Boston Celtics 2021-2022 Season

www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/32530325/marcus-smart-calls-jayson-tatum-jaylen-brown-pass-ball-celtics-lose-third-straight

It's not a bad message, yet it's coming from Smart zero assists in 33 minutes. You want to be the PG, you make players play that way on the court by setting up players.

For sure. The team is also now even more in the weird vets/rookie minutes dichotomy than last year.

If it continues, I really want them to just trade Al/Richardson/Schroder at the deadline for picks and play the damn youth to see what the hell we have. For now, I still want them to play the young guys more especially after they showed so much progress.

I stand by my statement in that you need to give a guy a couple years before you make a long-term decision about him.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize someone for two years, and Ime deserves all the criticism in the world. The rotations have been baffling, the lack of focus on player development is concerning, the defense has been a complete disaster, and he’s done nothing to back up his statements. This is one of the worst coaching jobs I’ve seen in since Kevin Ollie at UConn, and I can’t think of a single good thing he’s done as a coach this season.

How are players suppose to buy what a coach is saying, like playing team ball and rotating defense when the coach isn't playing the best players to do that? Smart is our third best PG, he keeps starting him. Your PG is the leader of the team, for good or bad see Thomas, Irving, Rozier and Walker. Smart is a gunner, he does nothing that Schroder does. Early last game we got two offense rebounds, one was a quick shot like we always do. The second one went to Schroder, he held the ball and called a play. You see crap like that all the time from Schroder, Talking with Tatum going up the court, getting Brown a layup. He's an actual PG. Start the guy and let him gel with Tatum and Brown. Schroder isn't perfect by any means, yet he's five times the PG Smart is. Smart came out last game like everyone else determined to feed Robert Williams, yet once the three's started dropping he just joined in. It all went away rather quickly because the team was on fire. Yet it's the PG job to keep running the offense. Then he pulls an Irving and airs the teams dirty laundry in public. Thank you again Irving, he's like Covid the effects just won't go away years later. You say that crap during games, in the lockeroom, etc. You can call the team out in public, in a general sense, it's never good to call out certain teammates to the press. Especially like with Irving, Smart is part of the problem.

I'd say Ime seems to have lost the team, yet I don't think he ever had them. Don was asking about DeRozan, they were basically playing him at PF. So what does Ime do? Starts Robert Williams and Horford, then he plays Grant Williams. Everything looked fine when the team was on fire, yet you gave up 34 points in the first. How in the world does he look at that Bulls lineup and pick that lineup? You can't set a tone as a defensive team when your coach won't match up with the other team. I mean if either Williams or Horford were great low post scorers I could see some logic in it. Robert Williams isn't going to destroy those guys with lobs all game and your at such a speed disadvantage on D. On offense you lack passing, shooting and guys to create. Is it any wonder Tatum and Brown just keeping gunning away? What else are they suppose to do playing with Smart, Horford and Williams?

Ime then doesn't do whole sale bench moves, it's one to two players at a time. So your not using this teams depth, which is the strength of this team! Stevens created a team that can play many different ways, it fits the style he coached, always adjusting to the other teams. Ime seems completely locked into a small set rotation of big ball in today's NBA when small ball rules the day. The Bulls just started DeRozan at PF and he counters with two centers. All this after watching how well Horford, Tatum, Brown, Richardson and Schroder looked together the last 20 minutes of last game. He created these problems by telling Smart well before the season he was the PG. No let's go into camp and find the best lineups and rotations on players I've never coached. He's had a plan since day one and is just sticking with it, yet it makes zero sense. He's trying to play old school Spurs ball without the talent to play that way. The Spurs have been playing McDermott and Lonnie Walker in small ball lineups. The Great Pop famous for his two big lineups with HOF Duncan at PF is playing small ball! It only makes sense if you have an Anthony Davis type guy and even then a huge part of the Lakers issues is Davis not playing more center. Davis is quicker than the SF playing PF in today's NBA.

I'm all about giving a new coach time usually. Yet if he can't see what the best lineups and rotations are. Heck if he can't even try the right pairings I have no time for him. Robert Williams, Horford, Smart, Tatum and Brown isn't going to work. Always wanting to use Grant Williams even when the other team isn't playing any PFs is just crazy. Like Grant is playing SF by default. He has no low post game to try and use his size as an advantage. He does this while basically not playing Pritchard and Nesmith almost at all in what is clearly his preferred starters and rotation. Yet Smart, Schroder and Richardson all aren't great shooters, I don't even know if they are good ones.

Either Ime needs to completely scrap his plans, you need to make a trade to give him better fits for his style or you need a new coach. I'm just confused, didn't Ime and Stevens talk about this crap before the season? You should have went out and got Dons guy in Lauri Legend instead of Richardson if you wanted to play this way. I could see that maybe working, at least on offense. Horford and Lauri offer up tons more shooting, creating and scoring. I still would worry about D, yet it makes much more sense than what we are doing.

Start Horford, Tatum, Brown, Richardson and Schroder.

Then come back with Robert Williams, Grant yet only based on matchup, Nesmith/Langford, Smart and Pritchard. Then mix in Juancho, Parker and Kanter based on need and matchups.

You need to mix offensive and defensive units, with mixing in the right skill sets for those units. Ime might be a great assistant coach, when working on one certain thing with the players. He just seems lost as a coach in control of everything. I'm giving him 10 games, if he keeps rolling out a starting unit and rotations like last game I'm going to start calling for him to be fired. Yet even then you can't do that without a crap storm of likely crazy negative articles on Race coming out.

This is the worst spot this team has been in since before the big three, at this rate I'm just waiting for the Tatum and Brown trade demands.

Nesmith has played in four games 28 minutes and scored zero points. The more troubling thing when looking at his per 36 numbers is 12.9 shots, yet 11.6 threes per 36 minutes. He's back to the guy last year to start the year. He looks so different in summer league when he's the man, he shows you his upside. He really needs to work on how to play as not being the guy. I feel bad for him, if he was on a crappy team he'd likely look good and be a big time building piece. Nesmith get back to attacking the rim and just take open looks. The talent is there, he just has so many rough edges.

I never did and each passing game just proves that point more and more.

Brad was one of the best coaches in the league. He wasn't perfect, but he was damn good. I think Ime was a good hire, his resume looks good. Expecting him to be as good as Brad was from day one was perhaps one of the cases where the grass is always greener on the other side.

When we find out that the key Celtics have a genetic disorder that prevents them from playing hard and playing selflessly.

If Smart continues with the poor play and tension you have to think he's going to be out the door soon.

Looking at tonight's opponent, has me thinking back to the Nesmith draft. Cole Anthony is on fire 19.4 points, 7.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists while shooting 44.8% and 44.6 from deep.

Bane 17.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists 48% and 41.1% from deep.

Heck even Maxey is starting giving the Sixers 14 points, 3.3 rebounds and 4 assists a game, while having an effective FG% of 53.2%.

All three have started every game for their teams.

I've seen Tatum use two different moves going to the basket the last two games that show growth. First a nice sidestep to avoid a charge and get an easy layup. Then last game he used like a mini baby hook shot going to the basket. Not exactly sure what to call it, not a common move. Yet it was a great way for him to use skill to get off a good clean look. Instead of him just trying to get layups in the paint and then complaining he got hit.

So far, more of the same. Tatum chucking bricks, Timelord is so invisible his plus/minus is literally 0, Smart sucks, Nesmith is a DNP-CD, and we're losing.