This is a fit issue the reverse of the 2 bigs.
There wasn't a whole lot of college basketball games today.
Sure I like that he’s working. If he’s going to work on a Sunday however I’d rather he be sitting behind the Purdue bench getting to know Jaden Ivey, a perfect fit for Ime’s system, and a guy who will either be available where we draft or in a position to move up for it he’s your guy. Not really sure how much bang for your buck you’re getting attending a game with no real prospects in it.
Jaden Ivey is a top 5 pick in every mock I’ve seen. Are you seeing / hearing something else?
Is Nick Nurse taking shit for riding his top guys too much? Because the Raptors have 5 guys who average 35 MPG or more, the Celtics have 1.
yeah Nurse is too.
Well, that’s always been common practice, too. Is it total P/T you’re concerned about or the failure to give sufficient, periodic breaks in game?
Thanks for this. While the team was playing poorly Ime got a very large share of the blame. Lately, all the talk has been about how great the players are but the coach should as a matter of fundamental fairness get large share of praise too (though my own belief is that talent counts for way more in hoops than coaching).
Both.
I agree with this. You’re a first year coach and you are paid to win basketball games. You’ve got no history of success and is looking to build that success by showing his team that there is a sense of urgency to win games……and when you’re underachieving while fiddling around .500 there is even a greater sense.
And really only 9 at his top level before he missed almost all of year 10 and was never the same player in production, and availability trailed off quickly.
Yep. And his story is not all that uncommon. Lots of guys with short careers.
While I agree with you, it's easy to counter with Karl Malone playing 18 seasons and averaging 37.2 mpg over his career. He played at least 80 games in 16 of those seasons. In one of the 2 seasons he didn't play 80 games, he played 49 games in a 50 game schedule (98/99) and played 42 games in his last season for the Lakers. He averaged over 40 mpg twice.
Or........they started finally to play the way they were being coached and there was no need to criticize them for not doing so.
I mentioned in the other thread about there being other ways to get guys rest. Guys sit out games all the time during the regular season with minor injuries that they could easily ply through if it were the playoffs. Combine these “load management” games along with there being virtually no practice workload once the season ramps up and these guys are getting so much more rest than teams from the 80’s. Damn, those coaches used to run 90-min practices on off-days with full court scrimmaging! It was insane what coaches would do on off-days but nobody knew any better at the time.
Bird used to run laps on the hard concrete in the Garden rafters after full practices on the off-days in those old no-support Converses. My back hurts just writing that.
I'd love to see a breakdown/analysis of the impact of total minutes vs. the impact of consecutive minutes. At some level, obviously, the two merge. But in the high-but-not-insane range, there's different ways to dole out minutes.
I continue to wish the offense had more consistent movement and activity; that's still a gap to me.
I have noticed that PP has been more aggressive, particularly on defense, but also seems to be more integrated in the rotation. I wonder if the situation post-trade has clarified his role as a player who will have more minutes with Tatum, Brown, etc., and not just with a second unit and in garbage time.
I think that *has* to be part of it. Rather than play out of position, he didn't play much at all.
Also.... Nesmith has shown no ability to be good at basketball this year. He isn't like a Romeo or even PP, where he's shown strengths and weaknesses, he's just been really bad at everything. Maybe he gets a role eventually as a shooter, but the top 8 seems pretty set, PP has the inside track at 9, and they'll probably add a buyout guy who slots in at 10. Nesmith is deep bench at this point.... if he doesn't start shooting better he may well slide behind Hauser.
It seems like this forum knows these things yet somehow thinks a billion dollar enterprise whose primary assets are the same players hasn't yet moved into the 21st century with regards to rest/recovery. Furthermore many of the players themselves, who have even more of a vested interest than the fans or even the team in staying healthy, have personal trainers and coaches who work to keep them on the court. Need to add the caveat that maybe the Celtics eschew rest and recovery as a key part of their approach or maybe Ime Udoka thinks the value of rest/recovery is overrated. However we simply have no evidence of that.
I would disagree. I think the Cs 4Q woes early in the season had a lot more to do with (i) learning - and not playing well - new systems on offense and defense and (ii) not having all of their guys healthy.
As usual, you make an excellent point here. And I'll admit to posting this exact thing in the "Belichick is losing his fastball" type threads in BBTL.
It's really disappointing. If nothing else, he's supposed to provide ok to great 3 point shooting, but it's an understatement to say he's been bad at it. Plenty of guys (on the Celtics and around the league) are well below their career averages for 3 point shooting, but Nesmith is on another level entirely. 10 Celtics have taken 80+ 3 pointers this year (not including White), and Nesmith has the worst percentage by a mile.
Yes Yes and more Yes!
The games earlier in the year could have been fatigue but from my seat it looked like a super slow pace with no energy based on where the team as a whole was at the time……and not necessarily being from overuse early in the season.
Lowe and Scal talked about this during Lowe's pre-ASB podcast here: http://www.espn.com/espnradio/podcast/archive/_/id/10528553.
Scal knows his stuff. Can’t call myself a fan because I just don’t like how dismissive he is of people who didn’t formerly play (some of the interactions between he and Abby last year, who is as good as it gets in the industry, are representative of that), but he knows hoop
Agree that he's been dismissive of Abby in the past. But OTOH, I thought Abby said that she voted for Jaylen Brown for the Cs All-time team, which, if true, would be IMO a hard vote to defend.
No, I think your comment and BSF's comment was appropriate; I just don't know how I feel. On the one hand, I think Scal is way above average than most color commentators - he'll point out actions that the Cs are using and will even kind of criticize players and doesn't really resort to cliches like, "They need to play harder" - but there are certainly circumstances where he hasn't treated Abby with respect (not just on the broadcasts but also on podcasts) but on the other hand, it's been going on for a while and apparently is allowed to keep going so maybe it's a schtick? I dunno.
