Celtics’ New Paradigm: Learn By Playing Smart, Not Hard

Some say the Celtics have one more month to "get it right", to show us and the world that they can focus, play hard, and win games convincingly, against good teams. But playing hard is not the object. Nothing useful is learned by scrambling around like Sideshow Bob in order to eke out one more meaningless win.

I believe the Celtics have come up with a new paradigm for the NBA and winning the championship. They didn’t plan it. They didn’t sit down and DECIDE to follow it. It just... happened. Naturally. It grew from the ground up – just a thought at first – until it ended up taking over the team. By now, it has become a full-blown paradigm: the set of principles by which they live.

But if you ask any of them about it, they will look at you like you’re nuts and will not know what you’re talking about. Most of the Celtics don’t really know about this new paradigm, amazingly enough. But it has happened. Here’s how.

The Seed Arrives

It started with an idea, a seed... carried into the Cs’ locker room by Rasheed Wallace. Sheed naturally believes and lives the concept that the regular season is one boring, silly, overlong waste of time. He lives for the playoffs. Whether he knows it or not, this concept has a strong basis in reality:

(1) The regular season is much too long and hard – a grueling, dangerous journey at the end of which... there is almost no payoff. All this fighting, spanning six months and 82 games, is for home court advantage only. Nobody gives you a ring for a good regular season record. So how much is HCA worth? Not much, as it turns out. Because if you’re good enough to win a championship, you must be good enough to win on the road. One, just ONE extra game at home, as opposed to on the road, in a seven-game series, is simply, relatively, virtually meaningless. So why does the regular season exist? To earn money for the NBA, of course. And as practice for the playoffs. But months of planning plus 10-12 games of practice should be more than enough for most good teams; it’s certainly enough for a team whose core has been together for almost 3 years now, and whose key additions are smart, wily vets.

(2) The regular season is when injuries happen. Often. That’s its greatest risk, by far. And it is a truth universally acknowledged that healthy teams win playoffs. The healthiest team wins it all. Therefore, the fewer injuries a team suffers in the regular season, the higher are that team’s chances of winning in the playoffs. The Celtics learned that bitter lesson last year.

(3) The time a player spends playing on the court is directly proportional to that player’s risk of injury. That’s obviously a 1-1 correspondence – you can’t get injured if you don’t play; if you do play, each minute brings with it a minute’s worth of risk. Cut a player’s PT in half, and you halve his risk of injury. Double it, and you double his risk. Etc.

(4) The intensity with which a player plays is also proportional to that player’s risk of injury. The harder a player plays, the more likely it is that he will be injured at some point.

(5) Now let’s add it all up. To maximize a team’s chances of winning in the playoffs, that team should minimize its injuries. The most direct way to minimize injuries to your best players is to have them play fewer total minutes (per game, and/or with long "injury" times off). Another way is to instruct players not to take unnecessary chances, i.e., don’t take charges, don’t jump when in a crowd of other players, don’t fight TOO hard in the game, etc. What does all that add up to? It adds up to the way the Celtics have been playing this season!

Players And Thermostats: How The Seed Became A Paradigm

Let’s get back to the seed. Sheed brought this attitude with him to Boston. He’s a friendly, talkative guy, and his ideas quickly became familiar to the whole team. He didn’t preach. He didn’t try to convert anybody. He just likes to talk.

But because his concepts about the regular season are so rooted in logic, because they have the ring of truth, they flourished in the Celtics’ locker room. Guys naturally absorbed it, in part because they've been through the whole process before. But if you asked them about it, they wouldn’t know what you were talking about. The whole thing happened under the surface, unbeknownst even to the players themselves.

Now they’re in a game. The guys play hard right from tipoff. They build a good lead by halftime. The other team is playing hard too, but hasn’t really challenged yet. Then comes the 2nd half, and the other team challenges. They go on a run, they change their defensive strategy, etc. Faced with this challenge, how do the Cs respond? The key moment has arrived.

As they play, the Celtics feel the challenge, and they look inside themselves. They check their THERMOSTATS. What temperature am I set at? Is this life-and-death time? Should I burn all-out with my response, giving it my absolute best? Or do I just do what I can without going overboard? So far in this regular season – the answer has almost always been the latter. The Celtics do the best they can without trying too hard.

Why? Because the seed has been planted in their minds. When they go to check their thermostats, they find them set to medium, because the logic for that is irrefutable. If they play too hard or too long, they are more likely to get injured. If they get injured, the team is doomed. Therefore, the thermostat says to them – DON’T PLAY TOO HARD. Play well enough to win most games, but not well enough to beat very determined and/or lucky teams (and/or unfriendly refs).

And that’s how a new paradigm takes hold. Not by conscious planning, but naturally, by osmosis. A gradual internal reprogramming that creeps up on a team. And it’s real. Real enough to directly affect the outcomes of regular season games.

Now, for the most important point of all: This kind of internal paradigm DISAPPEARS when the playoffs begin. Because its entire logic revolves around the concept of preserving the team’s health for the playoffs. When the players go to check their thermostats in the playoffs, they find they’re all set to maximum.

Why don’t all NBA teams do this?

Good question.

(a) – Most NBA teams cannot be sure of making the playoffs until very late in the season. The entire Western Conference is so tightly packed, nobody can be sure of anything. There are perhaps 4 teams in the East that can be certain of making the playoffs. Of those, the only team which also happens to be in the EC’s weakest Division – making their playoff appearance a virtual certainty, given ANY level of reasonable regular season play – is the Celtics.

Note that once teams get locked into making the playoffs, they usually adopt this paradigm naturally. They let their stars rest, they don’t care if they lose games, they guard their health most zealously, etc. This is further proof of the validity of the paradigm... IF you're sure of making the playoffs.

(b) The Celtics are loaded with vets. Older players are more susceptible to injury. Protection of their players from injury is arguably MORE IMPORTANT to the Celtics than to most other teams.

(c) – You need a seed. Our seed was carried in by Sheed. The other teams for whom this idea makes some sense apparently do not have their version of Sheed’s Seed.

Bottom Line

The Celtics’ new paradigm is actually a very logical approach to the regular season, for this team. It was not a conscious decision, made purposefully, but it’s very real. Yes, it’s an end run around the whole capitalist structure of the NBA. No, nobody else is doing this now.

But are they really following a "new paradigm", or do they just plain suck? Ah... that we cannot know with certainty. I can only say that logically, their approach is the correct one. And most correct of all..... (gulp)..... is Sheed, because besides carrying the original seed (unknowingly, I believe) he’s the one who is MOST saving himself for the playoffs – by not crashing the boards, avoiding charges, not setting himself in the post where crowds gather and injuries are likeliest, not pushing his body too far, etc. I.e., by playing the way we hate to see him play.

But... it appears that it’s Sheed who has it right regarding the regular season. So the next time you see him being "lazy", think: maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to get injured fighting for one more meaningless rebound, or taking one more meaningless charge, in a meaningless game in the meaningless regular season. (Though now that the regular season is ending, he is going to have to step it up... these last games are the necessary practice noted above.)

I know some of you are going to say: "Nonsense (or some choice word(s) to that effect). The Cs suck, and THAT’S why they’ve been losing." Well... maybe. But they’ve also been winning. Blowing teams out, even. They’ve shown us that they can be great. If they can be great, the best explanation for their overall play this season is this new paradigm. It's unavoidable. They're not fighting for every regular season game because these games don't matter, and because doing so raises their risk of injury... the inescapable logic of the paradigm.

I believe the Celtics require two factors to win the championship in 2010. #1 - They need to be healthy in the playoffs. #2 - They need to play their game correctly. With those two factors in place, there is no team in the world they cannot beat.

If they continue on their current course, they will be minimizing their risk of injury, thereby maximizing factor #1. They will use the time remaining to accomplish #2 – and they need this time, because so far this season, they’ve had only a few games with a full healthy roster.

But is it important that they win as many games as possible between now and the playoffs? No. Should they go ALL OUT to perform at their top level now? No – that would needlessly increase their risk of injury. THE CELTICS DO NOT NEED TO PLAY HARD, THEY NEED TO PLAY SMART. They must learn how to play together as one healthy, complete unit (for a change). And they must get every player to understand the game plan and his role in it. When that happens, and it will soon, they’ll be ready for the playoffs.

The playoffs. That's when the new paradigm goes out the window. When all thermostats get set to MAX. And when the Celtics intend to win no more, and no less, than 16 games. And a few more rings.

Season  Age  G    MP   PER   TS%   eFG%  ORB% DRB%  TRB%  AST%  STL% BLK% TOV%

2007-08  31  71  2328  25.3  .588  .539  7.3  25.1  16.8  19.9  2.3  3.1  10.8

2008-09  32  57  1772  21.2  .563  .532  5.6  26.7  16.6  14.7  1.9  3.1  10.1

2009-10  33  55  1642  19.8  .583  .536  4.7  25.4  15.4  16.2  1.8  2.3  11.3 

Career     1110 41277  23.7  .548  .502  8.1  25.6  17.1  20.3  1.9  3.2  11.8

Season  Age  G   AST%  STL% BLK% TOV%  USG% ORtg DRtg

2007-08  31  71  19.9  2.3  3.1  10.8  25.5  118  94

2008-09  32  57  14.7  1.9  3.1  10.1  23.4  112  98

2009-10  33  55  16.2  1.8  2.3  11.3  21.6  113  99

Career     1110  20.3  1.9  3.2  11.8  25.3  111  99