strong words, that 08 team was one of the best ones ever imo.Agreed. I have said it before but this is going to go down as a better team than 2008.
strong words, that 08 team was one of the best ones ever imo.Agreed. I have said it before but this is going to go down as a better team than 2008.
Will be interesting to see how things shake out (please stay healthy) but while the '08 team may have had less overall talent, KG was a force of nature and raised the orher guys on the team.Agreed. I have said it before but this is going to go down as a better team than 2008.
Realize it's a bold statement.strong words, that 08 team was one of the best ones ever imo.
It's a bold statement. And I expected to be posting in disagreement... but I'm not.Realize it's a bold statement.
I love this year's team.
Yeah, the current team being so much better offensively is what leans me their direction.Very difficult to compare eras as things have changed a ton even in just those 15 years. That team was incredible defensively, mostly because KG was god-tier, elevated everyone, and basically got full buy-in even from Ray. Offensively, I think they were merely pretty good and a lot of that had to do with the poor spacing. Rondo + Perk were essential players at various times but they spent a lot of time that first season playing 3 on 5 on offense because both could literally be left alone. Perk wouldn't even be playable against the current roster (or many current rosters, to be fair).
I'll never get over the 2010 Finals. Nobody ever beat that Starting 5 in a 7-game series.If they hit the playoffs healthy, they're going to be extremely difficult to beat in a 7-game series, especially if they have home court advantage. I feel ok saying the this team, as they sit right now, has the best chance of bringing the NBA title back to Boston since 2008.
In short, this team eats its leftovers (and yours too if you leave them laying around). The article notes that Kornet, Brissett and Jrue are driving some of the increased offensive rebounding but cites Mazzulla emphasizing crashing from the corners, and trying to win things at the margins overall as the key driver for the increased focus.Statistically speaking, an offensive rebound actually matters more to the Celtics than it would to most other teams. They rank fourth in offensive efficiency on extra chances with an average of 118.2 points per 100 putback plays, according to Cleaning the Glass. So every second-chance opportunity is amplified for them.
That passes the eye test as well.. feel like I’ve seen more players crashing the boards this year. PP and Drue quite a bit… and of course Al, KP and KornetHere's a little stat from today's Jay King column in The Athletic:
In short, this team eats its leftovers (and yours too if you leave them laying around). The article notes that Kornet, Brissett and Jrue are driving some of the increased offensive rebounding but cites Mazzulla emphasizing crashing from the corners, and trying to win things at the margins overall as the key driver for the increased focus.
Tall goofy white guy : Kite - KornetInteresting comparison to the 86 squad up and down the first 8:
- Alphas: Bird - Tatum
- Betas: McHale - Brown
- Starting Big Guy: Parish - KP
- Veteran all-star guard: DJ - Jrue
- Underrated 2 guard: Ainge - White
- Bench big/vet: Walton - Al
- Bench shooter: Wedman - Hauser
- Bench guard: Sichting - PP
Brissett is Thirdkill?Tall goofy white guy : Kite - Kornet
Back on Nov 2, in this very thread...Interesting comparison to the 86 squad up and down the first 8:
- Alphas: Bird - Tatum
- Betas: McHale - Brown
- Starting Big Guy: Parish - KP
- Veteran all-star guard: DJ - Jrue
- Underrated 2 guard: Ainge - White
- Bench big/vet: Walton - Al
- Bench shooter: Wedman - Hauser
- Bench guard: Sichting - PP
So.....
Tatum is Bird (leading scorer at more than 25 points a game, excellent rebounder and passer, best all around player, the Alpha/Batman)
Brown is McHale (not a post guy but second leading scorer at ~22 points a game; excellent Robin to the Batman on the team)
Porzingis is Parish (center who scores 16-18 points a game, good rebounder and shot blocker; solid and steady but who could get you 30 if need be)
Holiday is DJ (13-15 points, elite defense at the guard position, can defend multiple positions)
White is Ainge (White scores a little more and plays better defense, but Ainge was solid in those areas too)
Horford is Walton (veteran C coming off the bench who gives you quality - if limited - minutes)
Pritchard is Sichting (sharpshooter backup 6'1" PG)
Hauser is Wedman (sharpshooter as a 6'7" wing/SF)
Brissett is Sly Williams (6'7" garbage man and energy guy with limited offense - too bad Sly only played in 6 games)
Obviously not an exact parallel to these two teams (the Brown/McHale comp in particular is off positionally and stylistically), but there's quite a bit of similarity actually.
And I swear I don’t have you on Ignore!!Back on Nov 2, in this very thread...
hahahahaAnd I swear I don’t have you on Ignore!!
Clearly, I think so!hahahaha
The comparison is striking though, isn't it?
I am 35 and that was one of the toughest sports losses of my lifetime.I'll never get over the 2010 Finals. Nobody ever beat that Starting 5 in a 7-game series.
I'm convinced I tanked my summer internship in the week after Game 7. Just showed up to work whenever not caring if I lived or died, nevermind about the work I was supposed to do.
Here's a little stat from today's Jay King column in The Athletic:
In short, this team eats its leftovers (and yours too if you leave them laying around). The article notes that Kornet, Brissett and Jrue are driving some of the increased offensive rebounding but cites Mazzulla emphasizing crashing from the corners, and trying to win things at the margins overall as the key driver for the increased focus.
I'm reminded of this article from The Athletic from two months ago, about an increased trend in the league of crashing from the corners:That passes the eye test as well.. feel like I’ve seen more players crashing the boards this year. PP and Drue quite a bit… and of course Al, KP and Kornet
There was a time in the recent NBA when teams were more focused on getting back on defense than getting offensive rebounds. It was more important to stop the fast break and force teams to play in half-court settings than fight to get another possession.
Those times have changed. It is an opportunistic change now to exploit defenses that are too spread out.
During the past few seasons, there has been a renewed vigor for crashing the glass. Two teams currently average more than 18 second-chance points; the NBA average is 13.8. Offensive rebounding percentage also has climbed. The Brooklyn Nets entered Wednesday’s games ranked 15th this season, grabbing 29.2 percent of their missed shots. That mark would have ranked second in the same category in the 2020-21 season.
More interesting than the uptick in offensive rebounds is exactly where some of these glass crashers are coming from. It is not the big man in the paint grabbing these extra boards. It’s the players crashing from the corner opposite the ball — or “weak side” in basketball parlance.
The weakside corner is the perfect position from which to crash the offensive glass because of the way most defenses rotate when the ball is on one side of the court. With most NBA offenses being pick-and-roll heavy, the man defending the weakside corner shooter is often pulled toward the rim to help on the roller.
If the defense’s pick-and-roll strategy involves putting two defenders on the ball, there is an even more significant need to have at least one of the other three defensive players in the paint with a second one zoning up the weak side.
This Fastmodel diagram shows the basic rotation in these situations:
In this instance, defender two (x2) is zoning up the weak side. When the shot goes up, x2 cannot box out (never mind that no one boxes out anymore) both offensive players. This opens the opportunity for the corner crash, which is the four in the following illustration.
In the recent past, that weakside corner player would be getting back on defense to stop any transition runout instead of crashing the offensive glass. Today, more and more teams are using the corner crash.
On this possession in the Nov. 12 game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers, Lakers forward Rui Hachimura generates a critical offensive board by crashing from the corner. Portland center DeAndre Ayton rotates to Anthony Davis, leaving guard Shaedon Sharpe to zone up the weak side. As the shot goes up, Hachimura crashes. Sharpe does not connect on the box out, leading to two points for the Lakers.
<clips and their descriptions follow>
The corner crash is a great way for offenses to steal extra possessions while taking advantage of most teams’ rules for defensive rotations, which require leaving the weak side to help on the ball (strong) side. Defenses must be much more diligent when rotating to locate the corner crasher early and put a body on him sooner.
Helps in the win category, but kind of a bummer both MIA & LAC will be on 2h B2B's, would love to see this team go up against other teams best just to see where they stack up.Tomorrow's a big test, for which I expect everyone to play and everyone to go hard for 48'. Denver will be on 2 days rest, having only played Tuesday at Philly. And they really ran out of gas in that game - after both teams scored 78 in the first half (!), Denver lost the 4th Quarter 17-27. But they have everyone healthy and rested, so I expect both teams to treat it like a Finals preview.
Our next two "test" games, @ MIA next Thurs and vs LAC next Saturday, will catch our opponents on the back half of a back-to-back, so it might be hard to really measure anything from them unless they really rest a couple guys on the front-half game. And Feb 1st vs LAL will be fun, and I expect us to go all-out for it, but the team has really fallen apart the last 6 weeks and isn't really on the contenders short list anymore. So aside from Feb 11th @ Miami, we don't really have any other "test" games for over a month, until vs PHI on 2/27. It is an absolutely perfect phase of the season to give our guys some multi-game breaks. March, by comparison, will be a real gauntlet.
We'll get another crack against Miami with proper rest for both sides on 2/11.Helps in the win category, but kind of a bummer both MIA & LAC will be on 2h B2B's, would love to see this team go up against other teams best just to see where they stack up.
Tatum shouldn't be settling for 5.7 PU3s/game.Two stats I’m paying close attention to. Jaylen is up to 37% on C&S threes, his best number in years, and by a lot. Him being 33% on them the last two years still makes no sense to me.
Tatum is up to 34% on pull-up threes, 5% above last season, and slightly ahead of two seasons ago. I was pretty sure that the 10-15 game stretch where he was like 10-60 on them was a fluke lol, and it’s starting to seem like that’s the case.
If those two things hold true, good luck stopping the Celtics offense in the playoffs, I don’t care how good your defense is.
Not all B2Bs are created equal. The Wolves were on a B2B (with a bad flight schedule) when they played that classic against the Cs a couple weeks ago, and the Cs have played well on most of their B2Bs (remember the Sac game after GSW?). The Milwaukee game was a particularly bad combo of OT, B2B, and 5 games in 7 nights with a lot of back-and-forth travel. I don't know if a rest day even would have changed a lot there.Tomorrow's a big test, for which I expect everyone to play and everyone to go hard for 48'. Denver will be on 2 days rest, having only played Tuesday at Philly. And they really ran out of gas in that game - after both teams scored 78 in the first half (!), Denver lost the 4th Quarter 17-27. But they have everyone healthy and rested, so I expect both teams to treat it like a Finals preview.
Our next two "test" games, @ MIA next Thurs and vs LAC next Saturday, will catch our opponents on the back half of a back-to-back, so it might be hard to really measure anything from them unless they really rest a couple guys on the front-half game. And Feb 1st vs LAL will be fun, and I expect us to go all-out for it, but the team has really fallen apart the last 6 weeks and isn't really on the contenders short list anymore. So aside from Feb 11th @ Miami, we don't really have any other "test" games for over a month, until vs PHI on 2/27. It is an absolutely perfect phase of the season to give our guys some multi-game breaks. March, by comparison, will be a real gauntlet.
He’s 34.4% on pull-ups since becoming a focal point in 19-20. Last season is the only year it was below 33.4%. If he can be 34-36 on pull-ups, I don’t really care how many he takes, unless he’s on a cold streak. If he’s hitting them at that rate? He’s going to be around 37-40% overall from three, which is awesome for his volume. 5.7 to 4.8 isn’t really going to make a difference.Tatum shouldn't be settling for 5.7 PU3s/game.
JT should, at the very least, go back to last year's more balanced volume of 4.8 PUs/gm.
He is substantially better at Catch & Shoot 3s. Tatum hits C&S3s at 44.7% vs 33.5% on PU3s this season.
Plus the Celtics have many more offensive weapons around him this year vs. past seasons
Corner3 Mob
Jrue 60%
White 52%
Hause 54%
KP 1.43 PPP
+Jaylen rim runs
I'm happy JT has been hot from 3 over the last 2 weeks, but his career PU3% are a good indication of how he will shoot them in the future IMO.
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1628369/shots-dash
If he increases his C&S3s this season the same amount he has increased his PU3s (while returning to last season's total),He’s 34.4% on pull-ups since becoming a focal point in 19-20. Last season is the only year it was below 33.4%. If he can be 34-36 on pull-ups, I don’t really care how many he takes, unless he’s on a cold streak. If he’s hitting them at that rate? He’s going to be around 37-40% overall from three, which is awesome for his volume.
Id love if he was able to, but that’s by design of the other teams defense. Teams are not going to leave him even when off ball, which is a huge reason the team has such ridiculous spacing.If he increases his C&S3s this season the same amount he has increased his PU3s (while returning to last season's total),
he'd be over 40% on 3s with his volume
which is even more awesome
I mean, he’s basically at 34% this season. Since becoming the focal point of the offense, he’s had one season under 33.4%. Seems pretty realistic that he finishes much closer to 36% than he does to 29%. Especially considering he’s getting a lot more 1 on 1 pull-up looks than the past couple of years.Here are Tatum's #s year by year
Catch & Shoot 3s (CS) + Pull-Up 3s (PU)
2023-24 CS 2.5 attempts 44.7% // PU 5.7 attempts 33.5%
2022-23 CS 4.2 attempts 40.5% // PU 4.8 attempts 29.1%
2021-22 CS 3.3 attempts 38% // PU 5.1 attempts 33.4%
2020-21 CS 1.9 attempts 44.6% // PU 5.4 attempts 36.3%
2019-20 CS 2.4 attempts 40% // PU 4.7 attempts 40.4%
2018-19 CS 2.5 attempts 39.4% // PU 1.4 attempts 32.4%
2017-18 CS 2.3 attempts 48% // PU .8 attempts 31%
He's Steph Curry when he's Catching & Shooting 3s, but turns into Marcus Smart when he is Pulling-Up for 3s.
CJM talks about INTENTIONS all the time. Tatum's intention should be to initially move the ball so the team ends up with Corner 3s, KP Post-up, Jaylen rim-run, Tatum C&S 3s, etc, etc, etc
This team has a lot more space this year with TL/Smart gone. Tatum dribbling into an early shot clock Pull-Up 3 should be very far down the list of options.
I'm not expecting 34-36% from PU3s since he's only done that 2X in his career (4 seasons ago) and this recent 3-week run is more fluke than the norm.
Here's hoping I'm wrong & your right
That's cool, and feel free to remind me later in the season if he gets up over 35% on PU3s for the season.I mean, he’s basically at 34% this season. Since becoming the focal point of the offense, he’s had one season under 33.4%. Seems pretty realistic that he finishes much closer to 36% than he does to 29%. Especially considering he’s getting a lot more 1 on 1 pull-up looks than the past couple of years.
Top players are always going to force some shots, but I think it’s fair to say he does it less than pretty much anyone besides Jokic, and Butler I guess. His intention this year has been to let everyone cook, and for him to pick his spots. I don’t think him cutting out one pullup per game to get another guy a good look really matters. Then come playoff time, he cuts down his threes and ups his driving anyways, so that aspect of it doesn’t concern me.
We will see where he ends the year, but I think it’ll be around 35% on pull-ups, and like 38-39% overall.
Other than the 20 point lead that the other team got.. we kept the rest of the game close.He said it was "a fairly even game except for the 2nd quarter" which is one of those things that while technically true (Boston outscored SA by 20 in the 2nd quarter, and SA outscored Boston by 1 in the other 3 quarters) is at best misleading and at worst ridiculous. He gave it the attention it deserved, with the confidence of a man who isn't going to lose his job even if the Spurs end up winning 15 games.
The restriction has come from the medical team after his ankle injury when he landed on the ball boy a couple weeks ago. He’s also been held out of B2B’s since that injury too. Without looking at numbers it sure seems that Wemby is getting a ton of touches offensively despite playing much of the time without a PG on the floor with him.Other than the 20 point lead that the other team got.. we kept the rest of the game close.
Why is Wemby on so much of a minutes restriction? He was limited to 25 minutes in the C's game... and why aren't the Spurs feeding him the ball every possession down the floor? Pop is either not all that good a coach or they're pretty clearly intentionally playing to try and get another high first rounder to go along with him.
He should hang a "We won the 2nd half" banner.He said it was "a fairly even game except for the 2nd quarter" which is one of those things that while technically true (Boston outscored SA by 20 in the 2nd quarter, and SA outscored Boston by 1 in the other 3 quarters) is at best misleading and at worst ridiculous. He gave it the attention it deserved, with the confidence of a man who isn't going to lose his job even if the Spurs end up winning 15 games.
It would go very well next to the Lakers midseason tournament bannerHe should hang a "We won the 2nd half" banner.
Speaking of Danny Ainge, he was just interviewed on CNBC. He’s at Palm Springs, apparently playing in the Pro-Am golf tournament going on. Man, he speaks so well, carries himself so well. Living in California, I never heard him much back in the day. Celtics did so well with him in charge.strong words, that 08 team was one of the best ones ever imo.
They had a lot of offensive success playing through KP posting at the nail in Q1.I thought that was better than the typical make/miss game. The Celtics won basically every margin category, and held Denver to 102 points on a bad shot profile.
Obviously I prefer wins to losses, but I bet the team comes out of that one more positive than the general public does.