great posts Mark, Kestas (my Qtrly vent session)

[R Howe <regmanw6@xxxxxxxxx>]

Great Posts Mark, Kestas
 
I want to second Mark's, Kestas and just about everyones observation that we are regressing back to a team that looks awfully like the team of last year in style and substance but only worse. Its not because of the trades or talent base or indiv effort of the players, its the coaching. 
 
I also see the lack of movement without the ball, settling for perimeter passing, and the rapid transformation of team oriented, inside-out, high percentage shot selection approach no matter how together we are at this time, to give it to Pierce on the perimeter where he either tries to go thru 2-3 defenders or make a pass to stationary open 3 pt options. I yell at the TV as I watch 2-3 people blitz Pierce leaving the whole lane open and no-one slashing thru the the lane (Davis?) for a layup/foul attempt. or for Pierce to pass to a low post Mihm, Baker or Blount. It does not happen, his first option as planned by the coaching staff is to try to get his offense if he can, and if he cant to make the easiest pass to open 3pt shooter, all others are relegaded to standing around in designated open perimeter areas - no motion or cutting.... ahhhhhhhg!!!!!!.  How can any other folks on the team be consisistantly good if that is all they are allowed to do in this offense? If your shot is
 going in it makes you look good and validates the obie ball style if it doesnt its because we lack talent to do anything else. It seems that our lads are learning to practice 3s or risk not seeing playing time. I get mad because concentration on your long range shooting in practice comes at the expense of other neccessary offensive team skills like give and go, pick and roll, boxing out, setting picks, fast break passing and finnishing off drives to the hoop.... that we all can see diminishing right before our eyes, of good offensive options that we have in players like Davis, Welsch, Mihm and to lesser extent Baker, James and Banks. Obie is turning these guys into Waltahs, Walker and Bremer types. This kind of offense wastes their offensive talents and probally goes against everything that they were taught from their youths.
 
My secound question to Obie or Ainge is why do we have to do all this double-team blitzing of perimeter players with the ball now? we have some athletic perimeter defenders and a decent number of Power forward and Center players capable of playing more man to man defense or match up zone defense that would solve two of our problems right away, 1. defensive rebounds, denying the other teams offensive rebounding that has been at the root of all our losses to date, plus help in starting an occasional fast break. 2. all new and old guys know how to play this basic type of defense. Make our defensive assignments simpler and I think our guys are talented enough to play it. Doing so will help in transitioning our players into a team more quickly. If we need to inject a change of pace then use obie/harter system as the vehicle.
 
Other observations voiced here that I concurr with is that Waltah is a good change of pace player, in that role he is good, but as a guy that gets more than 15-20 mins a game will put us in lotto land quick enough. 
 
I think Mihm has to be our starting center and this is a clear upgrade over what we have had over the last 4 or so years. Mihm and Blount for defense (man to man) Mihm and Baker/Waltah for offense. Id like to see Hunter and Perkins mixed in, but because Obie (and most coaches) feel need to win or lose w/players that have experience, I know at this point that that is wishful thinking, Perkins is THE future at center provided he isnt getting lessons from Waltah. 
 
I also think Banks should continue to get at least the amount of playing time he is currently getting, with orders to push the ball, attack the lane, and either get the ball into the low post, go to the hoop himself or then kick out. Love Welsch seeing he seems to be only one to be able to feed our big men properly and on time. Such a easy skill but somehow our other perimeter players cant seem to do it, I also love that he can play tough oponents on "D" straight up. I like James for his toughness in clutch situations. Pierce is being asked to do too much, which more times than not does not let him get into a natural offensive rythm. If there were more movement w/out the ball, pick and rolls and pop outs, more inside out stlyle of offense.... I regress, he and the rest of the team would be that much more difficult to play against.   
 
In the end, either Obie changes his style to match players or he is going to lose his players in short order, something that he has up to this time been able to avoid. Do I think he will.... NO!, if he doesnt, Ainge has to pull the trigger. I think he will wait to the end of the season, or if the team quits on him (something I did not think would happen, but now wonder) then it could happen before end of Feb.
 
There, feel better, my quarterly vent. I truly hope that Obie can see what we see and talk with his father in law and make changes. I am excited about this roster, just not how it is being used at this time.. As a life long Celts guy my optimism will always remain intact. Go Celts!
 
PS. Just read about Baker suspension, there seemed more going on than was on surface, wonder how long team knew of his regression or more hopefully just a technical infration? His crippling contract aside Just hope that he can pull it together more than worrying about his BBall value to our team, he seems a nice guy that I hope the best for. Does this mean Perkins comes off the IR?
 
Reggie  

"Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Every word of Kestas' post is dead-on. Every word. 

I was exasperated watching that game last night and angry when it was over, because I knew what I'd read from Obie and the players today: "We had great shots. They just didn't go in." I knew that would be the party line. And, of course, it was.

I don't want to hear anymore arguments about Obie only playing this style because of his personnel. He plays this style because he likes it. There's no other explanation. No post-up player? Welcome to today's NBA, where you can count the number of low-post players on one hand. So do all those other teams resort to firing up 34 three-pointers? The Kings haven't had Chris Webber all season. They have great shooters like Stojakovic, Bibby and Jackson. Do they fire up 34 three-pointers? They find ways to get shots that aren't threes. How about the Pistons? The Pacers? The Nets? The Wolves? We're talking about some of the best teams in the league. They find ways, without a post-up player, to get shots that aren't threes.

Not Obie. No post-up player? Place four guys around the perimeter, a center in the high post as a roving screener, and bomb away. It's his same strategy against a zone defense. I know dozens of high school coaches who have a better understanding of how to attack a zone defense than Obie does. 

Look, the Celtics are going to be a perimeter team. Their best scorers are Pierce, Welsch and Davis. But just because your perimeter guys are your best scorers doesn't mean you have to be purely a three-point shooting team. Each of these guys is at his best in the mid-range game and penetrating. They create good shots. You can be a guard-oriented team without being a team that falls in love with the three-point shot. Isn't that obvious?

Did anyone hear Tommy the other night (or was it last night-I can't remember), talking about Ricky Davis? He said Ricky isn't a three-point shooter, but he will be because they drill everyone to be. Great. Because that's what you want - Ricky Davis and Marcus Banks standing around the perimeter firing up three-pointers. That's really using their talents. Obie is even killing Jiri - a guy with a wonderful feel for the game and who earlier this season was always in motion. Always. With or without the ball, he was moving, searching out angles. Now he's a spot-up shooter. Of all the things I'm seeing right now, this may make me more sick than anything.

And that's saying something. Walter shooting 12 three-pointers in a game. Pierce firing from everywhere. Mike James firing from everywhere. Vin Baker boozing again. Chris Mihm getting just 18 minutes even though he has 11 rebounds, while Walter gets 35. Ricky Davis stationed in the corner on the opposite side of the floor. Kendrick Perkins and Brandon Hunter nailed to the bench. There are plenty of things to make me sick.

Of course, Obie is a survivor. He has been a master of doing just enough, when he needed it the most, to save his neck. He usually says what Ainge wants to hear (although I think all the three-point talk lately has to be pissing Danny off... and I'm not so sure that isn't Obie's intention... is he passively aggressively pointing the finger at Ainge for the EWill trade, which Obie clearly hated?) So it wouldn't surprise me if Obie the survivor turns to Hunter sometime soon. That's the kind of move that would deflect some attention from the threes and please Ainge and the fans. A little like J.R. Bremer last year. We'll see. That just feels like an Obie move. Of course, after he takes the heat off, he'll go back to Walter (if he ever leaves Walter... if Hunter does see the light of day, it may be at Mihm's expense). 

It's just so discouraging. Obie's quote about the Celtics being the top three-point shooting team in the league over the last 20 games just drives it home. He sees that stat and thinks, "Let's shoot more threes." Most of us would look at that and say, "We must be taking good shots." But when you start taking more of them, the quality of those shots will decrease and so will your percentages. Obie doesn't think that way. He doesn't understand the law of diminishing returns. We're making a good percentage of threes? More threes! We're 3-0 when Walter starts? More Walter! 

Well, this has turned into a rant. Sorry about that. 

Mark

(amending Kestas' tagline to read... Gaston, Wallace, Walker, WALTER, Obie... because I figure there's a better chance of a Walter trade during the season than there is for an Obie firing.)




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Kestas wrote:

Yes, Obie in his postgame Q&A session. He said the Pistons were just too tough in the middle so they basically decided to concede the inside and shoot threes. For that, they need a "mobile 4-man" - i.e., Waltuh. For those of you who didn't love Waltuh tonight (and that included Tommy, who basically stated that Waltuh's game is killing the Celtics - something we've been saying here all along), help is on the horizon. Obie said that once Jumaine Jones gets better in a week or so, he'll help Waltuh out as another mobile, three-shooting PF.
That reminds of Obie's coaching dictum #27:
"Always go along with what your opponent wants you to do."

It's nice to see that practice time produced the desired results - tonight's game was a tour de force of Obieball. Four stationary 3-point shooters around the perimenter and a "blitzer" center, 34 three-point attempts, sub-30% shooting. If that's not Obieball, I don't what is.
With more practice time scheduled this week, we can expect more brilliant performances of this kind.

I hope Grousbeck, Pagliuca et al. are liking what they see out of their $9M coach. Wondering on any given possession whether you'll get hit by a stray Waltuh three-pointer is sure titillating and well worth the investment.

The honeymoon is over for Waltuh on the court - now he's playing real minutes, is actually being guarded, and not surprisingly, has found his true NBA level. It's not as bad it was tonight, but it's not much better. If Tommy, of all people, can see it, anybody can. Except for Obie, that is.

Baker's mojo and his treatment by Obie sure reminds me of last year an awful lot. Pierce's comment that "we haven't had a low-post option since I've been here" was very revealing indeed.
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