Ugly Is Beautiful

Winning ugly games is a beautiful thing.

Amen

Winning ugly isn’t the only way this team can win, but I love the fact that we can.

The quoting of these defensive numbers is hurting my head. Our defense was fine but it wasn’t the reason both teams missed shots. They were both ice cold.

Washington’s stars had struggled all through pre-season and in both of their other games in the regular season. Toronto just flat out missed. They had a lot of quality looks in the first half but just couldn’t buy a basket.

Those two teams had far more to do with it than our defense. Just like Gil had more to do with his off-night than Rondo did.

I seem to recall a time when people complained like crazy about winning ugly under the previous coach.

I’m with the Great Master PO where there should never have to be a crunch-time iso with so many options on the floor. That, and not fouling before the 3-pt shot went up made an ugly game even uglier.

Strange that that the same type of winning is suddenly a beautiful thing.

I always thought that winning was winning. Since it’s such a novel concept I’ll take it any way it comes.

I agree Po, I think that the Ugly Celtic moments were almost exactly as you describe them.

Part of the PP ISO might be a reversion to poor habits in lieu of knowing what else to do. Part of it may be player ego, or it might be PP’s need to contribute in a big way has a tendancy to override his better judgement. Either way it was awful to watch. I think as the season wears on and the players have more on-court time together (and practice what to do in ugly tight situations) we’ll see less and less of that. The more on-court chemistry they develop the more “pretty” those plays and end of game pressure plays will become.

Good teams win ugly games and the Celtics won a truly ugly game.

All the ranting in terms of criticism from “all knowing fans” (not you Po, not calling you out) with all of the “knowledgable insight” about how awful the Celtics played only makes the win all the much better. If this team can play that terrible, make that many mistakes, turn the ball over that many times, take that many bad shots, make that many bonehead plays, all on the road against a quality team and STILL manage to pull out a victory . . . .well . . .

it’s only going to get better from here on out!

Within some of the defensive and offensive numbers are a couple scary trends to keep an eye on. First, and I think we all knew this was going to be the case but we’re a poor rebounding team, and these numbers may even themselves out a bit but especially on the offensive glass we have to do better than 26% of the total rebounds. Defensively we’re not horrible, but ideally you’d like to get your defensive rebound numbers up over 70%.

Second is that both Rondo and Perkins are at this point negatives statistically. With Ray and KG carrying the load to the extent that they are most of the guys that play with htem on the court should be close to positives statistically. Instead only Pierce and Scal really are at this point.

I know i’m looking at this with an incredibly small sample set and most of these things will just iron themselves out, but there has to be something to work on:)

We need to end the myth of the Pierce ‘ISO’ at the end of regulation, that continuously is cited by posters. With only a few seconds of difference between the shot and game clocks, they virtually had the chance to take the absolute last shot. Anyone who has played or coached B-ball at any level, knows that getting the absolute last shot is sound strategy when possessing the ball in the final seconds of a tie game, philosophy being that if it goes in you win, if it misses you go to OT. Taking the shot too soon, means the potential of a miss and possibly one more possession by your opponent. There simply is no reason to set up cuts and screens in this situation, as the more complicated the movement, and the more ball exchanges, the greater risk there is of a turnover.

How soon people forget that Pierce hit 2 such shots just last year to beat NJ and Washington, and hit a similar dagger to effectively end the SA game. History has shown he is capable of getting something pretty good there, one of the few in the league who can create space for his own shot and he has knocked it down multiple times in similar situations. Plus, there was an outside chance of a tip from KG for example, as there was a bit of a difference between the 2 clocks. Don’t confuse your disdain with the PP ISO in the middle of the game from the wing, ignoring teammates and onrushing opponents, which is abhorrent, with sound, end of a tied game, strategy.

On the offensive side, Pierce was lousy the whole game. Ball stopper, settled for treys instead of going to the rim, keeps trying to dribble through double teams and coughing up the ball. Infuriating.

But he’s been much better defensively this year, so I’ll give him a pass for now.

  We need to end the myth of the Pierce ‘ISO’ at the end of regulation, that continuously is cited by posters. With only a few seconds of difference between the shot and game clocks, they virtually had the chance to take the absolute last shot. Anyone who has played or coached B-ball at any level, knows that getting the absolute last shot is sound strategy when possessing the ball in the final seconds of a tie game, philosophy being that if it goes in you win, if it misses you go to OT. Taking the shot too soon, means the potential of a miss and possibly one more possession by your opponent. There simply is no reason to set up cuts and screens in this situation, as the more complicated the movement, and the more ball exchanges, the greater risk there is of a turnover.
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Apparently Paul has never missed one of those isos? The difference, KJ, is the number of options available right now compared to what there was in previous seasons. The other difference is that we were an older team essentially playing 7 players against a much younger team. The older team won out but we should have run a decent play to finish the game at the earliest possible time. There were 5 veteran players on the court so the liklihood of a turnover was probably lesser if they run an actual play than the iso.

This team should only run an iso on the last shot if there isn’t time to run a play. There are too many great options.

san antone wins ugly all the time. our ex bruce bowen can just about shoot a three on offense, and stone cold kill you on d. the big fundamental is actually boring and non charismatic to watch, and so on. i’ll take it any day. our three is not boring.

our three is not boring.

……………..

…..And as Garnett said…..We haven’t accomplished a thing yet.

Until they do, nazzbo, boring is better.

Sonics fan here. Really rooting for Ray, and also for KG because he is the man.

I watched the Raptors game the other day, and I think you guys will be really good once the team figures out how to play with one another. To do that, there are two things I think they need to do. First, feed Garnett regularly no matter what. Guy is a beast. Secondly, they’ve gotta figure out who has the hot hand or the bigger mismatch between Ray/PP and ride that as much as possible.

I’ve watched Ray ever since he became a Sonic and he is truly a great player, but when he is your main option he can shoot you out of games the same way he can win them for you. Pierce strikes me as similar in this way, although he is better at going to the rim. The Raptors game was a perfect example of a game in which one is red hot and the other is ice cold, yet they still had about the same number of shots, so I think they’ll need to learn to recognize which one they are going to ride down the stretch.

Worst officiated game in a long time. I also think Toronto may be overrated. Bosh looked overmatched against Garnett, but the refs bailed him out. Pierce had probably what will be his worst game of the season. Rondo looked like, well I’m not sure what he looked like, but it was not Rondo.

That game proved how important Ray Allen is to our team. He is like our Ginboli, he is going to burn teams big time when they least expect it. If Perkins can play like that all year we are going to be tough to beat. Numbers mean absolutely zero with him, it’s all about his energy, and he had a lot of it in Toronto.

KJ33, let me get this straight. Regarding last-seconds possessions, you believe ‘there simply is no reason to set up cuts and screens… as the more complicated the movement, and the more ball exchanges, the greater risk there is of a turnover.’

Hmmm… wouldn’t that be true at all times in a game? Perhaps the best game plan would consist of nothing but iso’s, eliminating all those complicated movements and possible turnovers?

I would’ve thought that passing, cutting, and screening might lead to better shots, or defensive fouls. But then, I probably lack your extensive basketball background.

We’re 2-0. We have a team that basically has not played together for more than 2 official games. The team seems to have wonderful chemistry which is constantly developing. There is a team ego. And we’re concerned about an iso play at the end of regulation where PP gets a shot, one on one, which he’ll make more often than not. And then we win the game anyway. Or Rondo didn’t guard Ford very well or there wasn’t enough passing, screening and cutting to the basket. I thought they should’ve taken it to the basket alot more and not settle for jumpers and three’s against Toronto. But does anyone really think this team
hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface yet? Why can’t we just appreciate and enjoy what we have here.

Master Po, calm down, stop being so sensitive. The particular quote you are getting in a big huff about, this is the first time I have ever used it. Of course there are other options, I was just saying, that this particular one they used is not so awful, considering the circumstances. I am shocked that you have not yet been consulted by multiple NBA teams about what plays they should use at the end of games, Thibodeau and his 30 years of experience have nothing on you.

Iowa plowboy, forward your end-of-game plays to the Celts so they will for sure have some to use this year. Without that, I doubt they could survive this year.

No thanks, KG33, I’ll settle for the Pierce isos that have carried us to so many of the wins that I missed over the last 3 seasons. I’ll just focus on the two successful isos instead of the numerous times that 5 guys converge on Paul and no shot goes up at all.