Rondo should play 40 mins a night!

rsceltic34 · Post #1 » by **rsceltic34** » Thu May 15, 2008 5:53 pm

Enough with this rotation! Rondo should be our only point gaurd this postseason.
There will be plenty of time to rest after the season is over.
If Lebron can average 40 min in the playoffs why cant Rondo hes younger!
Rest him at the end of the quarters, thats like a 5 min rest right there.

No more wishing Cassell is hot and watching him get beat off the dribble every defensive possession.
I think hes more of a liability even when he is scoring. Dont get me wrong hes a solid player off the bench.
But why not try bringing House in for 5-10 mins a game his range will cause problems, and West or Gibson wont be able to rome around the paint and help on defense.

Besides i remeber on several occasions when Rondo had a bad 1st half and still ended up having 15pts, 10asst, and 4reb in the regular season......more than enough for a "W" if Pierce and KG come to play!!

All im saying is you cant give up on Rondo early like dock did in Cleveland!!!!

SonicYouth34 · Post #2 » by **SonicYouth34** » Thu May 15, 2008 5:56 pm

I never understood why RR doesn't play more, he's not old like the big 3 he can take a beating

MyInsatiableOne · Post #3 » by **MyInsatiableOne** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:06 pm

SonicYouth34 wrote:I never understood why RR doesn't play more, he's not old like the big 3 he can take a beating

Exactly...he's 22. He's a pup, he could probably play 48 if we asked him to.

kmgarnett21 · Post #4 » by **kmgarnett21** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:11 pm

i was happy to see him play the majority of the game last night. i was waitin & waitin for doc to bring cassell in durin the 3rd qtr, but actually, he did the right thing in leaving rondo out there.

keep it up rondo!

ermocrate · Post #5 » by **ermocrate** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:15 pm

If he plays like that he has to play, if he makes bone head decisions like in the past games he NEEDS to be seated and we are in the hands of the Ubuntu killer.

Celts17Pride · Post #6 » by **Celts17Pride** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:35 pm

I agree Rondo needs to play 40 minutes but if he plays poorly in Game 6 half the posters on RealGM will be asking why Doc didn't play Cassell. :roll:

You gotta love these forums.

kmgarnett21 · Post #7 » by **kmgarnett21** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:43 pm

what doc should do....

IF rondo messes up, then bring in cassell for a few minutes & feel cassell out. if sam hits his first few shots, then try to play him some, but if he's gonna play like crap & miss shots & pound the ball for 23 seconds like he has been doin, either give rondo the nod again & show him he has doc's confidence, or bring in house for a lil while.

it all depends on how cassell comes off the bench. if u notice, when he hits his first couple shots, then he's helpful, but if he misses his first shot or two, he's horrible.

but lets all hope rondo plays like he did yesterday the rest of the playoffs

tombattor · Post #8 » by **tombattor** » Thu May 15, 2008 7:05 pm

kmgarnett21 wrote:what doc should do....

IF rondo messes up, then bring in cassell for a few minutes & feel cassell out. if sam hits his first few shots, then try to play him some, but if he's gonna play like crap & miss shots & pound the ball for 23 seconds like he has been doin, either give rondo the nod again & show him he has doc's confidence, or bring in house for a lil while.

it all depends on how cassell comes off the bench. if u notice, when he hits his first couple shots, then he's helpful, but if he misses his first shot or two, he's horrible.

but lets all hope rondo plays like he did yesterday the rest of the playoffs

Chill. We've seen enough of Cassell. No need to feel anything out any more. How much worse does he have to play before House takes his minutes? In case you haven't noticed, he can't guard a broken chair at this point, so with his penchant for killing the offensive flow, he's less than useless. He gives the Cavs a serious advantage on both ends of the court.

Play Rondo the lion share of the minute and give House or TA ALL of the backup minutes. Cassell shouldn't see a second of PT the rest of the playoffs.

humblebum · Post #9 » by **humblebum** » Thu May 15, 2008 7:10 pm

tombattor wrote:-= original quote snipped =-

Chill. We've seen enough of Cassell. No need to feel anything out any more. How much worse does he have to play before House takes his minutes? In case you haven't noticed, he can't guard a broken chair at this point, so with his penchant for killing the offensive flow, he's less than useless. He gives the Cavs a serious advantage on both ends of the court.

Play Rondo the lion share of the minute and give House or TA ALL of the backup minutes. Cassell shouldn't see a second of PT the rest of the playoffs.

I'd be very tempted to do just as you say here but Doc is the type of coach who really likes to stick with "his" guys. It seems that for whatever reason House and Tony Allen aren't in Doc's rotation and it's going to be very difficult for them to break in regardless of how poor Cassell and at times Ray Allen have played on both ends of the court.

Rondo_Fan · Post #10 » by **Rondo_Fan** » Thu May 15, 2008 7:25 pm

I've heard the "Stick Cassell in there for a few minutes to see if his shot is falling" theory a few times this week, including on national TV, but I don't buy it.

First of all, Rondo is doing a lot more on defense.

Second, Rondo broke down the Cavs interior defense last night off the dribble. That's huge. They've had us flustered all series. We could easily have gone into last night's game down 3-1 instead of tied up 2-2.

So keep Rondo in there and make him attack. He is too quick and dodgy for them and he opens up holes where there were none.

Of course, you don't want to go to extremes so that you're afraid to take out Rondo if he is completely, positively stinking up the joint.

But we shouldn't be micro-managing minutes between him and Cassell, based on whose shot might be falling.

Celtic Esquire · Post #11 » by **Celtic Esquire** » Thu May 15, 2008 7:37 pm

Celts17Pride wrote:I agree Rondo needs to play 40 minutes but if he plays poorly in Game 6 half the posters on RealGM will be asking why Doc didn't play Cassell.

You gotta love these forums.

I guarantee you that even if Rondo is shooting 0-10 from the field and has 10 TOs, I will NEVER even consider wanting Sam in the game.

Our offense grinds to a halt when Sam is the PG since he just dribbles and dribbles and then launches a contested shot against 3 defenders.

tombattor · Post #12 » by **tombattor** » Thu May 15, 2008 8:10 pm

FWIW, Cassell hasn't been nearly as bad with pounding the ball, but his flaws are real and can't be masked.

His poor D is the biggest problem. Whoever he guards either beats him off the dribble or can lose him very easily with any sceen. Which means, the back line of our D has to scramble to either pick up the guy or the guy has an open shot/path to the basket.

Then his inability to run creates another huge problem because the Cavs want to slow the game down and we want to speed it up. However, with Cassell, we're forced to run a same half-court set on made and missed baskets.

Then there is the whole ego thing, which makes him look for his shot first, second, and third before passing. What's worse is that he feels like he DESERVES shots. Every time you see Rondo about to check in, this guy launches one with 2+ guys on him, just to get his shots off.

What has he done to deserve any more looks? Only thing I can think of is that his ego and personality is so big, it's beyond Doc's control and he's unable to bench him. In which case, Doc should be replaced with someone who can, ASAP.

Post #13 » by **ParticleMan** » Thu May 15, 2008 8:25 pm

Cassell did basically win a game for us against the Hawks. And he can't keep playing as badly as he has, I mean the guy is still pretty talented. Sure he has serious flaws but that's why he is a backup PG.

All that said, I agree play Rondo unless he's absolutely horrible. Play House behind Rondo hfirst, unless they trap and House can't handle the ball. Unfortunately Rondo has been pretty terrible in a bunch of games, so it's not like 20/13 is the norm. When that happens and Cassell can't hit, we're sunk, which is what has happened pretty much every road game.

Game 6 will be a great test for Rondo. Can he come out with the same intensity and effectiveness on the road? That's going to be the key.

BillessuR6 · Post #14 » by **BillessuR6** » Thu May 15, 2008 8:25 pm

The problem with Rondo at this point is that he isn`t consistent enough. He has great games but the also has poor games. And that is because he is only 22 and is in his second season.

He has the potential to be an allstar, he just needs a little more seasoning to be able to play like he did yesterday on a daily basis.

So, if he isn`t having a good day you can`t play him 40+ minutes. Then you need to give Eddie or Cassell the chance and see if one of them is in a better form.

tombattor · Post #15 » by **tombattor** » Thu May 15, 2008 8:32 pm

But it's not just about Cassell's offense. We got him only for his offense because his defense is atrocious. He's probably the worst defensive player left in the playoffs. So if he's not getting it done on offense, what's the point of trying to see if he can play good offense, when House automatically guarantees us a defensive upgrade over Cassell?

Post #16 » by **UGA Hayes** » Thu May 15, 2008 8:38 pm

We should be fair here, Rondo has had some pretty bad stretches this series so its not such a no brainer and honestly he has been damn agrressive the whole series for good and for bad- I mean some of those floaters Rondo hit last night were very high degree of difficulty shots that I think he misses more than makes. What I liked were the bounce pass in the lane to KG.

My biggest gripe whether its Rondo, Cassell, House, Pierce, Ray Perkins whoever is to sit them for a few minutes if they are playing bad and by a few I mean around 3 or so. Before last night there was way too much rigidity in the substitution patterns. We knew when a player was going to get subbed out irregardless of the situation.

Doc broke that pattern last night. If you will remember in game 4 of the Atl series Rondo was having a similarly awesome third quarter and then sat until the 4:30 mark in the fourth quarter. Obviously We didn't sit him yesterday.

I also liked that Doc recognized that Perk really didn't have it yesterday and went with someone else. These are the adjustments people are talking about. I actually didn't hava a problem with Davis playing in game 4. Its just you have to pull him if it does not work. We've had too many 7 minutes with a basket runs in this series without doing anything. Thankfully Doc completely changed it up yesterday and I applaud him for that. I feel much more comfortable with the guy who coached yesterday even he does lie and say that he did nothing different yesterday when he clearly did.

GuyClinch · Post #17 » by **GuyClinch** » Thu May 15, 2008 11:03 pm

Rondo should be backed up by House or TA at this point. I know your going to scream about TA and his turnovers but he can really pester West on the defensive end and has the body to just simply eliminate him from the game..

With Gibson out West is going to be playing 40+ minutes. So putting TA in there to harrass him could really work. It's not like West can pressure the ball that well. it won't kill us.

Pete

tombattor · Post #18 » by **tombattor** » Fri May 16, 2008 4:50 am

Well, as we all know from the days he was with the Celtics, West can't handle ball pressure. It clearly showed in game 5 too. If Doc isn't a moron, we'd be pressing every time he brings up the ball, but since he is a **** moron, we don't. Instead we have Cassell playing him 20 minutes a game with no pressure and no wasted energy on defensive end.

Great job Doc. Please fire yourself.

GuyClinch · Post #19 » by **GuyClinch** » Fri May 16, 2008 6:47 am

My feeling is that we should try some different things to shake things up. Like I said TA could make Delonte West's life a living hell. He can also get us a few trips to the line. I am flat out SHOCKED that Doc has dropped him like he has. I wouldn't lie to you. I thought TA was his guy.

Everyone pretty much thinks Cleveland will win in Cleveland (let's be honest).. So what does Doc have to lose? Play Tony Allen and House some Doc..

Ray Allen and Cassell have been SUCKING. If it works - well great. If it doesn't - we probably would have lost anyway.

Pete

BillessuR6 · Post #20 » by **BillessuR6** » Fri May 16, 2008 8:30 am

GuyClinch wrote:My feeling is that we should try some different things to shake things up. Like I said TA could make Delonte West's life a living hell. He can also get us a few trips to the line. I am flat out SHOCKED that Doc has dropped him like he has. I wouldn't lie to you. I thought TA was his guy.

Everyone pretty much thinks Cleveland will win in Cleveland (let's be honest).. So what does Doc have to lose? Play Tony Allen and House some Doc..

Ray Allen and Cassell have been SUCKING. If it works - well great. If it doesn't - we probably would have lost anyway.

Pete

Agreed!