BTW…Detroit went into a little funk of its own shortly after.)
Yet, the Boston Celtics are still the league leaders in wins and overall record at 36-8, with the second best team, Detroit, following along at 33-13, five full losses more. New Orleans is a close 3rd with 32 wins and 13 losses.
Early on, Doc was questioned in some quarters for over playing his three stars. Yet, Doc has stated 2 things that explain his stance on playing and winning now:
1) He has said that he wanted these three stars to play together ‘a lot’ early on. They have to learn to play together – and fast. This team is no longer on a slow train with a hopeful play-off berth as a sign of success. He was consistent in that thinking by keeping them in together longer than would be normally acceptable in pre-season games, and followed that up through the much of the season’s start.
2) The 2nd thing he has said, and the whole team has echoed as mantra, is that they aren’t playing for the best record during the season. His best way to make his point is to ask you, “Who had the best record in the NBA last year?”
The answer is Dallas. Implication received.
So, what good has it done for the team to play such coruscating basketball right from the start?
What good has it done to play Garnett, Pierce and Ray Allen so many minutes?
I’m not sure Doc (or anyone) had it planned quite this way. I know I didn’t. I thought that there would be a rough first month of inconsistent games as the players adjusted each of their games to each other. Maybe they would play .500 ball. Then you would see the team coalescing into the formidable unit we ended up seeing right from the start.
But here is what has actually happened. They broke from the gate in a full sprint. The three all stars saw immediately what can happen when they play with great energy, emotion and unselfishness right from the start. It is downright upright. They will blow you away if you give them the slightest opening.
The early easy schedule allowed them to come together early against teams largely without title aspirations. Yet that became important confidence building experience that translated to big wins later against Detroit and Utah.
After learning what can happen when they go full bore for 48 minutes, (actually it took far less than that), it no longer became necessary to do so. Why waste all of that energy? Since then, it has been about bringing the rest of the team into equation for the long run, in the hopes that they will contribute in major ways in the play-offs, when called upon. That should take most of the rest of the season to do.
Eddie House is giving the team just what they expected. James Posey is giving them more than what was expected.
It is Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins who have shown a need, and room to grow. They are the leftovers from the youth movement of the rebuilding years. They are young. They are not finished products. ‘Finishing School’ is going on right now. Speaking of finishing, that is something both players need to work on. They are still going to NBA school.
To borrow an illustration from Sam Megliola’s recent article in the MetroWest Daily News…
He sat and watched most of last season, getting in 33 games. He started just one. He had plenty of time to study the other point guards. “One night we were playing at Phoenix and both of our point guards had foul trouble,” says Barea. “I had to go in and guard Steve Nash. That’s when it hit me. ‘I’m in the NBA.”‘
He was talking about Jose Juan Barea, a second year PG on Dallas. But he could be talking about any player who doesn’t come in to play big minutes right away in the NBA. He certainly could be talking about 2nd year Rajon Rondo last year, and even this year, to an extent. Almost every night it is a new challenge. TJ Ford, Deron Williams, Jose Calderone, Allen Iverson, Dwayne Wade, Andre Miller, Chauncy Billups and so on. There are very few ‘nights off’ with an NBA dripping with ‘uberskilled’ athletes.
The better you play, the more you will get ‘game planned’. As you get better it actually gets tougher, in some ways. Rondo has come light years from the start of the year.
Doc recently said that the last 3 games may be the best of Rondo’s career.
Garnett being out may actually have unleashed the ‘inner Rondo’. He is taking more control and working from a larger part of the court. As Rondo’s experience and confidence grows, so will his game. He is fitting into the offense much better and the offense really needs him in order to operate at its fullest. At the beginning of the year, he just brought the ball up and handed it to Pierce. Now he is learning to run the offense himself. That allows the rest of the team to do what they do best.
With the early run up in wins, it allows Doc to experiment more. Let Rondo learn as he goes. Get Kendrick Perkins into the offense a bit more. Make it a goal to get him to use his offensive moves more often. Make him step out and take a few jumpers each and every game.
I think there is a method to all the madness. KG is now resting more and rebounding less. He is not going inside as much as you might think he should. Would be it silly for Doc to allow KG to not take all that pounding and forget about a rebounding title? He has that already.
Would it be surprising to not see a lot of KG going with a heavy dose of moves in the paint until late in the season? There is simply no need to. It is true that KG prefers to face the basket. More of his offense is from the midrange area, it seems.
Doc is trying to get the whole unit, including a consistent substitute pattern in place for the play-off season. So far, Davis and Powe have both shown good and bad moments. Whoever is playing better and each night’s match ups determines who gets the minutes. Scot Pollard is not being pushed at all. They simply don’t really need him right now. Come play off time, it is another story.
The Celtics are a surprising 2-1 without KG. The Spurs are 2-4 without Tony Parker. Which team is supposed to be deeper and more balanced?
All I am saying is that the Celtics have not peaked and are not finished forming at this point. It is these current times, where they don’t depend on the three stars, that will help determine how far they go in the play-offs. Many play-off series will have some lesser player step up to make a big impact on the results. The Celtics have players on the team who can make the game much less difficult for the anointed three.
As the Celtics incorporate the other 2 starters and the first three off the bench into vital cogs of the machine, it only makes them stronger, regardless of the record. With just a few exceptions, Doc seems to have developed a good sense of timing when to bring a vital starter back in.
If he can get Ray Allen more comfortable, Rondo to step up more, Perkins to hit more shots, and Leon Powe or Glen Davis to give the team a consistent effort each game, this team will be real trouble come play-off time.
They have the cushion in wins to allow them to work to that end. I expect that will be the goal.
