Celtics in 18-19

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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No, my data is okay. More than 28 is not the same as 28 or more. In any event, I would think we could agree that whether seven or nine, single digit occurrence in the history of the league is not “quite frequently.”

Three leads of 25 points or more were surrendered by home teams in the space of the past week and in each case, the team surrendering the leads are playoff teams. If you look at the list I posted, there have been 29 24-point or more comebacks over the last 23 seasons so a little over one per year. 20 of those comebacks have come over the past decade too.

Now to be fair to you, I should have been more specific and said that double digit comebacks happen quite frequently in the NBA - I would agree that 28 point comebacks are more rare. However if you willing to grant me that there only a tiny difference between a 24 point comeback and a 28 point one, the do happen fairly regularly and with increasing frequency during the 2000s if you look at the chart.

In short, that is quite different than the idea that teams should never surrender 28 point leads. It is not common but it can and does happen. And I will add that as bad as that loss felt, it only counted for one game in the standings.
 
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bowiac

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I'm just trying to get my head around the predictive validity of the two methods at various points in the season. So let's say there are 5 games to go, and you have a .500 team that has won many games by huge scores, but lost most of the close ones. Why would net rating be a better predictor of the team's record for the season at that point? Wouldn't that team tend to exhibit the same behaviors (i.e. win by alot, lose by a little) going forward? Now go back to that same team with 10 games to go, or 20 or 30 or 60 and ask the same question. I'm not implying that I know the answer, but if I were a gambler I'd love to know it.
I've run these numbers before, and the answer is basically "no" to the bolded. Teams that win by a lot, lose by a little over X games despite a mediocre record tend to be really good going forward. There are exceptions, but those exceptions tend to be teams who have had problems winning close games for years at a time. That's not the Celtics, who over-performed their net rating last year by about as much as they're underperforming this year.

Now, to caveat:

- W/L% isn't totally meaningless if you have MOV% available, but MOV% is a significantly better predictor if you had to choose one or the other.
- The Celtics do have that 56 point win over the Bulls which is historically unusual even as far as these things go. Take out that win, and the Celtics' lose about a full point in their net rating.

I have not had much time to post lately, but if this topic is still live in a couple weeks, I can post full results for the last 30 years on this issue if there's interest.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Three leads of 25 points or more were surrendered by home teams in the space of the past week and in each case, the team surrendering the leads are playoff teams. If you look at the list I posted, there have been 29 24-point or more comebacks over the last 23 seasons so a little over one per year.

Now to be fair to you, I should have been more specific and said that double digit comebacks happen quite frequently in the NBA - I would agree that 28 point comebacks are more rare. However if you willing to grant me that there only a tiny difference between a 24 point comeback and a 28 point one, the do happen fairly regularly and with increasing frequency during the 2000s if you look at the chart.

In short, that is quite different than the idea that teams should never surrender 28 point leads. It is not common but it can and does happen. And I will add that as bad as that loss felt, it only counted for one game in the standings.
I love you Dejesus, and your optimism, and you can try to put whatever lipstick on this pig that you want, but you can't expect everyone else to share that viewpoint. When I read your post, this is what I hear and see:




The numbers don't lie. 9 times in NBA history has a team lost a 28 point lead. I don't care if all 28 of them happened last night, it still doesn't mean it happens often, frequently, quite frequently, regularly, or whatever other synonym you want to use. Maybe it'll happen more going forward than it's happened in the past. Maybe it's already happening more often than it has in the past, but the bottom line is it doesn't happen that often. It just doesn't.

Not only that, they didn't just blow the lead and lose the game. They ended up getting blown out. They lost by 11 points. This wasn't even a close game in the end. How many times during those 28 point comebacks resulted in a win by at least 11 points? On top of that, how many teams that lost a game in which they had a 28 point lead, were coming off a game in which they lost after leading by 18? How many of those teams lost both of them on their home court?

I guarantee you add all of that up, you're in some unprecedented territory, my friend.

Now, all that said, anyone who thinks the reaction from myself or any other fans is just an emotional reaction to these two games is not paying attention, so if folks want to keep citing net rating or any other stat they want to make themselves feel better, feel free to go right ahead. But the reality of the situation is that these two games are just the tip of the iceberg that a lot of us have seen coming from miles away all season long. There are clearly issues in the locker room, vets are throwing guys under the bus and not taking responsibility for their own failures, our best player is hurt again, and we're staring down the barrel of playing on the road in the playoffs when we can't beat anyone on the road. Oh, and did i mention we're about to start one of the most difficult stretches of the schedule all year? Things are not good. From any perspective.

Will I watch the games, and root them on, and hold out hope that Brad can figure this out and pull them out of the fire? You bet, but if the roles were reversed and this was happening to another team, and a fan of that team was coming in here and telling us that they weren't worried, all is well, look at our net rating, we'd all laugh at them. We've literally been talking about this since October. I can go back and probably find posts from just about anyone saying things like "I'll worry about if it continues after Thanksgiving..." or "They just need time to come together, but if they're playing like this after Xmas, I'll be worried." Last time around, I joked whether or not the deadline was Valentine's Day. LOL, well, here we are.
 

Deathofthebambino

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And just because some folks don't read the game threads, this post by OnWisc that was made in the Clippers thread before the game started deserves to be kept somewhere for posterity. The only thing he missed was the fact that the Celtics ended up losing outright:

I’m looking for a blistering start. I’d like to see the guys in green moving the ball to the open man, hitting their looks, and building a double digit lead. Then I’d like to see some aimless laziness injected into the game. Some half-assed heroball where everyone sort of treats it like an intramural game. Then once the Clippers creep back into, I’d like to see some real heroball. The higher effort stuff from KI and Tatum. No more sleepwalking. When that fails to put the Clippers away, I’d like to see the team finally revert in the last five minutes to playing with effort and focus much like they did in opening the early lead. Of course at this point in the game there probably won’t be time to build another big lead and SSS will introduce some luck factors so we may get treated to a contest that really comes down to the final minutes. Hopefully we can all exhale with a minute or two still on the clock and enjoy another win that leaves us all with that feeling of semi-satisfied discontent. Kinda like when Baynes hits one of those threes that looks so bad that it leaves you feeling an odd mix of momentarily satisfied yet mildly uncomfortable and even a little confused.

The way this team plays has become so predictable that posters here are literally predicting it.
 
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DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I love you Dejesus, and your optimism, and you can try to put whatever lipstick on this pig that you want, but you can't expect everyone else to share that viewpoint. When I read your post, this is what I hear and see:

I stated this upthread:

The C's loss was bad on Saturday and people are entitled to be concerned. But that sort of loss is not as unprecedented as some might think.
This was my only point. I am sorry if I was unclear or you simply don't care about the data that refutes the idea that these sorts of comebacks are without precedent.

To be clear, I am not particularly bullish on this Celtics squad and I wouldn't begrudge anyone who is giving up on them. All is not well and its part of the reason I don't hang in the gamethreads as much anymore - its no fun when everyone is freaking out and they are justified in doing so.

That said, people get too hung up on single game outcomes. However your season long concerns are entirely justified imho.
 

Deathofthebambino

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This was my only point. I am sorry if I was unclear or you simply don't care about the data that refutes the idea that these sorts of comebacks are without precedent.
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I don't think either of these are true. I care about the data plenty, but you aren't refuting anyone, because nobody ever made the argument that it has literally never happened before. You introduced that goalpost.

RedOctober simply said "You should never blow a 28 point lead. Ever." I think that's a pretty fair, and transparent statement. I would imagine he didn't mean "It has literally has never happened before in NBA History." You then said it happens "quite frequently" and pointed out data that actually refutes your idea that it happens quite frequently. You have now moved back to something more accurate, that it isn't literally unprecedented.

It's like if James Harden scored 72 points tomorrow, and people were applauding it, and someone came in here and was like "Well, it happens all the time." And then someone pointed out that it's only been done by like 6-7 players in NBA history, and then they responded with "yeah, like I said, it's not unprecedented."

Anyway, you know what I'm saying. We've got bigger problems with this team anyway. Tomorrow could be a bloodbath in Philly without Kyrie.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I don't think either of these are true. I care about the data plenty, but you aren't refuting anyone, because nobody ever made the argument that it has literally never happened before. You introduced that goalpost.

RedOctober simply said "You should never blow a 28 point lead. Ever." I think that's a pretty fair, and transparent statement. I would imagine he didn't mean "It has literally has never happened before in NBA History." You then said it happens "quite frequently" and pointed out data that actually refutes your idea that it happens quite frequently. You have now moved back to something more accurate, that it isn't literally unprecedented.

It's like if James Harden scored 72 points tomorrow, and people were applauding it, and someone came in here and was like "Well, it happens all the time." And then someone pointed out that it's only been done by like 6-7 players in NBA history, and then they responded with "yeah, like I said, it's not unprecedented."

Anyway, you know what I'm saying. We've got bigger problems with this team anyway. Tomorrow could be a bloodbath in Philly without Kyrie.
I typed a quick response to RO - I should have been more specific in that I was referring to double digit and not 28 point leads. I would refer that to clarifying and not "moving back".

Once again, three playoff home teams surrendered leads of 25 or more points in the space of the past week. 20 teams have surrendered regular season games leads of 24 points or more in the past decade - the data show this sort of outcome is increasing in frequency. Its not the same as someone scoring 70+ points for a variety of reasons.

In any event, lets agree to move along. Nobody is going to change their minds - you either believe that Saturday's loss was a horrific, unprecedented outcome that should never happen or you believe that, while it sucks, it does happen and is happening more often.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I typed a quick response to RO - I should have been more specific in that I was referring to double digit and not 28 point leads. I would refer that to clarifying and not "moving back".

Once again, three playoff home teams surrendered leads of 25 or more points in the space of the past week. 20 teams have surrendered regular season games leads of 24 points or more in the past decade - the data show this sort of outcome is increasing in frequency. Its not the same as someone scoring 70+ points for a variety of reasons.

In any event, lets agree to move along. Nobody is going to change their minds - you either believe that Saturday's loss was a horrific, unprecedented outcome that should never happen or you believe that, while it sucks, it does happen and is happening more often.
This is only vanished leads of 20+ that result in losses too. How many more games are a 2 or 3-possession game in the 4th quarter? 5x? 10x? When you get close to a 30-point lead like the Celtics had the opponent usually cuts their starters night short but that isn’t the case when it’s a lead in the low 20’s unless the lead hasn’t been reduced mid-4th when it’s time for the starters to close the game out.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Yes while leads over 20-points in the NBA are not nearly as safe as the casual fan believes (just listen to those asking in game threads why a starter is in the game up 20 with 6 min to go) my point was how can you consider that a "coin flip game" when you are a heavy favorite prior to the opening tip and an enormous one throughout the game. My definition of a "coin flip game" was when the Warriors came to Boston, the point spread was like 1.5, it was tight the entire game, and whichever team executed down the stretch wins.
It's a different issue than the one you are thinking about.

I think there's a sense in which any game that could have gone either way at the end is a coin flip game. The Lakers game fits this better than the Clippers, which really wasn'ta coin flip game - as embarassing as it is, the Celtics had no shot there at the end.

But the Lakers is a good example... Rondo's shot was going to fall or not fall, or he might have mishandled it and not realeased in time... basically a coin flip. Had he missed, the Celtics take the W, but that fact (W vs L) really tells you nothing about the team that you didn't already know based on the season and the first 47 minutes.

What does it say about the Celtics that the Lakers game ended in a coin flip and that they failed to achieve even that ending against the /Clippers despite a massive lead? A lot, obviously.

Edit: At the risk of injecting politics, the 2016 election ended up being a coin flip election, with the balance decided by a toal of 100,000 voters in 3 states. Razor tin margin that wouldn't always play out the same way if it was rerun 50,000 times. Should it have been that close? Does it speak poorly of one of the campaigns that it was that close? Those are very different questions. IMO, the Donald was "lucky" to win the coin flip, but it wasn't luck that put him position to win it. Had he lost by <100,000 votes in 3 key states, it would have been more like the loss of a coin flip than an indication that he had less support among the voting public.
 
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Van Everyman

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teddykgb

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Here's an article with stats about passing: https://celticswire.usatoday.com/2019/02/11/jaylen-brown-is-the-celtics-player-least-likely-to-pass/

I don't agree with the conclusion that JB is an outlier, particularly given his role, but it's clear that MaMo, JT, and JB have to, well, evolve to get this ship going in the correct direction.
This post may need to be reported as a murder attempt on DeathoftheBambino.

It’s more interesting that he’s such an outlier than anything else. His role, when he is playing right, is often to take the space created by the ball movement and go to the rim so I might expect some of this but having it seem so different is interesting. From the eye check I seldom think he’s being overly selfish watching him play and in all things basketball I think that does still matter. But maybe a reason why we are getting so much Hayward is something the Celtics are tracking about who is actually keeping the ball moving.
 

DJnVa

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Well, the "team plays better without Kyrie" gang was quiet after the Clippers game. Let's see how they play tonight. Sucks that basically all I want to see is a good strong effort, because road wins against good teams are tough even when healthy, but that's where we are.
 

DJnVa

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The worst part was when they put Gronk in and there wasn’t even a Hail Mary.

Anyway, while the world was ending, the Celtics had a meeting and watched film, the players apparently agreed with Morris’s comments and Morris acknowledged that he should have included his own subpar play in his criticisms:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2019/02/11/lessons-learned-celtics-acknowledge-they-lacked-energy-passion/OFkqZFhFYd54wZQbdp5ZEO/story.html

I'm not a "sky is falling" type, but how many times can we hear this stuff?

"No, no. *This* time we mean it."
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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This post may need to be reported as a murder attempt on DeathoftheBambino.

It’s more interesting that he’s such an outlier than anything else. His role, when he is playing right, is often to take the space created by the ball movement and go to the rim so I might expect some of this but having it seem so different is interesting. From the eye check I seldom think he’s being overly selfish watching him play and in all things basketball I think that does still matter. But maybe a reason why we are getting so much Hayward is something the Celtics are tracking about who is actually keeping the ball moving.
With respect to the bolded, I think some of our perceptions are clouded by the fact that JB sits in the corner for a lot of possessions and never touches the ball (although yes, I know his USG% is approximately the same as last year).

Look, it's hard going from more touches to fewer touches, from more shots to fewer shots. Plus, as anyone who plays basketball knows, it's a lot easier to go 5-12 on jumpers than it is to go 2-4.

It'll be interesting to see what happens tonight.
 

Auger34

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It’s more interesting that he’s such an outlier than anything else. His role, when he is playing right, is often to take the space created by the ball movement and go to the rim so I might expect some of this but having it seem so different is interesting. From the eye check I seldom think he’s being overly selfish watching him play and in all things basketball I think that does still matter. But maybe a reason why we are getting so much Hayward is something the Celtics are tracking about who is actually keeping the ball moving.
This is almost impossible to quantify but from what I've seen, Morris (and Rozier earlier this season when he was making everyone want to rip their hair out) have possessions where they decide well in advance "If I'm getting the ball then I am shooting no matter what"/"I have the ball and I am shooting come hell or high water".
I've noticed that JB doesn't pass a ton but I rarely feel like he has that mindset. To me, it seems like he's being aggressive and getting good shots vs. pounding the ball and throwing up 18 foot fadeaways with a hand in his face ala Morris.
 

NomarsFool

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The stats are interesting, but I think it's hard to take them out of the context of how the Celtics usually play. When the Celtics swing the ball around and the 3rd or 4th guy gets an open look, they are pretty much supposed to shoot it. The 3rd or 4th guy as they swing the ball around is very often JB or JT. I have absolutely no problem with almost all the guys on the team when they take open, standing still, 3 pointers (Baynes makes me cringe). What I don't like is the pull-up, still moving 3 pointer with 18 seconds on the clock (Terry Rozier I'm talking to you). Irving does that, too, but he does make a lot of them - so I give him a little more leeway.

When I see JB with the ball, I feel like it is often in transition and I'm fine with him taking the ball all the way to the rim and hopefully making the basket, getting fouled, or having a trailer get the easy put back. JT has a lot of those as well. Maybe with him some of them are a little forced, but I'm sort of okay with that.

What I don't particularly like is the isolation play where JT dribbles around, and takes a fall-away 18 foot jumper. He makes many of them, but not enough of them. At least with JB, I feel like he usually penetrates into the paint, elevates, and then hits that turn around humper from <10 feet. I feel like he shoots that at a very high percentage.
 

RetractableRoof

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With respect to the bolded, I think some of our perceptions are clouded by the fact that JB sits in the corner for a lot of possessions and never touches the ball (although yes, I know his USG% is approximately the same as last year).

Look, it's hard going from more touches to fewer touches, from more shots to fewer shots. Plus, as anyone who plays basketball knows, it's a lot easier to go 5-12 on jumpers than it is to go 2-4.

It'll be interesting to see what happens tonight.
Regarding Brown:
I agree with this completely. Brown doesn't seem to be asked to create as much as other players (or hasn't taken it on himself to do it like Tatum?). So a larger portion of his points seem to come by sitting in the corner as you say and being the recipient of ball movement that eventually finds him when a rotation lags. Additionally, his athleticism *seems* to get him more finishes on breaks, which speaks to other players finding him for those opportunities. I don't know what the numbers on these two read, but before I would award him the 2018 recipient of the Kevin McHale Black Hole certificate, I'd like to know (and don't know how to find out) how many of his non-fast break finishing scoring attempts are uncontested (defender more than x feet away?). If they are uncontested, that would seem to indicate that they are 'good shots' in Stevens system - rather than selfish play. Also, when he does attempt to create and drive/slash does he kick out or dish off less than other players - and is that in line with a player of his basketball maturity level. It still might be black hole-ish, but not selfish.

There was a period of time last year when I was riding Smart for my perception that he wasn't passing enough when he needed to (specifically to Tatum at times) - and projected it to be a function of him looking at an upcoming contract search. Right or wrong, that's what it looked like to me. And coincidentally or not, with his contract in hand Smart is generally playing the basketball I think we all hoped for. Similarly I wonder if there is some contract related thinking creeping into some of the stickiness when the basketball is in some players hands. Even if they do end up passing it, even just a flicker of hesitation might allow the defense to recover enough to contest. Again, I acknowledge I'm probably just projecting this onto the team - but clearly they are not playing with the cohesion they exhibited late last year. I can understand what some of it might be - as young players who do you defer to? KI, your best creator? Haywood, who is still a shell/portion of himself. Morris who was lighting it up earlier in the year? Smart who seems to be playing almost the perfect Smart game this year? When/where do you take those shots? What is the coach telling you? What are your teammates telling you? What is your agent/support system telling you? Tough place to be for the young guys. And I think the results show it - there was a free and easy component to the young guy's games late last year that came with knowing that a) the minutes and opportunities were there b) they were playing with house money with Haywire and KI being down.
 

Deathofthebambino

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It’s more interesting that he’s such an outlier than anything else. His role, when he is playing right, is often to take the space created by the ball movement and go to the rim so I might expect some of this but having it seem so different is interesting. From the eye check I seldom think he’s being overly selfish watching him play and in all things basketball I think that does still matter. But maybe a reason why we are getting so much Hayward is something the Celtics are tracking about who is actually keeping the ball moving.
The article is so flawed that it doesn't even bother me. I actually heard about it yesterday when none other than Felger and Mazz were using it as an opportunity to do their passive-aggressive teardown of a player. The reality is the article is joke, and completely lacking in context. Let's start with this:

Among the litany of stats nba.com tracks are touches and passes for individual players. They don’t, however, track the percentage of times a player passes the ball per touch. (They do it for touches in the paint and from the elbow, though not overall, which seems strange.)

The reason NBA.com doesn't track the percentage of times a player passes the ball per touch is because if you're trying to make some sort of conclusion about whether a guy shoots more than he should, or passes too little, there is way too much fucking noise in the numbers. For example, if Morris is trying to inbounds a ball after a made basket, and the opponent is guarding Kyrie, so Al comes back as an outlet, and Morris passes to Al, who then passes it off to Kyrie, what does that tell anyone? Al touched and passed it? Great, what else was he going to do with it 90 feet from his own basket? Shoot it? When you are getting the ball at the elbow or in the paint, that's when there is actually decisions being made as to whether or not to pass or shoot. That's where Jaylen usually gets the ball. It's not where Terry Rozier usually gets the ball. Unlike the author, the part i found strange was that the author noted that NBA.com has breakdowns for touches in the paint and elbow, and the author didn't feel the need to talk about those?

Then there's this gem:

But there’s one outlier.

Now, there has to be one player who passes less than everyone else on the team. It’s only natural. Common sense would lead you to believe it’s the team’s top scorer, or at least the second-highest scorer on the team.

Well, that’s not the case with the Celtics. In fact, the player who’s touches result in a pass the least for the C’s is their fourth-highest scorer in terms of points per game (12.7).

Umm, no dumbass. Common sense would not lead anyone to believe that the guy who passes the least is the team's top scorer. Jaylen Brown gets the 7th most minutes of anyone on the team. He doesn't play enough minutes to be the leading scorer, even though he passes less than anyone else based on a % of his touches, because his touches are less than everyone else's. If he was going to be the leading scorer, he'd need to pass like 10% of the time given the minutes he plays. Then we'd be talking about Lou Williams. But we're not.

Here's the cough conclusion cough of this hit piece:

So, according to nba.com, Brown gets 31.7 touches per game and makes 17.1 passes a game. He also attempts 10.8 field goals per game. That means he’s shooting the ball 34.1 percent of the time he touches it and only passes it 53.9 percent of the time.

It wouldn’t mean much if Brown was in the same grouping as Irving, Morris and Tatum, but he’s in a league of his own. He, legitimately, barely passes the ball half the time. You would think that’s a byproduct of the Celtics’ having too many shooters, but he’s the lone outlier in the bunch.

Although it’s hard to know who Morris was specifically calling out when he talked about making sacrifices on Saturday, these numbers alone make it hard to believe one of the players he alluded to wasn’t Brown.

The reason why Morris/Tatum/Irving pass the ball as much as they do is because they are playing with each other. Jaylen Brown is spending most of his minutes with Terry Rozier, Gordon Hayward, Daniel Theis, etc. Since returning from that brief injury 32 games ago, Jaylen Brown is shooting 48% from the floor. Terry Rozier is shooting 39.2% over that time period. Gordon Hayward is shooting 43.4%.

So yeah, I want Jaylen Brown shooting the ball when he's obviously the best scorer on the floor. If he's on the floor with Kyrie or Al or Tatum, I'd want him to pass more.

Like others have said, I haven't really looked at Brown and thought to myself he was a ball stopper. In fact, I think for the last 2+ months, he's been one of the few guys who has consistently tried to attack the rim, something we were all getting on this team about during the first 20 games of the year. And he's been successful at it. The guy has one bad game, and there's Marcus Morris bitching to the media about it, and now it's time to attack JB. Shocking. It doesn't surprise me Felger and Mazz loved this piece of shit writing. It's right in their wheelhouse.

I will say this though, someone called into the radio today and said they were at the game the other night, and they thought JB was clearly not passing to Gordon for whatever reason. Like literally wouldn't throw him the ball. They also said they noticed after Gordon made a good play and everyone was high fiving him, Brown walked away and sat on the bench. Maybe there is something going on with Gordon and Brown right now. If so, Brown will not win that war in the locker room or in the front office. Even if he is playing better.
 

lovegtm

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To be clear, I am not particularly bullish on this Celtics squad and I wouldn't begrudge anyone who is giving up on them. All is not well and its part of the reason I don't hang in the gamethreads as much anymore - its no fun when everyone is freaking out and they are justified in doing so.
Not giving up, but been taking a break from following the team after the Lakers game, and wasn't surprised to see the Clippers result. It's just really grinding to watch a group of people who aren't meshing well and have obvious mental/interpersonal issues that they're unable to fix.

I'll be happier when all this is resolved one way or another.
 

NomarsFool

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Watching games as a fan, there are times when it looks to me like JB is open cutting to the basket and the ball isn't passed to him. But, of course, I'm not on the court seeing what the players are seeing (and I'm far from a basketball professional). I would certainly hope that the coaches are breaking down video and helping the players understand where they missed open guys so that they can learn from it.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Not giving up, but been taking a break from following the team after the Lakers game, and wasn't surprised to see the Clippers result. It's just really grinding to watch a group of people who aren't meshing well and have obvious mental/interpersonal issues that they're unable to fix.

I'll be happier when all this is resolved one way or another.
That sucks but I know the feeling although it was a far different scenario. I did this in January, 2007 and didn’t watch another minute of action the rest of the season after Gerald Green got his first start and played I think all 48 minutes (or close). This came the game after I ranted about why we are force feeding Green 20 mpg when he clearly isn’t ready to compete against NBA players.

Either way, next years Celtics team will be a much different look than the current version
 

Rustjive

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Even if he is playing better.
If Jaylen is purposefully ignoring Hayward on the court, I don't care if he's playing better, because that's almost certainly not the correct way to play basketball. Hayward for sure doesn't ignore Brown - using whatever split you want on NBA.com's passes dashboard - https://stats.nba.com/player/1627759/passes-dash/?sort=FREQUENCY&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season&LastNGames=8 - Brown receives a ton of Hayward passes and assists (top 2 'passes from'). Couple that with the lineups page - https://stats.nba.com/team/1610612738/lineups-traditional/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season&LastNGames=8&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*brown&sort=MIN&dir=1&GroupQuantity=2 - and you can see that the stats bear out that caller's view - in the same (arbitrary) Last 8 games split as above, Jaylen has played more minutes with Hayward than any other 2 man pairing, yet when adjusting for minutes played Brown has passed to Hayward the least by far.
 

Deathofthebambino

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If Jaylen is purposefully ignoring Hayward on the court, I don't care if he's playing better, because that's almost certainly not the correct way to play basketball. Hayward for sure doesn't ignore Brown - using whatever split you want on NBA.com's passes dashboard - https://stats.nba.com/player/1627759/passes-dash/?sort=FREQUENCY&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season&LastNGames=8 - Brown receives a ton of Hayward passes and assists (top 2 'passes from'). Couple that with the lineups page - https://stats.nba.com/team/1610612738/lineups-traditional/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season&LastNGames=8&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*brown&sort=MIN&dir=1&GroupQuantity=2 - and you can see that the stats bear out that caller's view - in the same (arbitrary) Last 8 games split as above, Jaylen has played more minutes with Hayward than any other 2 man pairing, yet when adjusting for minutes played Brown has passed to Hayward the least by far.
I agree with you. If he's not passing to Gordon when he should be, that's a problem. And like I said, it's a battle he won't win on any front.

That said, unless I'm missing something, everyone says Gordon's best role on that 2nd unit is one of facilitator, as opposed to scorer, and if he's facilitating, one would assume that there will be more passes going from him than to him, particularly from the 3 point line inward. And when you couple that with the fact that Jaylen is more of a scorer (and IMO, the #1 scoring option on the 2nd unit at this point), and less of a facilitator, I would assume there are more passes going to him than from him in that situation. I will be curious to watch tonight to see if I notice any tension between them and/or if they are "missing" each other when they should be passing. If nothing else, it might be more interesting than worrying about the actual game, which I fear, as much as I've feared any C's regular season game in a long, long time.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Well, the "team plays better without Kyrie" gang was quiet after the Clippers game. Let's see how they play tonight. Sucks that basically all I want to see is a good strong effort, because road wins against good teams are tough even when healthy, but that's where we are.
I'm almost as afraid of a blowout loss, as I am a win, because I dread hearing the Kyrie bashers come out of the woodwork talking about how they play better without him. And you just know, if they can figure out a way to win tonight, those folks will be loud and obnoxious.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Not giving up, but been taking a break from following the team after the Lakers game, and wasn't surprised to see the Clippers result. It's just really grinding to watch a group of people who aren't meshing well and have obvious mental/interpersonal issues that they're unable to fix.

I'll be happier when all this is resolved one way or another.
I think that is fine. I am just about avoiding the gamethreads and the general negativity around every aspect of the team. I don't deny that its deserved but its just not for me.

I have not given up on this team - and despite what some posters perceive as me screaming all is well - its not because I don't see that they are flawed. Its just that they have the raw materials to turn it around and make a run.

In the meantime, I will watch the games looking for cool basketball stuff like Smart sealing off guys or forcing an offensive player to do something uncomfortable or watching Horford effortlessly find an open man or watching Tatum and Brown continue to evolve. In the end, this may be all we have from this season and, if that is the case, so be it.
 

NomarsFool

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That said, unless I'm missing something, everyone says Gordon's best role on that 2nd unit is one of facilitator, as opposed to scorer, and if he's facilitating, one would assume that there will be more passes going from him than to him, particularly from the 3 point line inward. .
I believe they have made this point, and from watching the games, it seems pretty obvious that is what they are doing. Hayward is being asked to be the "point forward" on that second unit, and he has either been told not to shoot too much, or he himself doesn't feel comfortable shooting that much. Either way, no one on that second unit is going to "out assist" Hayward.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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If Jaylen is purposefully ignoring Hayward on the court, I don't care if he's playing better, because that's almost certainly not the correct way to play basketball. Hayward for sure doesn't ignore Brown - using whatever split you want on NBA.com's passes dashboard - https://stats.nba.com/player/1627759/passes-dash/?sort=FREQUENCY&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season&LastNGames=8 - Brown receives a ton of Hayward passes and assists (top 2 'passes from'). Couple that with the lineups page - https://stats.nba.com/team/1610612738/lineups-traditional/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season&LastNGames=8&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*brown&sort=MIN&dir=1&GroupQuantity=2 - and you can see that the stats bear out that caller's view - in the same (arbitrary) Last 8 games split as above, Jaylen has played more minutes with Hayward than any other 2 man pairing, yet when adjusting for minutes played Brown has passed to Hayward the least by far.
JB is not ignoring GH; it's just the sets they run usually means that JB is either going to take the shot or pass to someone else. This is an example of how to lie with statistics.

They seemed to have more fun tonight.
 

Strike4

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Despite the bad losses, this is another big game where the Celtics rose to the occasion. I try to remember these when they're pulling the Clippers shit.
 

NomarsFool

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I thought it was interesting tonight that Morris' first 5 touches of the basketball resulted in shots (I mean he made 4, so give credit). But, still, I think he had made one pass for like the whole first half - although I lost track a bit. I'm a little confused about complaining about selfish basketball and then you don't pass the ball.

Big win, though. Really great to see. Now, we beat Detroit and it's like last week never happened.
 

amarshal2

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It’s super weird but easily some of the best basketball they’ve played all season has been in stretches over the last seven games or so. I’m not saying we should ignore the obvious problems. They’ve played some of the worst basketball, too. But Hayward and Brown seem to have found something. And the starters are playing well together most of the time.

I dunno, it’s either all going to fall apart or we’re going to look back on this as part of the fire that molded them into something better.
 

HomeRunBaker

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It’s super weird but easily some of the best basketball they’ve played all season has been in stretches over the last seven games or so. I’m not saying we should ignore the obvious problems. They’ve played some of the worst basketball, too. But Hayward and Brown seem to have found something. And the starters are playing well together most of the time.

I dunno, it’s either all going to fall apart or we’re going to look back on this as part of the fire that molded them into something better.
Horford’s casually dropped a 23/8/5/4 on Embiid and the Sixers. He’s been nothing short of phenomenal since being cleared with no minutes restrictions. We talk about Tatum, Jaylen, Rozier, and Morris playing for contracts......let’s not forget that Horford has a ton at stake here and is going to get paid once he opts out.
 

Eddie Jurak

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have not given up on this team - and despite what some posters perceive as me screaming all is well - its not because I don't see that they are flawed. Its just that they have the raw materials to turn it around and make a run.

In the meantime, I will watch the games looking for cool basketball stuff like Smart sealing off guys or forcing an offensive player to do something uncomfortable or watching Horford effortlessly find an open man or watching Tatum and Brown continue to evolve. In the end, this may be all we have from this season and, if that is the case, so be it.
It is games like last night's, where they went toe-to-toe with the new look Sixers for 48 minutes and seemed to have things well in hand for most of it, that make the Clippers-type losses all the more frustrating.
 

mauf

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I've run these numbers before, and the answer is basically "no" to the bolded. Teams that win by a lot, lose by a little over X games despite a mediocre record tend to be really good going forward. There are exceptions, but those exceptions tend to be teams who have had problems winning close games for years at a time. That's not the Celtics, who over-performed their net rating last year by about as much as they're underperforming this year.

Now, to caveat:

- W/L% isn't totally meaningless if you have MOV% available, but MOV% is a significantly better predictor if you had to choose one or the other.
- The Celtics do have that 56 point win over the Bulls which is historically unusual even as far as these things go. Take out that win, and the Celtics' lose about a full point in their net rating.

I have not had much time to post lately, but if this topic is still live in a couple weeks, I can post full results for the last 30 years on this issue if there's interest.
I, for one, would definitely be interested.

If you’re going to invest that kind of time, it deserves its own thread — wouldn’t want it to get buried here.
 

chilidawg

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Horford’s casually dropped a 23/8/5/4 on Embiid and the Sixers. He’s been nothing short of phenomenal since being cleared with no minutes restrictions. We talk about Tatum, Jaylen, Rozier, and Morris playing for contracts......let’s not forget that Horford has a ton at stake here and is going to get paid once he opts out.
Let's not forget that we have no idea what motivates Al, and that at this stage of his career it's most likely not money.
 

Eddie Jurak

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One thing that surprised me a bit last game was that Stevens went to Wanamaker in the first half. (It was not in the least bit surprising that Stevens shortened his bench in the second half and didn't play him.) It seemed like Stevens missed an opportunity to go to Semi, since Ben Simmons is a non-shooter.

One thing the Celtics did relentlessly yesterday was attack certain guys in the post (mostly Reddick and McConnell, but sometimes even Harris). Towards the end of the game, Philly disrupted Boston a bit by going offense/defense with J Simmons coming in for Reddick.
 

Jimbodandy

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One thing that surprised me a bit last game was that Stevens went to Wanamaker in the first half. (It was not in the least bit surprising that Stevens shortened his bench in the second half and didn't play him.) It seemed like Stevens missed an opportunity to go to Semi, since Ben Simmons is a non-shooter.

One thing the Celtics did relentlessly yesterday was attack certain guys in the post (mostly Reddick and McConnell, but sometimes even Harris). Towards the end of the game, Philly disrupted Boston a bit by going offense/defense with J Simmons coming in for Reddick.
They were saying during the game that it "felt" like a playoff game, and they weren't wrong.

Beating up obvious matchups was a key strategy last night. It didn't work because post offense is great or efficient or anything. Just the stress of Marcus or Jaylen or whoever abusing their guy over and over forced Philly to double or try a frantic switch. Then we had open shots, guys cutting for layups, etc. It's an effective strategy.

I thought that the game was 48 minutes of pretty high level basketball. Some guys didn't shoot all that well, but top notch overall.

Fwiw, I'm not sure that Brown made the right call playing those posts the way that they did. Having Reddick focus on denying the pass is smart, but after that I probably don't double regularly. Will be interesting to see if they do that in the playoffs. Those guards aren't going to be any bigger.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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It’s super weird but easily some of the best basketball they’ve played all season has been in stretches over the last seven games or so. I’m not saying we should ignore the obvious problems. They’ve played some of the worst basketball, too. But Hayward and Brown seem to have found something. And the starters are playing well together most of the time.

I dunno, it’s either all going to fall apart or we’re going to look back on this as part of the fire that molded them into something better.
I hate to say this but the Cs definitely let up on defense against worse teams. So the old adage - they play up or down to the competition.
 

Van Everyman

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I continue to believe that at least part of their inconsistency is by, well, not design exactly but at least a byproduct of Brad refusing to settle in to a consistent approach or rotation. It’s telling that for all the sturm und drang this season that they didn’t make a single move at the deadline. I think he and Ainge feel that the talent is there – and the more these guys can succeed in unfamiliar or at least uncomfortable positions—playing somewhat out of position, or without a binkie teammate—the better prepared they’ll be for the stretch run.

I also think that part of Brad’s refusal to bark at the refs is about drilling into these guys—particularly the younger guys—that they can’t depend on the refs to bail them out.

I’m sure it’s not “fun” when things don’t work but as evidenced last night when they do? Pretty fucking good stuff.
 

joe dokes

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I also think that part of Brad’s refusal to bark at the refs is about drilling into these guys—particularly the younger guys—that they can’t depend on the refs to bail them out.
.
This "Brad doesn't work the refs enough" should stop.
He is constantly talking at them. Last night he clearly said "that was bullshit" as one walked by. He is yapping at them every game.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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I thought the offensive tempo in the second half was the best they've had all year. They pushed the ball up the court and made strong, decisive passes.

Of course they did......there was no Kyrie.
Noticed several players rallying around MM after the win last night almost as if he had hit a game winner. Kinda stood out to me.

:: thinking face emoji ::
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I continue to believe that at least part of their inconsistency is by, well, not design exactly but at least a byproduct of Brad refusing to settle in to a consistent approach or rotation. It’s telling that for all the sturm und drang this season that they didn’t make a single move at the deadline. I think he and Ainge feel that the talent is there – and the more these guys can succeed in unfamiliar or at least uncomfortable positions—playing somewhat out of position, or without a binkie teammate—the better prepared they’ll be for the stretch run.

I also think that part of Brad’s refusal to bark at the refs is about drilling into these guys—particularly the younger guys—that they can’t depend on the refs to bail them out.

I’m sure it’s not “fun” when things don’t work but as evidenced last night when they do? Pretty fucking good stuff.
Great post.

Also, Stevens does, in fact, talk to the refs. His style just doesn't include histrionics and gesticulating so that the audience away from the bench sees it.

I would love to see data that supports the idea that "working the refs" is effective. I haven't seen anything definitive and I am not sure that its measurable. I am skeptical that it actually works, especially for the chronic, showy complainers. However I am open to the idea that it has a positive effect if there is data to back it up. Anecdotes aren't data of course.