It's starting to feel like things are crystallizing a bit in terms of the Celtics rotation. Last night, with Smart and Theis out, Brad went nine deep. Two bigs - Thompson and Timelord - and DNP-CD's for Grant Williams and Jeff Teague. Nesmith played 24 minutes off the bench, and I thought played well. Pritchard did his thing running the second unit, often alongside Jayson Tatum. Timelord has his defensive flaws, but what he brings offensively with the lob threat, his passing, and even the occasional 16-footer I think makes up for them. The glaring issue last night is that the combination of Semi Ojeleye and Javonte Green played a total of 45 minutes. In case it wasn't clear before, the Celtics' issue is on the wing. Even with Smart and Theis out, they were fine at the ballhandling and big spots, with acceptable "break glass in case of emergency" guys that Brad just opted not to use. Danny has to find a way to upgrade those Semi/Green minutes. Smart will soak up some wing minutes alongside Kemba or Pritchard, but wing depth is the Achilles' heal of this team right now.
Even a suboptimal use of the TPE would be a massive upgrade. Sub Theis' mintues for Thompson (who I'm done with), get Smart back, and plug, say, Harrison Barnes in place of the Semi/Green minutes, and LFG. And yes, I think that means Nesmith needs to stay in the rotation for awhile. He should get 20 minutes a game for the next couple weeks. Defensively, I think he's earned it, and offensively, he's a real gravitational force in terms of spacing. Nesmith, Pritchard, and one-big lineups will really open up the floor for Kemba and the J's.
As an aside, I really think some of Kemba's struggles at the rim this season are at least partially attributable to floor spacing. Scal has been saying it for awhile - when Kemba challenges one guy at the rim, he's really good at getting into the big's body and finishing in limited space. The problem is, there's usually two guys waiting at the rim, because Brad is playing too many non-shooters.
Grab a rotational wing, spread the hell out, and let's go to work.