Turnovers (Again)

by Jeff Clark on Mar 16, 2009 10:49 AM EDT in News/Links Comment 20 comments

Dwyer checks in with a warning about the turnovers:

We've been warning about it since the beginning of 2007-08, and though the C's are rightful champs and should be feared and also should be allowed excuses because of Kevin Garnett's absence ... turnovers are going to be the death of this team.

You can't turn the ball over on over 27 percent of your possessions, and expect to win. Against any team. Even if the team is, say, missing its two best players. And while Rajon Rondo may have contributed to the mess with five miscues, how can you justify Paul Pierce (who has been playing pro basketball for over ten years now) coughing it up seven times?

We went over this a month ago (Turnovers: Achilles Heel?) and the issue is still there. Even when this team is fully healthy, it has the yips with the ball. Giving the other team extra possessions doesn't help our world class defense stay world class. Hopefully we'll hit our groove in the last month headed into the postseason.

Update: Before we get too worked up about this, Red's Army has a reminder for us.

Well, I’m gonna keep this short and sweet.

2007-2008 Celtics: 14.4 turnovers per game.

2008-2009 Celtics: 14.5 turnovers per game.

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I can excuse Rondo...

for having 2.7 turnovers per game since he is the quarterback on offense, has his hands on the ball more than anyone else, and has one of the highest assist to turnover ratios in the league. PGs are going to rack up TOs, it’s in their nature. Paul, Duhon, Kidd, Nash, Harris, Williams and Wade(who plays SG but is a de facto PG on his team) all have more TO/G than Rondo and only 2 of those guys have higher assist/turnover ratios in the league.

Pierce is a different matter.He has always been a turnover machine. The only time he hasn’t had over a +3 .0 TO/G is when he’s had a decent PG on his team. But even thenm his TO’s still remain high. He forces his dribbling too much, always has. Both Pierce and Allen bring the ball up and control the offense too much when Rondo is in the game and those possessions end in three manners almost all the time, a shot made by Pierce or Allen, a shot missed by Pierce or Allen, or a turnover. Very, very seldom when either of those two guys bring the ball up does it result in good “search out the best shot with great ball movement” offense. The amount of times the ball is then going to the other end without points when Allen and Pierce take the ball down the court is disturbing to me and always has been. I wish there was a stat that measured that.

by nickagneta on Mar 16, 2009 11:05 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think this is a reasonable point/observation.

A good start to solving this would be to have Rondo control the ball even more. And Ray is sloppy in spurts…its probably when he feels like he has to force things and is uncomfortable with the spacing. How do you solve Paul? At least make him very aware that he has to reduce the times he is stripped, and make solid passes

by wahz on Mar 16, 2009 11:15 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The turnover rate is so high everyone needs to soak that in.

Why are they so sloppy? If not disinterest, what is it? Spacing the floor? The all can’t dribble? They all have bad hands?

We have all seen Paul get into these periods where he flails, repeatedly. Charges or gets ball swiped on help.
Defenders are swiping at Rays dribble and at least touching the ball with great enough frequency.
Perk is what he is. He puts the ball down too much, shuffles his feet to gather himself and walks, gets blocked, or charges.
KG not a big violator on this issue, imho.
Rondo rarely gets the ball stolen off the dribble. But he throws sloppy, risky passes.He is kind of like having a young Randy Johnson. When he is on no one can hit him but some days he is going to walk everyone
Baby is a lot like Perk, though Baby has GREAT hands. Powe not so bad down low either. Moore does have bad hands.. House at least never looks sloppy, like Ray, PP and Rondo often do.

Look we have excuses for all this but it does feel like they may well not fix it and we will lose because of it

by wahz on Mar 16, 2009 11:09 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

If we don't solve this problem

Then we are going nowhere this year. We can’t continue to do this and expect to be able to beat good teams. I think Rondo has more to blame with this than some are giving him credit though due to the fact that we tend to turn it over more when he turns into “Bad Rondo” where he sits and dribbles the ball too long. When he does this he puts pressure on the next guy, usually PP, getting the ball with no time left to have options. He ends up forcing the issue and thus turns it over much more frequently. There is no time left in the shot clock to make that extra pass and this is what happens. When he pushes the ball up the floor and gets us into our offense quickly we do a much better job.

by EJPLAYA on Mar 16, 2009 11:17 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

This season

What stuck out the most for me in the post was one word – ‘hopefully’. This seems to be the most frustratingly overused word when talking about the Celtics this season. Hopefully they’ll pick it up at the end of the season; hopefully KG, Rondo, Davis, Scal, TA will come back healthy; hopefully we land this player or that player, etc.

It’s been a frustrating season so far with a lot of ups and downs. I can only imagine what it feels like being an actual player on the team. Hopefully they’re strong enough to fight through this surplus of adversity and do some damage in the post season. The time is now.

by BOSPORTS on Mar 16, 2009 11:21 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I understand what you're saying conceptually, but there's still something that gets me

about reading that it’s been “a frustrating season so far.”

The last two decades, and of late especially 2003-04 and 2006-07, were frustrating. I imagine the Kings and Wiz are having frustrating seasons.

The Celtics are defending champions winning nearly three out of every games they play. This is a dream.

-sw

Manuel Aristides Ramirez is the greatest hitter I've ever seen.

by Steve Weinman on Mar 16, 2009 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Of the major culprits...

Perk and Rondo are still young and improving—and should get better over time.

Pierce and, when he’s playing, TAllen are probably beyond hope at this point. The only two things to be done with them are to wean Pierce still more off of handling the ball and making sure we never ask Tony to sub in as PG again.

by clover on Mar 16, 2009 11:31 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I knew Jeff would add that the same thing went on last year

well we were one possession better than the cavs last year. We lost key players and are integrating different ones. Cle is way better. We won’t have home court. SO we can’t have as many to’s as last year. Period.

by wahz on Mar 16, 2009 11:39 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

When will people stop using "per game" stats?

2007-2008 Celtics: 16.6 turnovers per 100 possessions

2008-2009 Celtics: 17.5 turnovers per 100 possessions

More troubling is that last season we had a positive TO differential. This season that ratio has changed – we now commit more turnovers than those we cause.

by cordobes on Mar 16, 2009 11:43 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

yep and that one turnover difference realistically can cause a key loss. Its not helping to try to excuse it and say that it was like this last year

by wahz on Mar 16, 2009 11:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

so the turnover rate is actually 6% greater than last year. It sure feels like that.

by wahz on Mar 16, 2009 11:48 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree big-time with cordobes that turnover rate trumps TO per game stats,

but I think that if you’re going to compare across seasons, it doesn’t hurt to note that turnover rate figures are up across the board this season. I haven’t done the math, but from eye-balling it, I imagine we’re close to as many standard deviations off the mean this year as we were a season ago.

That said, committing more than we cause is certainly reason for concern, as cor notes.

-sw

Manuel Aristides Ramirez is the greatest hitter I've ever seen.

by Steve Weinman on Mar 16, 2009 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

OPP Turnovers

Last year we forced 15.3 turnovers per game.

This year only 14.2 per game

Last year we were ranked 8th with a (- 0.9) turnover margin.

This year we are ranked 24th with a (+ 1.1) turnover margin

Last year we were also ranked 3rd with +3.1 rebounding margin.

This year we are ranked 1st with a +5.5 rebounding margin. (Without KG)

This just adds more evidence that rebounding is an overrated statistic.

by LB3533 on Mar 16, 2009 11:55 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Wait, what?

Thanks for looking up the numbers and posting, they are very enlightening.

But, I’m a little bit confused w.r.t. the rebounding being overrated comment. How does what you posted lead to that conclusion?

by RealTangiblesGuy on Mar 16, 2009 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't care about last year

Many things have changed from last year to this year. Teams got better. Defend this years stats with last years stats all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that this years stats aren’t sufficient.

And it’s not negativity, it’s concern.

by BOSPORTS on Mar 16, 2009 12:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

i do care about last year! they turned it over too many time last year. It was an issue last year, and continues to be.

my anecdotal evidence of consistent TOs points to multiple moving screens per game (Perk), Ray Ray’s dribbling into traffic. Rondo gets a pass, as he’s at his best pressure the D with the dribble and dishing, which can occasionally lead to TOs.

However, as a whole, I’m not sure how the team can work on this.

by BirdNerd on Mar 16, 2009 1:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

good point

I hadn’t noticed the correlation between PP/Ray bringing up the ball and the 3 outcomes. I’ll be sure to pay more attention to it and see how the percentages work out.

by slamtheking on Mar 16, 2009 3:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

another concern

What should also be of concern is that this is a veteran team. A multitude of posters on this blog blamed the excessive turnovers in the pre-Big 3 error to inexperienced youth. That’s no longer an excuse that can be used.
This team has the experience to know TO’s will come back to kill you so taking care of the ball is a must

by slamtheking on Mar 16, 2009 3:26 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Turnovers

There are forced and unforced turnovers. We can live with the forced ones and give the other team credit. It’s the unforced ones that are killers and these seem to come when the team seems mentally tired. Yesterday it was like we were walking in sand all game. I was just waiting for them to pull out of it and they just never did. Despite all this we could have won yesterday and probably a good % of the ones we lost. When we lose we seem to beat ourselves.

"I don't come to play, I come to WIN"--Larry Bird

by TrueGreen on Mar 16, 2009 5:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs