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Our problem this year has been consistency. We cant depend on players (other then garnett and to a lesser extent pierce and Posey) on any given night to produce withen a certain range. Let me give you a couple of examples before tonight in the last 10 games rondo played he has scored either 4 points or less 5 times and 13 points or more 5 times with absolutly nothing in between his season average is 9ppg but he hasnt scored withen 3 of that since december, and even then only 5 times out of 13 games with 2 games of 1 point or less and 3 games of 17 or more. Kendrick perkins in his last 5 games prior to his dismal performance scored 3,8,24,4,21,7.

Eddie house has just been plain bad in January, so I guess he has been kind of consistent (37% from the field 31% from three compared to 44% overall and .
45% from 3 in november)

Ray allen has had 5 games of less then 13 points in january and has averaged only 15.6 ppg as opposed to the 20 ppg he averaged in november. While tony has been the very model of inconstistency (last 5 games 12,3,15,7,2).

SO whats the point of all this, to be a 60 win team you need to win 73% of your games, thats really hard to do when on any given night you cant count on more then 2 or 3 players to give you a certain amount of production. Now I focused on points here but this also applies to other stats(for exmaple rondo having 2 or fewer assists in 5 of the last 10).

Now out fo charecter games are a good thing when it comes in the fork of perks recent outburts, but its hard to plan an offensive attack when you dont know which guy is going to give you 20 and which guy is going to give you 4.

How do we fix this problem? Thats a tough question, some of it has to do with inconsitency of rotations I beleive, have you noticed that our unit with less then 3 minutes left in the first quarter is almost never the same as it was the game before, Sometimes its Pierce, T Allen Posey and Baby and house, other times its ray allen, rondo Posey (the bigs are always changing the past 5 games its been scal, baby powe and sometimes its pollard) but perhaps if doc settled players into more consistent roles their production might stabelize. I know sometimes we have to play for matchups, but most of the time we dont.

The biggest factor in all of this probably is youth, while it doesn't account for Ray allen or eddie house, Rondo, Perk and Allen are dealing with a lack of expierance that makes them less likely to perform consistently. Rondo has had some injuries, but Perk and Allen have been in the league a little while now and dont have as many excuses I shouldnt leave baby out, who I love but also has not consistently been putting up numbers when he has been out there this month.

I have a theory, We are a team that is not as good as the team that was hot out fo the gates in november when everyone was on a hot streak but we are a better team then we have been in january where injuries have played a big role and our shooters have just gone cold, maybe it will steady off in febuary, but I am going to keep an eye on our box scores to see if Rondo, Allen and Perk settle into more consistend (and hopefully consistently higher) outputs.

Spin, excellent post. My take on the subject is, when you rely a great deal on perimeter shooting to put up points, inconsistency kind of comes with the territory. Is it Perk who's being inconsistent or are they inconsistently looking to work the ball into the post to provide him an opportunity? Is it Big Baby who's being inconsistent or is it again inconsistent offensive focus and identity?

Yes, I think there are some legitimate aspects of inconsistency when you look more at the up and down defensive efforts of some players and same thing for hitting the glass for rebounds. That's where the accountability is more personal, IMO. But you also get that from most players. Even KG and Pierce are susceptible to that for stretches over a long and grinding NBA season.

Inconsistent rotations? Sounds like a coaching problem to me.

I agree with Darrendaye... the team is searching for it's offensive identity which leads to inconsistency of focus. The blame should be spread out to coaches, the Big Three, the younger players, the role players, etc. I think right now the team isn't functioning at it's best but it's more of a team based problem than something that can be placed on the shoulders of specific individuals (that includes Doc).

Great post. This team is just going through a little down period right now. Injuries, inconsistent shooting and lineup shuffling all contribute to the problem. Good thing this is happening in January as opposed to April, May and June.

I think we'll be fine and once we get the backup pg situation resolved everything should fall into place.

Eh I don't necessarily want us to have consistant rotations down the stretch, I'd prefer going with who is playing well. We have a lot guys who tend to be feast or famine.

nasbahceltic wrote:Great post. This team is just going through a little down period right now. Injuries, inconsistent shooting and lineup shuffling all contribute to the problem. Good thing this is happening in January as opposed to April, May and June.

I think we'll be fine and once we get the backup pg situation resolved everything should fall into place.

I agree with this. We are very much a perimeter team. KG takes just as many 15 and out footers and jump hooks. Pierce is a distributor right now he doesn't play like Tony Allen. Our roleplayers are either young or jump shooters [exception Posey thank god we have him and not Reggie Miller]

So it makes sense were inconsistent. But I also agree that once we get a real back-up PG this will lessen. Not the inconsistency of contributors but the stretches of bad offense. Young guys need a system to play in and someone to control the offense. PGs are suppose to do that not SG's like House and certianly not Tony Allen.

Am I missing something? We are pace to win 68+- games. No other Celtic's team has ever put up a better record at the half way point...ever. I fail to see how different role players stepping up on a nightly basis is problematic.

I think Garnett and Pierce have been very good, to a fault, at looking to distribute the ball. I think R. Allen has been very poor at looking to pass to anyone other than Garnett and Pierce. Ray has been dilly-dallying with the ball too much for my tastes and often dribbles aimlessly when a wide open flash in the post by Perkins, Davis and Power is totally ignored.

I don't want this to come off as a piss on Ray post but part of his personal inefficiency, at times, is due to his predictability with the ball in his hands. Meanwhile, Pierce has been very cognizant, of late, in involving the role players when they are open.

I think when you see a high-fluctuation in points scored by, say Perkins, you really need to look at the core ball-handlers. The reason being that ~75% of his field goals are assisted. If he is not getting fed the ball in prime opportunities, for him, he isn't likely to create. Part of that is team philosophy, part of that is due to the player's inherent skill set.

I think Perkins is a lot like LaFrentz in Rivers' offense, in a way. When Perkins is getting a good deal of scoring attempts (both FGA and FTA), it is a pretty strong indication that the ball is moving and that the offense is running at its best. While not always true, of course, I would say it is mostly true.

Long story short, I agree with DarrenDaye in regard to weighing offensive focus vs inconsistency. Sure, a player like Perkins or Davis could be a bit inconsistent in the efficiency they shoot but if the scoring opportunities are not there, as shown by FGA and FTA attempts, it is more likely the inconsistency of the players who have the ball in their hands most.

I agree. Our most consistent players are Garnett, Pierce, Posey, and House (to an extent). Everyone else has been pretty inconsistent. Although, Big Baby has been brought the effort when he's gotten the minutes. Pierce has been having some crap games as of late and no surprise we're struggling.

Did we forget that this is a completely new team that hasn't played with one another before?

With the injury bug going around we haven't had consistent time in practice or on the floor....of course we're going to look inconsistent.

Every team goes through these consistency issues through out the year even the Championship Spurs.

But not every team has the win/loss record we do.

We're in pretty good shape just need to stop our nagging injuries where they are and get healthy.