Trouble In Paradise?

The bench as a 5 point lead when the starters came back in with about 5 1/2 minutes to go. Had Rivers left the bench in the game (except for Cassell, who played poorly again), they might have won.

The major problem in the last two losses was the starters, not the bench.

How about clinching home court first, Doc, before you extend the bench so many extra minutes that they can’t win games.

When a game is close, I fail to see why the starters need a 10 min (game clock) rest. They were on the bench for probably 25 minutes (real time), got cold, and couldn’t get warmed back up in 5 minutes. Doc should know better than this. If you want to win the games, play to win the games. If you want to rest your starters, give them a couple of games off.

Why in the world would you monkey around with the rotations of the team with the best record in the league.

Cassell is getting far too many minutes, especially since he’s playing like crap. They do much better with Tony Allen and Eddie House as the backcourt for the second unit. Certainly that is a huge improvement defensively. And if that doesn’t work, bring Rondo back in. He’s young, and if anyone can play 40 minutes on a consistent basis, it’s Rondo.

Once again, Cassell and to a lesser extent Brown have disrupted the chemistry of this team. Heinsohn said exactly that last night and he was right. Those guys should be insurance against injury, not regular rotation players.

While it’s true the starters (specifically KG and RA) blew the lead last night, I think it’s because they didn’t have enough time to get back into a rhythm. Also, to be fair, the lead had gotten to 11 when Phil. started coming back. It was down to 5 when RA came back in.

Earlier in the game it was the starters who were building leads and the bench (what happened to always playing one of the big 3?) losing ground.

If it’s between losing at home and playing guys 40 minutes, I’ll play guys 40 minutes… at least until home court advantage is locked up.

here’s the thing though about the bench. they got us an 11 point lead. that was the time toput the starters back in. But NO, DOc won’t do that. He always waits 2 minutes too long. he’s gotten away with it most of the year but not the last 2 games. In a nutshell he lost the game last night. he couldn’t deal with philly’s zone defense and he didn’t play his starters long enough. Pierce took another vacation night which he seems to do every 4th or 5th game

Red2 hit it right on the nose.

Brick said:

Cassell is getting far too many minutes, especially since he’s playing like crap. They do much better with Tony Allen and Eddie House as the backcourt for the second unit. Certainly that is a huge improvement defensively. And if that doesn’t work, bring Rondo back in. He’s young, and if anyone can play 40 minutes on a consistent basis, it’s Rondo.

Once again, Cassell and to a lesser extent Brown have disrupted the chemistry of this team. Heinsohn said exactly that last night and he was right. Those guys should be insurance against injury, not regular rotation players.

Brick – I don’t say this very often, but you are 100% right on this one. Tommy’s quote last night of ‘’Before we signed Sam and PJ we were playing attack basketball. Now when Sam is in the game he slows things down and we struggle’’ (or pretty close to that quote) He said he wasn’t sure if Sam ‘’got it’’ as to what we are trying to do out there. Sure he is new to our offense, but he reminds me of Payton the last couple years. He walks the ball up and turns around and tries to back someone down looking for his shot. Everyone else just sits and watches. I blame him for how sluggish they look when he is in there. House pushed the ball up the floor at the point. TA pushed the ball up (even though that scares us all). Sam brings it up with his walker. He should only play if Rondo gets injured. If that happens we will be waiting on next year for 17.

Sorry I have the BLINDERS on… did somebody say something ;D

One game, but glad to see Powe playing strong. He was the bright spot of the evening for me. Tony Allen is still not in game shape; Cassell and Brown need to get there minutes.

There rhythm is completely off at the moment. Cassell has played decently when paired with Allen and Garnett, but he’s lacked that chemistry with the second unit.

Doc is trying to see where they fit in and how. I wouldn’t be too concerned. Coming back from a long trip in where this team played 5 games in 8 nights; they are winded coming back home.

They will be fine once their able to get back to the gym and practice.

They have about 12 games left before the season ends and as Jeff mentioned above I’d be upset if Paul, Ray and Kevin are playing 40 minutes per game. The second unit needs to spark things coming off the bench.

agree-agree with the salient criticisms above. i don’t know about pp-he wasn’t getting the ball- made good passes and played d. igoudala went on a roll and was not stealing off paul. kg made the sloppy plays.

Ancient Red- You are right that he plays decently with the stars, but that isn’t why we brought him in. He was supposed to give us depth at the point with the second unit. All he has done since he has gotten here is slow down that unit and made us worse. That is our concern. He has 8 games under his belt and the only one that he looked like what the pro-Sam guys thought he would be was against SA. That was because he spent most of his time with the starters. That doesn’t help us because they only way for him to be effective is to bench Rondo. NO ONE on here (hopefully) thinks Sam is better than Rondo at this stage. We just aren’t dominating teams anymore because the second unit doesn’t come in and play effectively most nights due to the change of pace. How long are we going to try this failed experiment before it is too late to switch back and give the normal bench enough time to get back in sync with each other?! They just can’t flip a switch!

From Scott Souza:

‘Twenty-two days after Sam Cassell signed with the Celtics he is scheduled to have his first full-fledged practice tomorrow.’

Can we at least wait a practice or two before calling it a ‘failed experiment’? LOL

 :P

I don’t think it makes much sense to play the second team all together if they aren’t going to be doing it in the playoffs.

Also, what’s with not getting the ball to Pierce in the last five minutes? In case anyone didn’t know, he’s pretty good in the fourth quarter, at getting to the line, etc. Much better than KG and his 17-footers and turnovers.

By the way, I don’t have a problem with experimenting. I think it’s good, especially over the next few weeks. But why experiment with something you admit you are never going to use in the playoffs.

I agree with NoraG1. Guy’s got to practice if you want him running the offense and plays smoothly. I can’t believe how fast everyone forgets their constant complaining about the short comings of house and tony so quickly. Doc has to give them minutes so they can prove themselves. So far we’ve lost 2 out of 6 games against some of the toughest teams in the league while trying to limit our starters minutes and integrate two new players without the benefit of practice. Wait a week, let them practice once or twice, then rip him a new one if we lose a couple more games.

http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20080324&game=PHIBOS

if you look at what ACTUALLY happened you will see that the bench was -11 before all the starters came back in….we didn’t not have the lead when the last starter came in, powe was still in.Its tough talking about some of these things when the data being discussed isn’t right and isn’t supported by facts.

Now, the thing is that most of the points being discussed here are correct anyway. Sam is playing terrible. The entire bench shouldn’t play together when they seems to do better mixed with starters and the facts show that. Maybe Doc can’t be creative enough and has to make wholesale changes instead of say bring in Sam for RR and leaving all other starters in and rolling throwug the bench like that. Why not have Rondo and PP in with some of the bench. In the playoffs will we do it like this: bring in everyone all at once most of the time? It looks like Doc is moving toward this.

Its disgraceful we haven’t had a practice since Sam got here. I mean its absurd. I am not pefect either so we will see how it all works out but we are runing out of time to integrate these guys which is what ejplaya has been hollering about

TERRIBLE coaching…period. The lead was slipping with the bench players in the game, and Doc just waited a few minutes too long to get the starters back in there.

BRING ON THE PLAYOFFS!!

It’s the Coach folks! And that is very scary with the playoffs approaching. Tommy said it during the game and once again Brick is 100% correct with his post.

scndtony- Tommy spent the vast majority of his time ripping Sam, not Doc. Doc was obviously trying to get Sam some more time and the other players as well, but he did it at the expense of a win. There is no way Doc is planning on playing all 5 bench guys at the same time. He was trying to play with combinations.

I wanted the win more than I wanted the experiment because of two things. #1 – You want to have these guys feel unbeatable. Losing to a bad team doesn’t help that. #2- We NEED to get Homecourt throughout the playoffs. We have played well on the road, but that will make a big difference if/when we make the finals.

The fact is that we were a better team when we left Ray or PP out on the floor to play with House, Posey, TA, and Powe. We were crushing teams because you had that veteran leadership to go to and the other team had to double them. This gave House and Posey a lot of wide open 3’s. It also opened it up down low for Powe. Now that Sam is in, Doc is sitting the big 3 at the same time and he can’t draw the same amount of respect defensively. Not only that, he rarely looks for the open man until there are 8-10 seconds left on the shot clock and he can’t shoot.

Here is the preferred rotation off the bench that has worked well all year:

House at PG
Ray or PP at 2
Posey at 3
Powe at 4
BBD at 5 (I would replace BBD with PJ now)

At the end of the few minutes you bring Ray or PP (whoever wasn’t in) back on the floor for TA. A minute or so later KG comes in for BBD (PJ) and then Rondo and Perk come back in for House and Posey. That has been killing teams all year! Stop messing around with the lineup! Sam only comes in if Rondo is in foul trouble to fill in House’s spot, or TA if we don’t need his defense. BBD only comes in if Perk gets in foul trouble in place of PJ’s spot. It isn’t that hard! This was Doc’s lineup and was effective until the arrival of the alien.

It’s funny that there is all this chatter of negativity!! We lost two games against two good teams. They were both close games. Shots that have been falling all year for un in the 4th Q were not falling in the last two games. When we won all those West road games, Sam and PJ were great. Now Sam sucks?? He hasn’t even practiced with the team!!!!!! I understand why the bench is playing more. Doc is trying to reduce starter minutes for the playoffs. To be honest, there really is no reason to worry about these games. If the starters played more and Sam knew more of the offense, we would have won these two just like the previous 5. But, if we keep playing the starters 36-42 min. a game, they will be shot in the later rounds of the playoffs. I would rather lose a couple more games in the meaningless regular season to further myself in the end! We would really have to implode to lose home-court. We have proven we can win any game at any time. I truly believe that is why Doc is playing with the lineups. Let’s not forget what we have done this season. Don’t judge based on the last two close losses against two great teams that we almost won. As much as some people hate to say it, Doc has exceeded expectations with this team and deserves all the credit in the world. The players are a huge part of that but, ultimately, Doc is the leader of the team. The best players in the world can’t do it all without a great coach. Give him his due.

gizmo01010 – Not sure what your definition of a great team is, but Philly isn’t making my list anytime soon! You are missing key points here:

-I give Doc all the credit in the world for this year. Read all my posts.
- Sam is washed up. He has nothing left in the tank and his slow it up style hurts our team. No amount of practice is going to fix that.
- After 7 more wins and locking up homecourt THEN they are meaningless.
- Doc WAS doing it right. His playing the starters less is fine, but they still got 32 minutes last night. Not a huge ’’rest’’.

Brickowski, I don’t believe it! I completely agree with you re. Sam.

Sam had one good game with us but has been a shoot first PG and a slow one to boot. Practice won’t change either of those things. Where are all the bloggers who wanted an experienced PG because Eddie House was too this/not enough that.

mcpu40- Sam has been nicknamed Alien his entire career. I didn’t come up with that.

Remember one thing. I am not advocating MY lineup or Agenda (other than replacing BBD with PJ above) That is exactly how we had been playing all year long. That was DOC’S lineup. I give him the props and just wish we had left well enough alone. I think PJ was a so-so signing, but if it meant not signing Sam then I would have left well enough alone. I don’t think Pruitt could have messed things up any worse than Sam is at this point…

First of all, Doc cannot start the playoff rotations now because the playoff rotations will include many more minutes for PP/KG/RA. If he started to play guys as he would in the playoffs, then those guys won’t have anything left once we get to the playoffs.

Second of all, Doc has to play Sam as many minutes as he can now so that Sam will be acclimated to his teammates come playoff time. It doesn’t mean he’ll play as many minutes at that point. but, it will make those minutes more productive.

Thirdly, we have lost these last two games due to the sluggishness/carelessness of PP/RA/KG. Do we really think that is going to continue come playoffs?

I’m not worried about these two games at all. We’re the #1 team in the league. Folks need to stop hanging on every game as if we’re fighting for a playoff spot.

Brick —“He’s young, and if anyone can play 40 minutes on a consistent basis, it’s Rondo.”

Absolutely!!!! I just don’t get why we need to take him out for 10 minutes each half. Nobody in the NBA sits their starting point guard this much on a regular basis. I can only pray this comes to an end once the playoffs begin.

I agree with much of what has been said. Sam Cassell is a tough point. He is playing woefully, save for that Dallas game. However, in the grand scheme of things, he’s better than Tony Allen can ever dream of being, even at 38. He’s a talented dude. He was having a very good year in LA before he came over. So I’m willing to try to get him into the fold rather than just let him rot as insurance. Tony Allen blows. HE should be the insurance against injury.

Now, on to one point I’ve been screaming about since November. Why oh why does Doc / the Celtics run a pick and roll with Ray Allen handling the ball. IT DOESN’T WORK! Ray isn’t quick or strong enough to get around the screen into an advantageous position. Every time they run it, the defense pushes him way out, and he either gets completely trapped and turns it over, or he passes it to the pick setter (KG or Perk) 25 feet from the basket, because they had to step way out to give Ray a decent passing angle. It’s so, so bad. It gives our offense nothing.

I like Ray a lot. He’s been playing very good these past 2 months, after a pretty mediocre start to the season. He’s great at the catch and shoot. He’s even pretty good in isol situations. But he can not run the pick and roll or pick and pop. He just can’t. Please stop doing it Doc. Please.

No, Sam Cassell is better offensively than Tony Allen. But TA is lightyears ahead of Cassell defensively.

Cassell’s problem isn’t a lack of practice. His problem is that he’s 38 years old and slowing down. Plus, he was always primarily a back-your-man-down-and-post-up point guard, not a penetrate and dish pg. Like Payton, he’s a poor fit for Rivers’ offense.

They need to go back to BBD, Powe, Posey, TA and House. That’s the best 2nd unit.

The Cs play better when the tempo is faster. The ball moves better and they get easier shots. When they walk it up, they tend to go one on one too much which leads to to no O rebounds.
The team plays faster with House as the backup PG. Doc has to get Sam to play at a faster pace or sit him down. As a shoot first pass second PG, Sam’s style is the antithesis of Rondo’s.

EJPLAYS SAID:
gizmo01010 – Not sure what your definition of a great team is, but Philly isn’t making my list anytime soon! You are missing key points here:

-I give Doc all the credit in the world for this year. Read all my posts.
- Sam is washed up. He has nothing left in the tank and his slow it up style hurts our team. No amount of practice is going to fix that.
- After 7 more wins and locking up homecourt THEN they are meaningless.
- Doc WAS doing it right. His playing the starters less is fine, but they still got 32 minutes last night. Not a huge ’’rest’’.

I wasn’t pointing the finger to you EJPLAYA, just the overall feeling of the posts on this topic after two losses.

I was referring more to Philly’s recent play of 8-2 over their last ten games.

I am not judging Sam yet. I wouldn’t rush the ball up the court if I didn’t know how to run the plays when I got their!! All I’m saying is hold judgment until he gets more time. I think his real value will show in the playoffs, which is why we have him.

Winning 7 out of 12 has not proven to be a problem this season. Our schedule is not too terrible from here on out. I’m just saying that I believe that we have proven we can win big games and we won’t lose half of our games from here on out.

To me, 32 minutes is a good alternative to 40 . I’ll take 32 min per game for our big three all year long. That is 1.5 quarters off per game!

These are just my opinions. I wasn’t directing them at anyone specifically. Simma down EJ!!

Sorry…“almost” 1.5 quarters off per game!