It's All About the Adjustments

In the first quarter of Monday's night game against the Warriors, the Celtics were clicking on all cylinders. Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen were shredding up the Warriors backcourt, and the Boston defense looked strong against the high-octane Warriors offense. The Celtics were dominating and this continued for the first part of the second quarter. It looked as if this was going to be another classic blow-out that we fans have become accustomed to since the Big Three came on board. But a subtle shift started to occur midway through the second quarter. The Celtics machine seemed to be slowing down, as holes started opening up on defense and the offensive attack became stagnant. Led by Ronny Turiaf and C.J. Watson, the Warriors played aggressively, and the Celtics inexplicably backed down, becoming lazy on both sides of the court and Golden State came back into the game, riding the back of Monta Ellis and the bench. You know the rest: the Warriors continued to hang around in the second half until the built a lead and held it for the entire fourth quarter on the way to the upset win.

Now the Celtics lost for a variety of reasons: turnovers, Monta Ellis, lack of energy, Monta Ellis (yeah, he deserves two mentions).... but the number one reason Boston lost to Golden State this past Sunday night was the inability of Doc Rivers to make ingame adjustments, and the key adjustments made by Don Nelson.

First, the Warriors started a traditional lineup, with Andris Biedrens at the center and Anthony Randolph at the power forward. After it became apparent that this front line could simply not match up with the Celtic bigs, Nelson went to a small ball lineup. Vladimir Radmonivic played heavy minutes, starting in the second quarter at the power forward, as did Corey Maggette, who began the game at the small forward spot. After sticking with Biedrens at the center spot for half of the third quarter, Nelson took him out for the remandier of the game and inserted Anthony Randolph into the center position. Randolph, who had struggled in the first half against KG, was now going up against the much slower Kendrick Perkins and Glen Davis. Neither of the Celtic centers were willing to guard Randolph outside the paint and the young power forward took advantage, draining numerous outside shots and capitalizing on quick cuts to the basket on his way to 12 second half points. Doc failed to address this replacing Perk (who was having a poor game) with either Scal or Rasheed, both better perimeter defenders. Scal would have been able to guard either Maggette or Radmanovic, and Sheed could have done a much better job in containing Randolph.

The biggest mistake Doc made, though, was not switching Rondo off of Ellis in the second half. Monta was having himself a huge game, scoring twenty points in the first half alone. Rondo, already giving up three inches to Ellis in height, had re-aggravated his left hamstring earlier in the first half and was visibly labored moving around on the court. Yet Rondo continued to guard Ellis throughout the entire second half, and predictably, Ellis went off on Boston, scoring 37 points by the final buzzer. It seemed obvious, to me at least, that Doc should have switched Rondo off of Ellis, and placed defensive-stopper Tony Allen onto Monta. For Rondo, shouldering the offensive load and dragging around a gimpy left leg, guarding the red-hot Ellis was simply too much. Meanwhile, TA's main objective for this team is to play great defense. At the very least, he could have slowed Ellis down a little bit, and in a close game like that, it would have been all the Celtics needed to win.

The moral of the story is this: Coach Doc Rivers needs to do a better job of making in-game tactical adjustments to the opponent. The Celtics gameplan was fantastic, as evidenced by the great first quarter; but Boston lost because Don Nelson able to adjust to what the Celtics were doing, and Doc simply had no answers for what the Warriors threw at his team.