RealGM

Sat here the last two nights watching this, and its obvious that the athleticism of the Hawks is giving the Celt s trouble.

Doc's having a bad series first off. He didn't play House until the 4th, and of course the guy can't deliver. Outside of Posey, we are getting nothing from the bench. Cassell is abysmal, and Powe and Davis can't finish.

What's the answer? SHORTEN THE BENCH.

Doc is outsmarting himself here.

Rondo was terrible tonight at his most important job -- calming the team down and getting a good shot. 14 and 11 sounds real good, but I thought it was weak point guard play.

Defensively?

Getting killed on matchups. KG is a DPOY, but he can't guard Josh Smith. The Celts were a great team defensively, but they aren't a particularly great 1-on-1 defensively. This game smacked for Tony Allen on Joe Johnson.

Hustle?

Not blocking out, not hitting the floor. The Celts just sleep walked through 3 and 4.

-dismal free throw shooting
-stagnant offense
-defense is just not there
-no sense of urgency
-cassell has not impressed me yet, and i was a huuuge cassell advocate
- where is ta, house?

im very frustrated with this team right now

i hate to see it, but i'd like more small ball. put posey on josh smith. let KG take on horford. we aren't taking advantage of our size, so might as well match up with their speed.

anyhow i think home cooking cures a lot of ills. it's a 3 game series and we have home court. i'm not worried yet.

ParticleMan wrote:i hate to see it, but i'd like more small ball. put posey on josh smith. let KG take on horford. we aren't taking advantage of our size, so might as well match up with their speed.

anyhow i think home cooking cures a lot of ills. it's a 3 game series and we have home court. i'm not worried yet.

I agree here. Matchup with Atlanta. We are getting killed by their athleticism. I think they should bag Cassell in favor of Tony Allen. Celts need a guy who can get to the rim. Also, he could play some defense.

Need to drive to the basket.

Tonight, the game was even except for lousy FT shooting. But even isn't good enough.

Cassell and House were collectively terrible in Atlanta. That's the one big positional weakness.

You're right that an adjustment needs to be made on Josh Smith. The guy is not THAT good.

Adjustments need to be made on Joe Johnson too, whether or not the answer is Tony Allen.

General sharpening in all things would be good, of course.

Have you guys considered that maybe your team just isn't as good as the hype?

i always thought that our weakness would be against athletic teams. bobcats,wizards,hawks. doc doesn't know how to match up against them because of the success of our best 5 against the rest of the league. in the playoffs, ADJUSTMENT is crucial and he has to do it!

kg really can't defend smith if he's trying to anchor the defense and help everyone. of course he can defend smith if he's his only assignment on defense. he did a great job on denying smith the ball but the problem is he can't chase smith all the way to the outside coz the celtics will have a hole in the middle which will allow the other hawks to penetrate.

THE ANSWER

we need a defensive line up

KG-horford
posey-smith
pierce-williams
TA-jj
allen-bibby

this line up can match up well against an athletic team like atl. we don't need a great ball handler in this case because bibby is not a good defender

LordBaldric wrote:Have you guys considered that maybe your team just isn't as good as the hype?

well, we did win a whole bunch of games this year. it's not all hype.

but i figured the team would struggle to get their playoff feet under them. they relied on such precision execution on offense and defense to win them games, but when other teams step it up a notch they haven't really been able to execute. the c's need to calm down and run their stuff, like they did in the 3rd Q. right now everyone is trying to do too much, and not doing the same stuff that they did in the RS.

ParticleMan wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



well, we did win a whole bunch of games this year. it's not all hype.

but i figured the team would struggle to get their playoff feet under them. they relied on such precision execution on offense and defense to win them games, but when other teams step it up a notch they haven't really been able to execute. the c's need to calm down and run their stuff, like they did in the 3rd Q. right now everyone is trying to do too much, and not doing the same stuff that they did in the RS.

Thank you for the rational response.

rambo_ortega wrote:i always thought that our weakness would be against athletic teams. bobcats,wizards,hawks. doc doesn't know how to match up against them because of the success of our best 5 against the rest of the league. in the playoffs, ADJUSTMENT is crucial and he has to do it!

kg really can't defend smith if he's trying to anchor the defense and help everyone. of course he can defend smith if he's his only assignment on defense. he did a great job on denying smith the ball but the problem is he can't chase smith all the way to the outside coz the celtics will have a hole in the middle which will allow the other hawks to penetrate.

THE ANSWER

we need a defensive line up

KG-horford
posey-smith
pierce-williams
TA-jj
allen-bibby

this line up can match up well against an athletic team like atl. we don't need a great ball handler in this case because bibby is not a good defender

I like the idea because Bibby isn't going to pressure the ball. The big concern is rebounding with that lineup. Rondo should play in that lineup too.

But, I just don't like the physical matchups with the current lineups.

i believe we can still rebound with that line up. coz we can chase long rebounds which is always what atlanta is able to get with their line up.

Don't start Perk. He is more effective on tired players.

I feel like we're taking too many threes. Tonight I felt like every time we had the ball in a big situation, Pierce or Ray jacked up a three. Those are times when you need to take it to the basket. I don't care how many free throws he had missed, Paul needs to get to the line, because eventually he's going to start hitting them.

We are having a tough time matching up with the Hawks athletcisim. Ray can't guard anyone on their team.

It was very disturbing to me how they didn't change anything with respect to the Ray Allen/Joe Johnson matchup. Ray can't be out there if he's letting his man get an automatic 2 every time down the court.

Was there not another matchup the Celts could have gone to on JJ in the clutch? Tony Allen, Posey???

I dont think changing the line-up is a good idea. The Mavs tried that last year by taking out Dampier and playin Dirk at center to try to match up with the warriors. It was a disaster. This hawks team has already gained tons of confidence, seeing the Celtics adjust their rotations to match up against them would boost that confidence even more. The Celtics are a way better basketball team but these hawks are better athletes by miles. You do not wanna juice those guys up any more than you already have. They couldnt keep Perkins off the O-Glass early, keep pounding him in there. KG needs to commit to playing on the inside. Smith is not as good a post defender as he is a weakside guy. KG should take advantage of that. Make JJ work

LordBaldric wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Thank you for the rational response.

Well, can you explain why Perk is utterly useless in the last quarter?

Not only do I think they shouldn't change the lineup I actually think Perk should be playing more. Ray Allen is the guy I might think about taking minutes from.

The Celts did their thing in games 1 and 2. I think they will do it again. It's just a matter of playing the defense they've played all season in ATL.

rambo_ortega wrote:i always thought that our weakness would be against athletic teams. bobcats,wizards,hawks. doc doesn't know how to match up against them because of the success of our best 5 against the rest of the league. in the playoffs, ADJUSTMENT is crucial and he has to do it!

kg really can't defend smith if he's trying to anchor the defense and help everyone. of course he can defend smith if he's his only assignment on defense. he did a great job on denying smith the ball but the problem is he can't chase smith all the way to the outside coz the celtics will have a hole in the middle which will allow the other hawks to penetrate.

THE ANSWER

we need a defensive line up

KG-horford
posey-smith
pierce-williams
TA-jj
allen-bibby

this line up can match up well against an athletic team like atl. we don't need a great ball handler in this case because bibby is not a good defender

Rondo has to play. Period.

^he can still get his minutes. it's not like that line up would play 48 mins. i'm talking about match ups buddy.