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Slow starts to games seems to be a characteristic of Celtics teams during the Brad Stevens era. Seems to me that their collective heads are not in the game until at least the first timeout.

You can always count on the comeback, but what is going on? Are they not ready to play when they leave the locker room?

Net rating ranking of Stevens era Celtics in 1st Quarter (last 5 seasons):

2019-20: 12th (+1.9)
2018-19: 3rd (+9.1)
2017-18: 4th (+7.4)
2016-17: 9th (+4.0)
2015-16: 5th (+6.5)

Every team has slow starts. Celtics haven't been that bad on balance during Brad's tenure. Maybe some recency bias in play here? Having a different starting five almost every night due to injury could also explain the poor starts THIS season, I dunno.

This is one of those things thats on personnel. If your starting five can't start out hot, what are you supposed to do, start the bench? Imagine this forum if Stevens was like "our starters aren't coming out of the gate ready, so we're starting Edwards, Green, Romeo, Grant and Kanter" - forum topics "Stevens has lost it" "Fire Stevens" "What is going on?!?!" and "We have the best bench of all time"

IMO there are things that can be done to help remedy this, whatever the cause. You can alter the starting lineup so it is more physical, more energetic, or so that roles become better defined. You can draw up plays to help establish initial momentum on a player by player basis. You can simplify your offensive scheme. Etcetera.

This is a worthy topic IMO. When push comes to shove, I don't think you can really get away with throwing players on the floor and hoping they'll find rhythm. The Warriors have gotten away with that maybe - but they have had the perfect personnel - physical, assertive, unselfish, complimentary, good. They can establish rhythm at will. But for most, it just doesn't work IMO when your opponent is able to game plan. In that scenario, all your opponent has to do is find one simple way to disrupt your rhythm, and you're done. It simplifies their task quite a bit.

That's the problem without a star Big man

ConstableGeneva wrote:Net rating ranking of Stevens era Celtics in 1st Quarter (last 5 seasons):

2019-20: 12th (+1.9)
2018-19: 3rd (+9.1)
2017-18: 4th (+7.4)
2016-17: 9th (+4.0)
2015-16: 5th (+6.5)

Every team has slow starts. Celtics haven't been that bad on balance during Brad's tenure. Maybe some recency bias in play here? Having a different starting five almost every night due to injury could also explain the poor starts THIS season, I dunno.

So I think a few things that the data there might be hiding. First, showing the full quarter hides games like the Bucks game where we started down 17-2 only to warm up and score 20 points in 4 minutes, ending the quarter down 33-28 so while that only hurt our net 1st quarter points by 5, it doesn't change the fact that we started the game scoring only 1 time in the first 4 minutes and trailing by 15 at the 8 minute mark.

Second, the average net rating doesn't show how big of deltas there are. If one team consistently has right around 30 points in the first every game and another team scores only 20 half the time and scores 40 the other half, their 1st quarter point average is going to be equal, but the 2nd team clearly has far more slow starts.

LuckyLeprechaun wrote:

ConstableGeneva wrote:Net rating ranking of Stevens era Celtics in 1st Quarter (last 5 seasons):

2019-20: 12th (+1.9)
2018-19: 3rd (+9.1)
2017-18: 4th (+7.4)
2016-17: 9th (+4.0)
2015-16: 5th (+6.5)

Every team has slow starts. Celtics haven't been that bad on balance during Brad's tenure. Maybe some recency bias in play here? Having a different starting five almost every night due to injury could also explain the poor starts THIS season, I dunno.

So I think a few things that the data there might be hiding. First, showing the full quarter hides games like the Bucks game where we started down 17-2 only to warm up and score 20 points in 4 minutes, ending the quarter down 33-28 so while that only hurt our net 1st quarter points by 5, it doesn't change the fact that we started the game scoring only 1 time in the first 4 minutes and trailing by 15 at the 8 minute mark.

Second, the average net rating doesn't show how big of deltas there are. If one team consistently has right around 30 points in the first every game and another team scores only 20 half the time and scores 40 the other half, their 1st quarter point average is going to be equal, but the 2nd team clearly has far more slow starts.

To somewhat address the 2nd part, that is indeed right. The Bucks for example have a ridiculous 1st Q net rating of +14.4 but have had five games where they were down by at least 14 points after the 1st (all eventual losses). Celtics had 8 games wherein they were down double digits after the 1st (eventually won 2). Same number for the Clippers (2-6).

One would have to go through game-to-game play-by-play data to find out if we fell behind big in the 1st 4-6 minutes of a game, but who has time for that? Haha.

LuckyLeprechaun wrote:

ConstableGeneva wrote:Net rating ranking of Stevens era Celtics in 1st Quarter (last 5 seasons):

2019-20: 12th (+1.9)
2018-19: 3rd (+9.1)
2017-18: 4th (+7.4)
2016-17: 9th (+4.0)
2015-16: 5th (+6.5)

Every team has slow starts. Celtics haven't been that bad on balance during Brad's tenure. Maybe some recency bias in play here? Having a different starting five almost every night due to injury could also explain the poor starts THIS season, I dunno.

So I think a few things that the data there might be hiding. First, showing the full quarter hides games like the Bucks game where we started down 17-2 only to warm up and score 20 points in 4 minutes, ending the quarter down 33-28 so while that only hurt our net 1st quarter points by 5, it doesn't change the fact that we started the game scoring only 1 time in the first 4 minutes and trailing by 15 at the 8 minute mark.

Second, the average net rating doesn't show how big of deltas there are. If one team consistently has right around 30 points in the first every game and another team scores only 20 half the time and scores 40 the other half, their 1st quarter point average is going to be equal, but the 2nd team clearly has far more slow starts.

That's just basketball. Teams go on 15 net-point runs all the time. If you just pick arbitrary start and ends points you can find multiple such runs in many games.

Slow starts are not the problem in Brad Stevens era ... the problem is not enough shooting, and this is on DA !

That said DA has gone BPA and the players that fall to him are not shooters ..... DA also knows when to set in stone the overall core, and then trade off assets for shooters to compliment that core... timing not quite right for all of this just yet

It is the characteristic of a team lacking a top 5 player but having a depth advantage.