Celtics may play less small-ball

This is an interesting nugget pulled by CelticsHub from Danny Ainge's interview yesterday.

Are The Celtics Abandoning Small Lineups? - CelticsHub.com

"We did some amazing things last year in the second half of the season and it’s a great credit to the guys and to Doc, but I do think that it wasn’t necessarily the way we should go forward, and yet it was hard to mess with that success. I think that’s taken a little bit of time to figure out that maybe that’s not the best way for us to play, is play small."

Moving Collins into the starting linup and moving Garnett over to the 4 does make the starters taller. Doc still played a lot of Bass and Sullinger but Jeff Green played only 14 minutes - perhaps because Doc didn't want him playing power forward and Pierce was playing too well to sit for very long.

As DeGama points out, there also may be a not so subtle hint here that a trade could be coming. It isn't any secret that the Celtics would like to get a big man but it will be interesting to see just how far they are willing to go to get it done.

It seems like what Danny is saying, in general, is that the Celtics had some success with small-ball last year and it is nice to have that option to go to but it can't become all we do. They have to play to their strengths and to good matchups. It is great that we have some guys that can score and play a little more up and down pace with teams like the Heat, but it also helps to have some trees in the middle to make life difficult for other teams.