Quick change could be fast track

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quick change could be fast track
By Shira Springer, Globe Staff, 10/28/2003

WALTHAM -- Jim O'Brien concedes there were times over the last two seasons
when he could barely bring himself to watch the Celtics on offense. Many
times. When pressed about how often he voiced his dissatisfaction to his
staff, O'Brien estimated 50 times. The plodding predictability of the Celtics'
"attack" offended his purist sensibilities about how the game should be
played. "There have been times over the last two years when [assistant coach]
John Carroll and I have sat in an office and talked about how much we hated
our offense," said O'Brien. "We thought, `Wouldn't it be nice to have the
depth and the type of team where you could push the tempo and get good ball
movement?' We did not have that type of material.

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"We were playing a style that in essence our hand was forced to play because
of our lack of depth. We just didn't have enough players to even think about
what we do now. We were basically trying to survive last year."

Last month, shortly before the start of training camp, O'Brien and his staff
gathered just outside Naples, Fla., for a coaching retreat. They discussed how
they would transform the offense. They knew what they wanted to do. O'Brien
had known since the day the Celtics officially named him head coach --
removing the interim title -- in April 2001. They would run and play a passing
game.

When camp started, just one obstacle remained: How could the Celtics push the
tempo and still play the necessary halfcourt defense when they had two players
(Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker) on the floor for close to 40 minutes? That
"challenge," as O'Brien characterized it, was overcome when Boston traded
Walker and Tony Delk to Dallas for Raef LaFrentz and Jiri Welsch last week.

Director of basketball operations Danny Ainge has supplied O'Brien with the
depth to run the kind of offense the coach desires. Without depth, without a
more athletic roster, the Celtics would be the same grind-it-out squad of the
last two seasons. Now, they plan to fast break for easier baskets. If that
doesn't work, they will flow into a passing game, emphasizing movement with
purpose. The offense remains a work in progress. But it has the potential to
be both entertaining and unpredictable.

"We've got our team understanding the importance of defense," said O'Brien.
"Now, the transformation has to come offensively. And I don't use the word
transformation lightly. We needed transformation on defense and we went from
27th to third in defense in one year, helped by the new defensive rules. And
now, we need to make a similar transformation offensively. If you can combine
them, you'll be a pretty good team."

Last season, the Celtics averaged 92.7 points (22d in the league) and 19.2
assists per game (27th in the league). They shot 41.5 percent from the floor
(27th in the league). They averaged 79.4 shots per game, and of those
attempts, an average of 38.4 (or 48.3 percent) were taken by either Walker or
Pierce. The Celtics averaged just 8.7 points on the break, and in four
contests they did not score a point in transition.

This season, the most obvious mechanism of offensive change is the running
game. The players came into camp in condition to play an up-tempo style.
O'Brien and his assistants spent much of preseason conditioning the players'
minds for fast-break basketball, drilling home the importance of the first two
passes and rebounding.

Rebounding is fundamental to running, a simple but essential point. Now, the
Celtics have the luxury of four capable big men (Vin Baker, Tony Battie,
LaFrentz, and Mark Blount) to hit the boards. Last year, Boston was one of the
worst rebounding teams in the NBA.

Movement is afoot Although some of the Celtics may describe the passing
offense as a freelance system, they'd better not use that term when talking to
O'Brien. The coach recoils at the suggestion his players are doing whatever
they want. Without traditional play calling, the passing game is designed to
be unpredictable and difficult to scout, but it requires organized, strategic
thinking.

The coaches want player movement and ball movement with a purpose. At first,
the staff introduced the passing game by simply asking the players to move.
Now, they want the players to move in ways that take into account the
strengths of the players around them. For example, if the ball gets reversed
to Pierce, it might be better to clear out than to set a pick, so the All-Star
has room to operate.

"I love it," said Baker. "One of the things that Coach has allowed us to do
with the passing game is use our basketball intelligence and not just our
ability. A lot of the players enjoy that part of the game. We're not just
setting up, running this, getting it in to Paul. The passing game is working
out well for us. It's going to make us such a tough team to defend with so
many weapons on the floor."

The passing game potentially works as a complement to the running game. For
the Celtics, an up-tempo style is not an either/or proposition. Rather, the
coaches want the running game to flow naturally into the passing game. They
want the players to set random pick-and-rolls, flash to the post, dribble with
a purpose, set screens to free up teammates.

All the plans for this season rest upon depth. O'Brien will need a continual
supply of fresh legs rotating into games. For all the speculation about the
O'Brien/Ainge relationship, this much remains certain: Within the financial
parameters established by the owners (and some flexibility on their part),
Ainge delivered the players O'Brien needed.

"Jim and I have different views here and there about basketball," said Ainge.
"But when we talk philosophically and how the game should be played and what
we're doing to go forward, we're 100 percent on the same page.

"I think Jim saw a need for the natural progression of his coaching. I think
Jim wanted to establish this team on defense. Now, the natural progression is,
let's score off this defense."

O'Brien indeed views the implementation of the running game/passing game as
part of "a natural progression of our strategic plan that we had in place from
the time I became a head coach."

That plan started with an overhaul of the defense, and now, it has progressed
to the offense. O'Brien was willing to spend even more time installing the
defense -- three seasons instead of two, if needed. But with the arrival of
Ainge and the makeover of the lineup, the timing was right to reconstruct the
offense.

"Let's compare this year to last year at this time," said O'Brien. "We had no
depth. Running, then continuing to run in the halfcourt, crossing guys
underneath, then playing defense the way we play, you can't do that if you
don't have depth. It's hard to play a running game when you have, like, six
guys on the team that can play basketball. It's hard enough in the college
game. It's almost impossible over 100 games.

"This is a byproduct of the depth that we perceive ourselves having now, which
was frankly enhanced somewhat by the moves that we've made since last year."

In it for the long run The Celtics believe they are building a team deep
enough and versatile enough to last through the rigors of an NBA season -- not
just 82 games but a substantial playoff run. Last year, it was painfully
obvious how worn out Boston was during its second-round series against New
Jersey. O'Brien readily admits he left players on the floor too long, that the
offense was too predictable. He had no choice.

This season, the Celtics may start slowly as they adjust to a new style along
with new personnel, but they plan to gain momentum.

"I think the style complements the players that we have," said Pierce. "I
think we have better athletes. All our big men can run the court with any
other big men in the NBA.

"From what we've been doing in practice and the preseason, I know we're going
to push the ball more than we have in the past. I think we're definitely going
to be a more exciting team. I can't wait."

And, for a change, O'Brien cannot wait to watch his offense and see what
develops.

) Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx