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As Mike Breen always reminds us during every single national broadcast, 'Turnovers have been the Celtics Achilles' heel all season.' We are currently 4th in the league in turnovers per game at 15.93 a game. We force 15.13 a game (8th best at causing turnovers), giving us a deficit of 0.8 TOs per game. The 0.8 TO difference puts us 8th to last in the league. Our two biggest hurdles to clear towards the title, the Lakers and Cavs, are much better than us at taking care of the ball. The Lakers are 3rd in the league forcing 1.69 more TOs than they commit per game, and the Cavs (4th) force 1.49 more.

Rondo has a great assist to TO ratio, and Eddie House takes care of the ball well, only averaging 0.69 TOs for game. The problem with Eddie is that he's too safe with the ball and forces the other guys playing with him to make plays, who are much worse at maintaining possession. (Tony, Ray, and Paul especially) As our backup pg to date, Eddie has only averaged 1.1 Assists per game. I think that having Steph out there handling the ball and setting up guys in the same way Rondo does with the first unit, will really help us out. Our offense should operate more calmly then before, and we'll hopefully see less of the one on one stuff.

Looking at the hand ratings and TO statistics of some of the main culprits of our TOs on 82 games...

Perkins: Hands Rating: 3.2 Offensive Fouls: 31 Bad Passes: 36 Ball Handling TOs: 28 Other TOs: 15
Leon Powe: Hands Rating: 5.1 Offensive Fouls: 22 Bad Passes: 9 Ball Handling TOs:25 Other TOs: 5
Davis: Hands Rating: 7.9 Offensive Fouls: 19 Bad Passes: 10 Ball Handling TOs: 10 Other TOs: 0
Tony Allen: Hands Rating: 9 Offensive Fouls: 15 Bad Passes: 22 Ball Handling TOs: 27 Other TOs: 2
Pierce: Hands Rating: 11.4 Offensive Fouls: 26 Bad Passes: 80 Ball Handling TOs: 54 Other TOs: 3
Ray Allen: Hands Rating: 13.2 Offensive Fouls: 5 Bad Passes: 47 Ball Handling TOs: 48
-----And the Good Guys-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KG: Hands Rating: 15 Offensive Fouls: 14 Bad Passes: 37 Ball Handling TOs: 34 Other TOs: 4
House: Hands Rating: 18.4 Offensive Fouls: 1 Bad Passes: 24 Ball Handling TOs: 12 Other TOs: 0
Rondo:Hands Rating: 29Offensive Fouls: 12 Bad Passes: 98 Ball Handling TOs: 44 Other TOs: 1

From this we can see that Perk should never, ever put the ball on the floor or even try to pass it for that matter. I wouldn't be surprised if his hands rating is last in the league. Leon is known to be a black hole on offense, so the fact that he only made 9 bad passes, shouldn't be seen as a good thing. When Leon's doing anything other than going right up with it, he gets sloppy. Big Baby is a surprise to see so low, because we know that he handles the ball really well for a guy his size. What he needs to work on is not running over people. Our worst ball handling wing is, not surprisingly, Tony Allen. He's not that bad at passing the ball, or even charging into people, but he loses control of the ball while dribbling, way, way too much. When Tony comes back, having Steph around should really help him out.

Then we get to the 2 guys who should benefit the most from playing with Steph. When the 2nd unit is in, one of Pierce or Ray is playing with them and they seem to take it upon themselves to become play-makers. Pierce has never been a good ball-handler, especially in the paint, and he has a bad habit of not looking where he's passing the ball after getting cut off. Ray is better than Pierce, but he's not much of a play-maker, and when he gets trapped seems to bumble the ball.

Like I said earlier, House is not committing TOs himself, but his presence forces others into trying to do too much. Even when Eddie does make passes, they're not always on the money, as his 24 Bad Passes shows. Then we get to Rondo, he has the highest hands rating on the team and he should really have the ball almost all of the time that he is on the court. As much as he handles the basketball, Pierce and Ray Allen still have committed more dribbling TOs than him.

Here's why I think Marbury will really be a big lift in the turnover department:
07-08 Marbury: Hands Rating:22.1 Offensive Fouls: 5 Bad Passes:33 Ball Handling TOs:10 Other TOs: 0
06-07 Marbury: Hands Rating:20 Offensive Fouls:31 Bad Passes:78 Ball Handling TOs:70 Other TOs:0

We'll be replacing the time spent with the ball in the hands of guys like Leon, Tony, Pierce, and Ray with a player who's only 2nd to Rondo in controlling the ball on the team, and unlike Eddie, is able to set other players up for easy hoops. To get to where LA and Cleveland are, we only need to shave 2 turnovers per game off, and I think that Marbury should help us get there.

Good post, Rocky5000, and I agree with you that Marbury should cure alot of things that hamper the 2nd team. In order of improvement, I think we can identify three areas where definite improvement will occur with Marbury as the main backup PG:

1. You already identified the first: Ray/Paul, still acting as the bridge to the 2nd unit (until Doc plays them into the ground), won't have to work as hard as they once did, since they'll have a point guard getting them the ball in good places to score. This will probably benefit Ray more than Paul, since Ray is more adept at coming off screens and spotting up the corner, while Paul tends to get a majority of his offense off one-on-one moves. Still, neither will have to work as hard in the bridging department, which should save their legs a little (since God knows Doc has not decided he's not going to do anything to save their legs).

2. Eddie House is now full time SG on the 2nd team. Once Marbury learns to look for Eddie, I can see some House explosions in the future, especially against the bad teams. I'm still skeptical about what Eddie can bring in the playoffs, since I find his game to be easily defended by teams that bother to game plan our 2nd unit (like teams do in the playoffs). Even so, his presence makes him a threat and makes the other team have to defend him, even if such defense is rather easily accomplished. The House/Marbury backcourt is also prone to defensive lapses, at least right now. Marbury will need to become a better than average defender (which is well within his ability) to make up for House's defensive deficiency (he's short and can't guard people very well on the perimeter, though he's hustles and can make plans in the context of the team defense, usually by cheating off his man and getting in the passing lanes).

3. Our 2nd unit bigs finally have somebody to break down a defense and give them a nice pass. Marbury made a great bounce pass off the pick-and-roll last night, hitting Powe in stride as he was streaking to the basket. Powe especially should benefit from a playmaking point guard (TA was about the only one on the 2nd team who ever got Powe the ball in the good scoring positons), but Moore and Baby should as well, especially in pick-and-pop situations. I expect to see increased efficiency from all our 2nd unit bigs.

4. (Conditional) It's really a shame he's out (again), but TA would have absolutely flourished on the court with Marbury at point. TA is at his best when the defense isn't set and he would have been a killer finisher once Marbury breaks down the defense with the dribble or on the break. He would also have been freed from having to create from others (though he's more than able to do so), and this should have simplified his game to the point where he could finally find some consistency; limiting himself to 2-dribble drives on offense, and busting his butt on D. I really hope he's healthy (and Doc plays him) come playoff time. To me, he stands to see the biggest improvement in his game now that Marbury has taken over as 2nd unit point guard.

So, yeah, assuming at least the first 3 happen, we should see a nice dip in our turnover per game mark.

Throughout the year we have made many stupid TOs. We tend to make bad lob passes with terrible angles on them, make careless passes when we don't need to, and too many iso turnovers from Pierce. Perk and Tony are who we thought they are, but do bring certain intangibles to the team. When you pretty much play 3 on 5 offensively this will happen also, so yes, Marbury will help some in this area. Also we don't play defense like we used to which makes us play more halfcourt offense which leads to more turnovers.

We desperately need a dip in this area.

I only hope that Marbury can cure this.

A good dip in the turnovers can help make up for the rebounding of Moore and the lack of defensive depth we've lost from last year's playoff team.

It's a lot to expect from him, but if he can reduce the turnovers that would be more then any player could do for the Celtics at this point in time.

The players can drop the amount of turnovers by not being careless, taking care of the bal, and not forcing passes that aern't there. One of you stats guys needs to look at the percentage of turnovers we have when Perk touches the ball during a possesion, you may be surprised. Compare that to the percentage of turnovers when he doesn't touch the ball while being on the court.

What I dont get is why Celtics in 2008-2009 commit more TO (1306 TO, projected to 82games) than 2007-2008 (1246 TO).

The defense to create the TO is also weaker. Celtics in 2008-2009 cause 1240 TO(projected to 82games), less than 2007-2008 (1308 TO).

But I think Marbury could help for sure.

Bluewhale wrote:What I dont get is why Celtics in 2008-2009 commit more TO (1306 TO, projected to 82games) than 2007-2008 (1246 TO).

The defense to create the TO is also weaker. Celtics in 2008-2009 cause 1240 TO(projected to 82games), less than 2007-2008 (1308 TO).

But I think Marbury could help for sure.

It's simple, really...

Posey = Great spacing and didn't turn it over because he was a jump shooter. Guys got more space to work.

Rondo = Forcing the ball inside even more than he did last year. His turnovers are up from 1.9 to 2.7, but I guess he's at least being a lot more dominant. The reason the offense hasn't been hurt by his .8 more turnovers is because his TS% is up from 49.2 to 55.1, which is roughly probably the same as a miss less or so (take into account he's getting to the FT stripe more often this season too).

Perkins = Gets post-ups this season. Last season he barely got touches outside of wide open dunks. His turnovers are up from 1.6 to 2.2 because the older vets want him to somehow be an offensive option. He's been nice sometimes with his hook shots, but it's only expected for a role player to turn the ball over more in the situation. Hopefully come playoff time it's all Big 3 + Rondo, not Perkins trying to be Tim Duncan.

Very solid observation and thanks.

I am not worry about Rondo. I am totally find with his growth of assist and turnovers.

But you are right, the chaos in searching replacement for Posey's role is hurting this team so far. But given Scal and Baby can hit the jump shot regularly, hope it would be better by time.

Good topic, Rocky. I agree that Marbury could help decrease turnovers. Let's see in the next few weeks if the turnovers go down a bit.