And fwiw, they do tend to play a lot faster before they get big leads. They played very fast in the early 3rd Q yesterday when they were opening it up. If a couple open 3s had dropped and/or Mook hadn't caught fire, they blow it open fully at that point and Cleveland probably quits.
You hit 98% win probability surprisingly early when up 20+, so the running wouldn't be all 3 quarters in many cases.
Agreed.
One of the things Karalis often emphasizes on his podcast is how teams entering the fourth quarter with a lead need to prioritize scoring. Doesn't mean that you give up on defense, but at that point, trading buckets is a win. It's part and parcel of grinding down the opponent to maintain your lead until the final buzzer--you take your time to both whittle at the clock and set up an ideal shot. If the shot presents itself earlier in the shot clock, you take it, since the net result is either battling to even on the ensuing possession (and killing more clock) or expanding your lead.
I think they do it rarely because it doesn't force the switch or hedge decision that running screening action with the guards and forwards does.
Indeed, it's largely forgotten that the Cavs were 6th in D-EF this year.
Yeah your tennis example is not bad at all.
Agree. That's why I thought it was odd. Running those two on a pick and roll does not do much in terms of generating a favorable match up but I guess it does create movement which can disrupt defensive coverage.
Very true. You never know when Marcus Morris (or Dean Wade) are going to go on an insane heater, but if you've got a good lead and keep making shots it doesn't matter.
It certainly was posted in all earnestness. And I have appreciated the answers from lots of our other good posters. I am feeling better about things. A little.
OK, in that case, I'd just say that going 8-2 with a +12 rating against NBA teams is hard, even for a good team, and even if they're bottom feeders. Doing so against decent teams with injuries is harder.
I won't begrudge anyone who doesn't feel like Boston has been great so far, given the quality of their opponents, but there's also really nothing to feel bad about. Back to back 4-1 series wins with comfortable margins (and literally 1 minute of crunch time play so far) is the very definition of taking care of business. The worst thing that's happened so far is KP getting hurt, the play on the court (and individual play by the stars and role players) has been fine.
No snark, just curiosity. If an 8-2 record and a +12 net rating doesn’t have you feeling too good, what would?
Also with no snark: I don't think people who are more casual understand how good +12 over 10 playoff games is, even if the opponents are 6-10 seed level.
I think this question is framed well, and it highlights the fact that I am a very emotional Celtics fan and as much as I love the game, I don’t understand it as well as the good posters here. There have been a lot of very good posts today that have helped me understand that while I was screaming at the television and wondering why we weren’t blowing the Cavs out of the water…we sort of were blowing the Cavs out of the water.
Yes, this is exactly what I was trying to articulate just now. I was absolutely not seeing it that way. It’s probably frustrating for the regular Port Cellar crew to have to spell this out to those of us who are less knowledgeable about the game, but it is very helpful. I genuinely learn a lot from these discussions.
Na, all good, it's fun. Basketball is a crazy high-variance sport, and a lot of stuff only evens out over time.
I'm not the stats guy on this board, but honestly, I'd love to see a study (probably wrong word) that correlates PPP vs time on the clock when getting over half court. If I were a betting man, and I am, I would lay the house that PPP drops the longer it "takes" to cross half court.
I'm glad you added the last sentence because what you're alluding to here is in general what the modern offensive game has realized (though other teams in the past also played this way). But, Denver, of course, as you say, defies what we typically see now in the NBA. Advantages can be easily created by moving the ball up quickly before a defense is completely set and it also allows the offense to feel more in the flow and in rhythm. Denver is different and more old-school if you will in that they are so great at creating advantages in the quarter court it isn't necessary or even optimal for them to play faster (part of this is bc of the way they need to defend as in they cannot be in a game that is fast and part of it is who their star player is). The Celtics, OTOH, can do both. I know that's sacrilegious here but check out lovegtm posts in the Tatum thread. He hasn't gotten there yet (he's still in the process of posting) but the Celtics are very adept playing faster and slower. They really can exploit a defense in the half court even starting at 17 seconds instead of 20. Fans just don't always recognize it. And, to be fair, there are times to play faster even with a lead late and Joe gets this and saw this last night late with Joe imploring them to pick it up a bit. As you laid out here, it doesn't mean you have to fast break off made baskets. Sometimes, the situation that you're in calls for more oomph getting the ball over half court.
The last celts team to go 8-2 in the first round was 1986.. it’s the playoffs.. the other team has players who can score, regardless of injuries.
This level of superlative doesn't square with the fact that the Celtics offense, especially without KP, is prone to long stretches of borderline incompetence, especially in the 4th quarters of close games, when it looks as if their priority is "burn 10 extra sconds off the clock >>> score."
Please back this with actual game stats/ video.
Incompetence is the wrong word. No team hits all of their shots and every single team, even the best of the best, looks bad from time to time. The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors went 73-9 and lost multiple games in the regular season and playoffs by 20+ points.
I don't get overly impressed with inflated stats against teams that if healthy the Celts should easily beat, and neither the Heat w/out their best player, Butler, nor the Cavs w/out (fill-in the blank) were anything close to healthy. I think the Celts, who I can only say for the gazillionth time, are probably the best/deepest team in the NBA, but all too often get bored or complacent, or distracted and if they do against good, healthy well coached teams, they'll lose. On the positive side, in this regard, (focus) they are better than last year. This is my perception and you do not have to share it.
I think what's missing from the bolded is that those "good, healthy, well-coached teams" also get "bored, complacent or distracted" sometimes (or, more generally, just suffer from some temporary malady that causes them to look like shit).
Your concern is that they get bored/complacent against lesser teams, so why do you think that will happen when challenged? Have you seen that happen this year?
Dedes' whole presentation was borderline unlistenable. "Finds the laces" was the most egregious, but a close second was the extreme emphasis placed on average shots in inconsequential moments. Screaming a players name when they make a basket doesn't change the fact that it was an average jump shot by a team down 10 in the beginning of the third. Save that shit for when something meaningful happens.
I could care less if they beat Abandoned Orphans by 10 or 15 or 45. As long as they win is fine, this time of year.
The series loss to the Heat had multiple factors, but the Celtics failing to "flip a switch" wasn't one of them. Brogdon got hurt, which put too much of the backcourt responsibilities into the hands of a rapidly declining Marcus Smart. Mazzulla had zero support from his coaching staff and was still trying to find ways to get the team to move the ball on offense, a problem that was existent against Atlanta and Philly as well. And so the team was ripe to foiled by Miami's zone, shooting variance, an excessively favorable whistle for Butler, and finally, Tatum's untimely injury in Game 7.
They decided their only interesting angle was a Cavs upset instead of watching Boston round itself into form on it way to the ECF or, as covered in the other thread, some interesting mathematical defensive choices made by Mazzulla. This led them to openly root for the Cavs to make it a close game. It was annoying. I think all of these announcing crews are pretty horrible. Learn very little and have to suffer all the corny catch phrases.
Hm. My apologies I must have misheard ..maybe it was the best record since 1986 then.
I hate that this place has become such a safe space that criticism is only barely allowed.
Boy do I agree with this post. I wish a little energy would have been put into telling us who the foul was on, how many fouls does he have and what number of team fouls there are. On the latter, neither the ESPN nor the TNT on screen scoreboards don't show team fouls.
This criticism isn't remotely fair, and you know it. Post better, and get better at watching basketball.
