2018-19 Celtics Season

just a peek at the box (I can't watch the game here)

Smart at a -18
Irving 6 assists but 5 turnovers
team has 17 assists and 17 turnovers
nearly doubled up in points in the 4th quarter with 2 minutes to go
got nearly nothing out of Baynes, Morris and Rozier

there is trouble in paradise!

25% of the season done and we are a .500 team....shocking.

Worse, we are 4-8 in last 12 games.

Stevens and Smart after the game

"After the game, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens had a lot to say about his team’s sluggish performance.

“I thought we were a step slow all night,” said Stevens on NBC Sports Boston’s postgame coverage. “They put us on our heels.”

The Mavs came out swinging early and often and the Celtics had no answers, playing from behind almost the entire game.

Marcus Smart mirrored Stevens’ frustration after the game.

“Words can’t even explain it. It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Smart said. “Like, we keep saying and doing the same thing after every game. It’s getting really annoying. I mean, I don’t even know what to say to you guys at this point.”

Smart didn’t stop there.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve had literally no answer for any questions,” Smart said when asked about the Celtics’ tendency to fall behind in games. “I honestly don’t know what it is, and I’m stumped right now.”

Boston hasn’t played with the grit that is typically expected from the team, and it never has been more apparent than after Saturday’s game.

“When guys aren’t scared of you anymore, there’s nothing you can do,” Smart said.

Horford is playing awful defense on top of his nonexistent offense, fools just blow past him for layups all game. It's been terrible and if I was Danny I'd try to get any value for him while people still think of him as an elite player. Maybe he'll get better as the year goes on but thus far he's been flat out terrible.

And yet Rozier has been even worse. I think he needs more playing time but it's tough because he hasn't earned it. I completely agree with you that Morris needs to go. Give the young wings more time.

Advanced stats just doesn't back that up, its rates him as our best defensive player by a wide margin. Didn't you think Horford was so-so in last year's playoffs? While I haven't watched every game this year, I did watch every playoff game and Horford was a beast. All our guys getting major minutes are negative on offense besides Irving. It's the whole team, not just a single player. Which is why I put a good amount of blame on Irving, our best player. He's got to make players around in better as the PG or he's just not as good as the numbers show.

Morris is the only guy getting major minutes to rank negative on D. He can play it when he wants too, but he seems focused on offense and a new contract. Gotta get back to D first and team ball. Morris isn't doing either. As bad a Rozier has been and he's been bad, he still rates positive on D and has always been much better at playing team ball than Morris. I'd still start Smart though when you want to go Small and Baynes when you need to go big. You need to mix in some guys that don't want to shoot it everytime they touch it. Plus you need a guy that will look for guys in the post more. As bad as Rozier has been, he's still attacking the rim. He's not doing well, but that can rub off, it certainly did last year. I don't even care about results right now, we just need to start playing the right way.

Have there been reports that Irvings knee isn't 100%? The way he is playing and avoiding contact makes me wonder. 24 shots and he attempts one free throw all game. Three by all the starters. This game highlights what the ESPN article said. Irving has become much more of a jump shooter and the team is following suit. That is crazy and shows they just aren't attacking the Basket enough. Baynes, Smart, and Rozier had 10 attempts in way less minutes.

He deserves the least valuable coach award. He talks about making big changes and does nothing. Never seen a talented team struggle like this and seen a coach do less frankly. It's like his lack of timeouts when the other teams make runs. I get what he wants to do, let the team play through it, yet you can only do that so much. It's like he just wants them to play through it and change nothing. That doesn't always work. 

At the same time, a lot of blame is on Danny. He knows Stevens is a players coach and it was crystal clear that minutes were going to be a big issue on this team and they are. 

I'm not a huge Horford fan and I've repeated myself over and over again about him being a small baller and he is. The best word to describe him is soft. However, a big reason the Celtics were so successful in the last playoffs was that Horford finally imposed himself and played some absolutely huge games. He hasn't done it this year at all.

I agree completely with your opinion on Morris and he's such a poor fit for this roster all things considered. He enables Brad's obsession with smaller line-ups and that brings me to Rozier. To me a lot of his struggles are due to him playing in 3 guard line-ups, guys are going to beat him and he can't guard anyone's 2 guard for long stretches. Stevens needs to be better about this. Heck "he needs to be better" is a common theme with this team. Rozier, Smart, Brown, Horford, heck even probably Tatum could all do a better job.

Meanwhile the Celtics were up by 20 and now they are up 9 in the 4th quarter.

Why is every game a struggle? It is frustrating watching them play right now.

NO didn't have a guard who could burn them on the pick and roll and hit 3's.

The main problem for this team is not close to as simple as FG%. For example Rozier is about exactly the same as last year, he didn't improve until he was a starter.

It's shot selection and the way the offense is being run. Its all about threes and long jumpers. Last game they shot almost 50% from three, so good game. Yet they attempted 10 free throws the entire game. Randle had the same amount as our whole team. Davis had twelve more and they had 29 as a team to our 10. The Pelicans had the ratio you want, almost as many threes as free throw attempts. We took four times as many threes as free throws. This is a mirage type game. This team isn't built to play this way and can't come close to shooting that way over the long-run. Irving has had two FT attempts in the last two games, he has 6 in the last four games. A guy that has a career average of 4.4 a game.

This year we attempt 35.9 threes a game and 19.3 FTs attempts, last year was 30.4 and 20.7. Yet in the playoffs when our young guys finally clicked it was much different. Bucks series 29 3s vs 24.3 FTA, Sixers 32.2 vs 24.8, and Cavs 31 vs 21.8. You see in that Cavs series as our FTs went down it made it much harder to score. 3 point shots are a big part of our offense, yet we've gone from 10th last year in attempts to 3rd this year. We are much more of a jump shooting team this year even compared to last years regular season and aren't even close to the way we played in the playoffs. This team at its best should have roughly the same amount of FTAs at 3 point attempts. Not 39 to 10, against mavs 28 to 13, Hawks 40 to 21, etc.

Irving had a very good game, love the 10 assists and 5 steals. Can certainly live with 6 TOs when he does that. Its just we are a different team with him at PG. It's highlighted even more this year as he's drawing a career low amount of FTs. It's clear as day the difference in this team right now compared to the playoffs version of the Celtics. One is much more of a jump shooting team, the other much more of an attacking type team. I personally prefer the playoff version. I want my team attacking the rim, doing post ups and drawing fouls over just hoisting up threes and long range twos. The numbers back up that ESPN article 100%. This team is way too talented to just live and die by the three ball. If you want to play that way we need more pure shooters not a team full of slashers.

Really? With all the data we are now getting, you really believe this is 100% on the other players and our coach? Those other players that last year every single one of them became more aggressive when Irving went down? Rozier, Brown, Tatum, Smart, Horford, and Morris all increased FT attempts without Irving. Every single one of them is down this year by a large amount. Baynes shot threes during the playoffs it didn't do anything for this teams aggressiveness.

Can Irving prevent guys from attacking? Yea he sure can when he just jacks up shots and when he takes over in close games. Our offense and ball movement go out the window. The bigger issue isn't does he prevent it, its does he help promote it?

I got killed for saying Rozier ran our offense better and was the reason Horford, Tatum, and Brown all took their games to a new level in the playoffs. Now everyone is waaaay worse and its the players and the coach. Does anyone really think Brad isn't telling them to attack the basket?

I'm so sick and tired of Irving can do no wrong just because he's a great scorer! If he can't make the guys around him better than he sucks as a PG and that is a huge issue. Irving wanted to be the man, the leader, the LeBron type player on a Championship team. It's about time he takes on that role. No one is stopping Irving from driving to the basket more and setting an example for this team. No one is stopping Irving from being a great PG besides the ego of Irving the scorer! You see it in spurts, then it just goes away.

Take the Knicks game, Stevens plan at halftime was to go to Brown inside. Irving went to him 4 times, getting him a ton of easy baskets, a huge dunk and got Brown going. 4th quarter it just all went away, he didn't target Brown once in the post again. Slashers and post scorers need plays run for them and an offense that helps them. Not an offense where most of the ball movement is just on the 3 point line. You need to attack the basket, that opens things up.

So what's Irving excuse? He looks 100% healthy, heck even last year right before surgery he looked good. Please tell me this isn't Irving changing his play so he doesn't get injured before he gets a new contract!