Another win and a preview

 We have a home and home against Boston so naturally let’s combine the write up with the preview for Monday’s game.


What is wrong with the Celtics?  Last night is far more understandable than their fans would let on, down 3 rotation pieces on a b2b coming off an OT game with travel?  Bad quarters happen in these circumstances.  However they blew a large lead vs Chicago without any of these concerns, and they haven’t played consistently strong basketball from game to game.  This isn’t a talent issue.  Robert Williams is a high value player, Brown and Tatum all-stars a year ago, Smart/Schroder/Horford are all NBA level rotation players.  


Partial Answers below.


  1.  Absolute garbage fit.  Robert Williams could be their best player, but he has a team low usage mark while having a LEAGUE leading TS mark.  His usage is down 30% from last year’s rate as well, so this isn’t a maximum usage rate for his limited (but powerful) skill set.  

  2. The above is largely Jason Tatum’s fault.  There is no reason for him to keep chasing total points which is what he clearly is doing.  He is running a career high usage rate at 32% despite his sub 50% TS and has decreased his assists significantly from last season.  His % of shots at the rim is down for his 4th season in a row and he is taking a career high number of mid range attempts.  There was a sequence last night where Schroder drove to the hoop and scored on 3 straight possessions and Tatum demanded the 4th possession so he could iso and take a Kobe turnaround jumper.  I don’t believe any Celtic other than Schroder/Tatum touched the ball on those 4 possessions (in fact iirc Schroder drove and missed on possession number 5).  

  3. This unwillingness to pass is actively hurting their depth.  Enes Kanter is a useful player and has been for the Celtics as recently as 2 years ago, and was for the TrailBlazers last season.  However without guards who know to help get him in scoring situations his value is hugely negative due to his defensive… limitations.  How bad is this tendency?  Last night Robert Williams scored 12 points on 7 field goal attempts and he had zero assisted attempts in the 2nd half (all attempts off offensive rebounds).  The Celtics couldn’t even generate a failed PnR lob attempt to him.  I guess Dean Wade is just too intimidating for Tatum to try to run a PnR against him.


I don’t want to get too smug here.  Right now a fully healthy Celtics team still trumps the Cavs in terms of talent, but the gap is much smaller now and the Cavs have the actual ability to get the most from some of their rotation pieces.  


Notes from last night:  


  1.  Random thought:  On the Rubio ‘oop to Allen that put them up 89-87 the 3rd person to notice what was happening was Kevin Love.  He was celebrating nearly half a second before his teammates and the crowd.  That whole sequence was great, including all the little stuff (Cedi moving a little on the perimeter to open the lane a little more, Mobley committing to the post up that he thought was coming, drawing the double).  

  2. Random #2:  Valentine makes terrible decisions offensively, but the difference between his defense and, say, Broderic Thomas’ which is what we got in these scenarios last year is large enough that it would have been the difference in a W/L last night.  Vets help over UFA, whoo’d thunk?

  3. The Cavs starting lineup offense is terrible.  Okoro’s lack of aggression in his first two games back was balanced with a complete lack of restraint last night.  Attacking Marcus Smart with Williams under the basket (who deserves a better nickname than Time Lord) is just blindly dumb.  There is no obvious answer here, putting Cedi or Windler in that lineup just means when Garland sits you have Okoro out there with Rubio in a small lineup down a connecting piece.  Love’s return would make those bench lineups a lot more viable though.  

  4. Close games against Cho, Bos, Tor, Por and the Knicks.  Pretty much a middle of the back run there.  The Cavs look very much like a middle of the pack team currently and they are down 2 starters!  I eagerly await a Markkanen return to the lineup to see how displacing Wade affects their starters production.  

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