Third Quarter Collapse

Worst quarter of the season?

Do we need a transfusion of young, hungry, and athletic?

same old story! I don’t even know what to say anymore. A game is FOUR quarters and the shot clock is 24 seconds!

This team is a bloody disgrace, not for losing but for the way they lost. If anyone in a position of authority had any cajones they’d admit their mistake, deactivate Sheed and eat his bloody contract.

I just dont see the fire…What i did see was Marquis and Rondo getting it done, and despite the amount of shots he had blocked Baby was pretty tenacious.

Now let’s hear how it’s only February, and next month will only be March and the month after that will only be April. Ainge should start making decisions based on next year.

The Celtics of the late 80s would not have been outscored 36-11 but a quality opponent.

First the Lakers now this. And why would you trade Ray he actually played well. Sheed sucks.

I’m sure someone will remind me that the Celtics have the best NBA defensive record, as a way of disproving my point, but as with the LA game, the Celtics again broke down defensively at the worst possible time (this time in3Q).

Now, I’d like to hear someone make a solid case that defense is not a problem for the Cs.

The players are no longer listening to him.

On February 27th the Celtics play the Nets

Another game were we put all eggs into one basket (Big 3). Seriously wake up DA, Rondo is the future. Give us hope by getting players to complement him.

Also why is KG starting? He is mediocre at best. BBD is playing with so much heart; Doc time to reshuffle the starting line up.

Sheed is a disgrace, give his minutes to Sheldon.

wallace was bad but perk wasnt better

They will finish with a record of 45-37…followed by first round elimination.

Classic Celtics vs. Another good team game of 2009/2010 regular season

- Balanced 1st quarter
- Celtics get a double digit lead at the half time…
-…only to collapse and fall behind in the third by ,again, double digits
- play catch up in 4th..get excited, energized
- only too fall short cause it was too late too little

When Howard picked up his fourth in the third quarter, and DIDN’T go out, we should have banged it inside every possession. But no, instead we tried to take contested jumpshot after contested shot while the Magic ran up the points. Not any one person’s fault, the entire team was guilty. The trend finally got broken when TA decided to do the right thing and drive the paint.

I got frustrated and turned the game off after Jason Williams free throws.

Pathetic play. No excuse. Now I gotta go to work, No Superbowl for me.

They are too old to play pedal to the metal for a full 48 which is what they need to beat the elite teams. Wallace is a joke. They can’t defend good enough on the perimeter except for Rondo. I have no idea what Ainge can get done via trade but I don’t think a "Hinrich’ Type would help put these guys over the top. Ainge needs to look at anyone that could help this team athletically, defensively and for the forseeable future.

Is to sign B. Russell to a 10 day contract to rip them a new one on the huddle for being lazy on the court.

0-1 since his return! :-)

Btw, today was an example of a well officiated game where there was a large FT disparity 10. I thought the FT disparity was deserved. The Magic won this game by making their FT’s and shooting 50% from the three point stripe. They are a good team.

Perkins is on my radar a bit… I think the FG% thing is getting to his head…

. . . and it was definitely Marquis! Surprisingly, I’m finding that I’m not even that upset over this loss. Not happy but not upset. I think somewhere during that third qtr. I officially lowered my expectations for this team.

He took 3 shots when he Howard in foul trouble. He should of had 5 more shots in the 3rd.
I give up it’s time to build around Rondo. Start the shedding with Ray.

Hey I guess the one title is all we’re going to get. It was worth it. Figured we’d get one while the 3 were together, it just happened to be the first year

Kevin Garnett is not walking through that door.

It wasn’t his fault, but we’re not contenders anymore. Let’s go ahead and trade him. We’ll make a serious playoff run in a few years.

I love the Celtics…But they have serious problems right now!!

…first off Sheed’ is just Horrible! There is no energy from him and all he does is take long range shots, I see nothing quality from him at all! Very upsetting

One of these guy’s has to stand up and publicly question this teams heart…like Bird did in the ’84 series! And then they won the whole thing!

Rondo is the only player who seems to be giving 110%. I want to see more of Bill Walker…I mean god damn at least he’ll give some spark!

We need a big move to happen or I don’t see the C’s going anywhere, except nowhere fast!

I don’t know what happened to this Team, but it is not a championship caliber team anymore. I don’t know if it is Sheed, or age, or injuries or what. But they are not getting the job done. And I can only fault injuries to a point. And if your not going to win a championship, then Its Time to shake things up, because that was the only reason for putting this team together. And they just do not have what it takes.

Does Rivers have any clue as to how to react to his team not “showing up” for the third quarter of so many games? All he ever seems to do is sit on the bench with a pout on his face. He most certainly could have a called a time out before the deficit balloned to such a unbeatable advantage for the Magic. He hasn’t quite noticed that as his team ages they become more inconsistent, and he is required to actually do some “hands on” coaching involving some timely personnel substitions. He still thinks that this team will run on auto-pilot as it did two seasons ago. The days of running his starters for big minutes to make up for his total lack of originality on the court ,are over. For example, we would have never known how good of a rebounder Poe was, unless Doc had been forced to play him because of injuries to the starters. Also, didn’t DA have any idea how bad KG’s knees were before he traded for him. I’m glad we won the title the first year he was here, because he seems physically worn out. Just think, we have another two years with those bad knees, chewing up all our salary cap space for TWO more years. AL

The good:
- Davis played hard, looked good… his jumper is looking better with each game. A few more games and he could be all the way back.

- Quis looked amazing good for a guy who has been out that long. Great news.

- Eddie was good.

- Rondo played very well, most of the time.

The bad:
Everybody else, especially the Big 3 and Sheed – whose continued presence on the court in Q3 and even Q4 was really weird, given that he was late on all his rotations, was never there to stop penetrators, lazily hung out at the 3-point line and managed to get just ONE rebound in his 19 minutes

The ugly:
- Q3, obviously.

- Doc Rivers’ brain. Of all the starters you could choose to play ~40 minutes, you picked RAY? The same guy you’ve been overplaying all season long? Not Rondo?? Weird, Doc, really weird. And you kept Sheed in through q3 and much of Q4? WHY in heaven’s name would you do that with the WORST PLAYER ON THE TEAM??

Because then the Celtics can play 20-25 minutes and eek out a close win at the end. This team is a good notch below the elite team. Finish the regular season 1-7 against Orlando and Atlanta. This may be wrong, but Breen today said since Cristmas they have blown 10 double-digit leads and lost those games. 9-11 in their last 20. Danny —it’s time. I would put everyone on the block except Pierce and Rondo.

Super Bowl commercial that just aired with Bird eating LeBron’s and Howard’s lunch! Made me feel a little better for some strange reason.

Several of the starters need less time (KG, Ray & PP), but we should be seeing more of Baby, Marquis, Sheldon and the Red Head, fewer minutes from Sheed and House. Yeah sometimes they can light it up but neither of them plays defense worth a damn. I would much rather see these other guys come out and harrass the heck out of the other team and keep the starters fresh. Doc was doing that earlier in the season and he obviously couldn’t turn to Marquis til now, but what about Sheldon and the Red Head?

  Does this situation remind anyone of the team that lost to Milwaukee in the 80’s playoffs?

then start TA and have Ray come off the bench, try something else for godsakes!

I took a lot of flak before the season started for saying that Rasheed Wallace’s 3-year would become an albatross to this team. He’s been overrated his entire career. A 7 footer who likes to hang around the perimeter, avoids contact at all costs and has never liked working for rebounds. Plus, he’s a big mouth. And now we’re stuck with the 35-year-old version of that.

I remember people before the season debating whether he or Perk should start. What a joke. This guy was checked out last year in Detroit and he’s brought the apathy with him to Boston. I was never a fan, but I’m starting to hate the creep now that he’s defiling the uniform of my favorite team.

No, he is not THE problem with this Celtics team, but he seems to embody everything that is wrong with it: too many 3s, too much reaching on D, too much talking/whining, not enough rebounding. It’s Sheed’s game and now, sadly, it’s the Celtics game. Maybe he (and the team) will have me eating crow in a few months. I hope so. I do.

Injuries have definitely had an effect. With KG in and out of the lineup, defense has been inconsistant at best. PP and Ray have logged heavy minutes and it’s resulted in poor play from Ray and an injury to PP.
I don’t know if getting everyone back healthy with turn this team into world beaters, but it will help.
As far as a trade, Andre Iguodala+Lou Williams for Ray makes some sense.. C’s would get a SG who can defend & shoot and a backup for Rondo. That only works if Philly is looking to shed salary & rebuild.

this is a mental hurdle we are gonna have to overcome real soon

but a key problem I’m seeing is that, with the injuries to KG and Pierce, the team has had to defer to Rondo. That works great when he can get us transition offence, but sooner or later, the good teams stop turning the ball over and force us into half court offence. That’s when we are losing the big games, because they keep scoring and we have massive droughts.

Basically, either KG and Pierce get healthy enough to carry our half court offence again or we’re toast. At the moment, you can see that both are out of shape and tentative and they aren’t bringing the intensity they need to. IMO they are clearly trying to preserve their bodies for the playoffs and that is hurting this team right now.

Will that strategy pay off come playoff time? Nobody knows. With a bit of luck they will look like geniuses and the Celtics will roll through to the Finals. But they could just as easily never regain their mojo and we could go out in the first or second round.

I wish Danny would bring in an interim head coach for a small handful of games,

Just to give this team a jolt/new voice/and a dose of reality, aka tough love

I would love for Danny to Hire Coach Bobby Knight, for a week or two, and just allow him to rip into the guys.
Something needs to happen to wake this group up.

the vets all seem perfectly happy with their title because it vindicates their opinion of themselves as great players. They just don’t seem to care about winning because they’ve already done it.

There’s no pride in beating good teams any more. They’re content to show they “could” beat them for 2-3 quarters but not actually put the effort in to put a good team away in solid fashion.

The ship’s off course and won’t get back on course without something significant occurring:
- Doc getting replaced by a coach that’ll light a fire under them →that’s not happening, yet.
- A trade to shakeup the current chemistry since no one can really point to the team’s chemistry being an asset. If it were an asset, they’d be performing better.
- The home crowd actually booing their lack of effort. This won’t happen but the way they’ve played poorly at home they’ve begun to deserve it. If this ever did come to pass, it’d either wake them up to their poor play or get them to tune out even more—-not sure which at this point.

I’m not solely blaming Doc since professionals shouldn’t require motivation but having said that, yes, some of it is on Doc that his team isn’t performing for him any longer. If he can’t get them to play, whether through his own fault or not, time to get some who can get them to play or get someone that will play for him.

Since coaches are easier to replace than players, he’s most likely to go. Also, this team does have the talent to win. What they’re lacking is focus, drive and a sense of purpose.