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By Mike
Give the Celtics credit. It usually takes a basketball team a few weeks to squander the optimism of a new season. The Celtics found a way to get booed on an opening night that was dedicated to Red Auerbach’s memory, and things have only gone downhill from there.
Anyone who has been paying even a little attention to the Celtics (and really, they probably only deserve a little at this point) knows that they have begun their season with a commemoration of the life of the greatest winner in the franchise’s history and three losing efforts that would have left that man cursing the team to anyone who would listen.
It is hard to decide where to start in listing the team’s deficiencies. As with the two prior Celtics teams coached by Doc Rivers, a decided lack of will at the defensive end is matched by a mind-numbing carelessness with the ball. Young players ticketed for greatness (or, depending on the flavor of your Kool-Aid, usefulness) have shown little more than their youth. Shooters have missed makeable shots and free throws. You name the category, the team has underachieved.
In hindsight it’s probably not all that surprising that the Celtics had a rough first few outings. With Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak and Paul Pierce all missing significant time in the preseason, the team’s primary offensive threats from the wing had little opportunity to work at fitting their games together. Combine that with several players still growing into their roles and the team had a preseason experience that was less about defining the team’s identity and more about getting a handle on just who was on this club.
The Cs’ continued emphasis on transition offense probably resulted in some of the recent ugliness as well. While the two new point guards represent a major talent upgrade at the position, both Sebastian Telfair and Rajon Rondo are still beset by their own inexperience. An up-tempo team relies on its point guards to make good decisions on when to run and when to keep the pressure on with the secondary break. Instead the Celtics’ sub-22 year old PGs are learning on the job, with the critical commands of the coach in one ear and the marquee player’s demand for the ball in the other.
But all is not lost. At least, not yet. While the team has been as bleak and rudderless at times as it was in the depths of the John Carroll era, there is some hope.
The point guards ARE talented. That’s not to say they will be stars, but their talent could easily be missed among the glaring shortcomings of the team so far. You see flashes of what they could grow into in each game: a pretty drive by Telfair off of a pick in transition here, a nice pass by Rondo to a trailing Wally for an open three pointer there. The team has speed, and eventually when the team in general and the point guards in particular understand what they need to do to take advantage of that speed good things will start to happen.
The return of Theo Ratliff from injury will help as well. It would be unfair (not to mention delusional) to expect him to come in and play 35 minutes a night or change games all by himself, because that’s not the player he is at this point in his career. But if he can give them some solid minutes inside it will make a tremendous difference for this team.
Having a big man who instinctively knows where he needs to be and can anticipate when his teammates need help will keep smaller defensive breakdowns from becoming the open invitation to the basket that seemed to happen several times a quarter over the first three games. But more importantly the presence of Ratliff will allow Rivers to play the other big men in more appropriate roles. This will be most noticeable with Al Jefferson’s minutes. Al has acquitted himself well in his minutes at center, but he can take advantage of more favorable matchups at his natural power forward slot. Big Al fans everywhere can take some solace from his encouraging play amongst the ugliness of the first three games.
As for Doc’s allocation of minutes to the other players, his public statements have exhibited a staunch opposition to a standard rotation. While the wisdom of that approach is debatable, the reasoning behind it is fairly straightforward: the only way to learn about which combinations work is to try different ones. But one thing Rivers seems settled on without experimentation is starting Wally Szczerbiak alongside Paul Pierce. While Wally’s shooting may indeed be a good complement to PP’s ability to break defenses down, the team would benefit in many ways from splitting those two stars up.
With Wally and Pierce starting together, the team begins games with excellent veteran know-how but subpar speed and defensive ability at the wing positions. That mix makes some sense at the end of the game, but at the beginning of the game it is an odd recipe for success. It is hard to set an up-tempo tone with two walk-it-up wing players who strike fear into no one on the defensive end. The best case scenario is a shootout between the first units that inevitably will turn pretty ugly when Pierce and Wally start to tire.
Which brings us to the next problem: the natural outcome of starting those two players is to bring some combination of Rondo, West, Allen and Green off the bench at the perimeter positions. While I love West’s game as a complementary scorer, we have all come to the painful realization that none of these players can be a centerpiece to the offense for long stretches. So after the first unit keeps pace using perimeter offense to offset its matador defense, the second unit comes on the floor and has to turn up the defensive intensity while scraping together a couple of baskets of its own. Needless to say, it’s a tall order.
If Rivers brought Wally off the bench it would allow a number of things to fall into place. It would provide scoring for the second unit when Doc inevitably leaves five subs on the floor. It would allow the insertion of Allen or West in the starting lineup to increase energy and playmaking ability in the early going. And if managed correctly it would allow Rivers to still play Wally with Pierce during the middle of halves (which seem to be a problem spot now) and at the end of games.
It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll see Wally as the Sixth Man anytime soon, but if Doc is truly as open minded about rotations as he claims to be it should at least be a possibility. In the meantime we’ll keep watching and hoping for signs of promise beyond the underwhelming results thus far.
