Don’t blame Brad Stevens for the Celtics’ 2-0 hole — blame Danny Ainge
The Chicago Bulls were an unmitigated disaster for the majority of the regular season.
Their roster was an amalgamation of three or four different styles of play — a team built for a recently deceased era of basketball — and they played like it.
The result: Coach Fred Hoiberg was on the hot seat, Jimmy Butler was on the trade block, and Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade both had options that the Bulls were going to decline and were hoping would be declined, respectively.
But, perhaps against better judgment, the Bulls didn't fire their coach, didn't trade Butler, didn't buy out Rondo, and saw Wade miss the last bit of the regular season with an injury, and those things, combined with a comically weak late-season schedule and the collective failure of the rest of the East, earned Chicago the eight seed in this year's playoffs. They stood pat.
And that team — that fundamentally flawed, haphazard squad — is now up 2-0 on the top seed in the Eastern Conference after Tuesday's 111-97 win over the Celtics
Boston fans, who fairly (but irrationally) expected better from this Celtics team this postseason, are, of course, losing it after their team lost the first two games of the postseason at home.
They're so verklempt that some are even calling for the head of the Boy Wonder, Celtics coach Brad Stevens.
Boston radio station WEEI jumped ahead of the bandwagon Tuesday, posting a column headlined "BRAD STEVENS OFFICIALLY ON HOT SEAT." (The all-caps was maintained for authenticity's sake.)
This, of course, is the worst possible take. (And this, coming from the guy who wrote this...)
To be fair, the argument for burying Stevens is statistically based — as of Tuesday he's the worst playoff coach in NBA history at 2-10 in his career.
But while I love using stats as unchallenged empirical evidence, making Stevens the fall man for the Celtics' first-round failures is short-sighted and foolish.
It's not Stevens' fault that the Celtics are down 2-0 to the eighth-seeded Bulls — it's general manager Danny Ainge's.
Rajon Rondo turns back clock, helps Chicago Bulls put Boston Celtics in 2-0 hole
BOSTON -- It was as if Rajon Rondo never left.
To be precise, the former point guard of the Celtics was playing as if he hadn’t spent his previous two seasons in Dallas and Sacramento, as if the preceding trades of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett had never happened, as if his ACL had never been torn.
There has been a long list of incidents and accidents for Rondo to overcome, and overcome them he has. While amassing his near-triple-double line of 11 points, 14 assists, nine rebounds and five steals in Game 2 on Tuesday, the 31 year old looked every bit like his younger 2011 postseason self -- except, of course, for his Chicago Bulls uniform.
"He was the key early in the game as far as getting us up the floor,’’ said coach Fred Hoiberg after his Bulls’ 111-97 win gave them a sweep of the two opening games here. "Rajon did a terrific job once we got the ball off the glass to push the ball down the floor and get our guys some good shots, which led to some confidence.’’
Down 0-2 on their way to Chicago, Boston is in danger of becoming the first conference champion in the East to be upset by a No. 8 seed in the seven-game era. The Celtics’ afflictions are definitely old-school. They were beaten by what have traditionally been the two most important positions in basketball -- by Rondo, the pass-first point guard who won his matchup against the grieving Isaiah Thomas (20 points on 6-for-15 from the field and a more telling 7-for-13 from the free-throw line), and by Robin Lopez, the 7-foot center who continues to rub their noses in the offensive glass.
Lopez’s 18 points (8-for-11) and eight rebounds had much greater influence than the box score will attest. His five offensive boards had the impact of so many quarterback sacks. He was like a pass-rushing defensive end that the Celtics simply couldn’t block. As Lopez continued to break through for second chances, the Celtics fans began to complain and boo. And then, almost passive-aggressively, Chicago’s center would back away to knock down one midrange set shot after another, which in turn set off reactions that must have been even more satisfying: He could hear his audience mumbling in pent-up frustration.
"Some of the biggest shots of the whole game were Lopez’s jump shots,’’ said Boston coach Brad Stevens. "He hit those three jump shots in the third quarter that stemmed the tide of our run and were huge … Lopez has crushed us.’’
When Boston focused on the boards by starting the third quarter with 7-foot backup center Tyler Zeller, Lopez and the Bulls merely changed the subject by making shots at a compounded rate. Chicago shot 56.8 percent from the field in the second half, and 51.1 percent overall.
So much is going wrong for the Celtics that it’s hard to know where they can begin to turn the series around. It was understandable, during their news conferences after Game 2, that not one question was asked about the lingering influence of the shocking death of Thomas’ 22-year-old sister, Chyna Thomas, on Saturday. The events in the arena have moved on, as they must, even if the Celtics’ hearts have not. Thomas plans to return home to Tacoma to be with his family before rejoining the team in Chicago for Game 3 on Friday -- and his teammates may yet make the trip to Washington to be with him.
These circumstances have been cruel to Thomas and his Celtics in a way that transcends basketball. But if we are to focus on the first two games, to the exclusion of more important events, then it is only fair to acknowledge that the young Celtics have been unable to prepare as they normally would. They had arrived to the No. 1 seed years ahead of schedule -- before they’ve even cashed in on the potential No. 1 picks of the Nets that are coming in the next two drafts – and their margin for error has always been unusually slim for a top-ranked contender, as revealed by their dismal record against the top teams this season (a combined 8-15 against seeds No. 2-5 in the East and No. 1-4 in the West). And now, instead of amping up for the pursuit of their first postseason series victory since the 2012 era of Garnett, Pierce and Rondo, they’ve been in mourning.
That is one reason why the final outcome of this series isn’t yet assured -- who’s to say the Celtics won’t recover their energy by Friday?
Then again, and just as fairly, what is to say that it will make a difference even if they do?
The priority for the Bulls has been to cut off the driving lanes for Thomas and his teammates, and on Tuesday their hosts were complicit by responding with runs of undisciplined open-court play and bad decisionmaking. "A lot of times in transition I think we’re just trying to get the game back in one play,’’ Stevens said.
The Bulls weren’t known for scoring in transition during the regular season, but Rondo was pushing them to run and exploit the poor transition defense that resulted from Boston’s unbalanced offense. A half-dozen Bulls scored 13 points or more, and their production was almost choreographed. Paul Zipser (16 points on eight shots) picked up where fellow role player Bobby Portis left off in Game 1. Nikola Mirotic hit a trio of large 3-pointers. Jimmy Butler, with 22 points and eight assists, was waiting patiently to explode as needed. But he wasn’t needed as Dwyane Wade (9-for-16) heated up in the second half for his 22 points.
Boston will surely need more production from Thomas and Al Horford. "We were a little anxious at times,’’ said Horford, who generated only seven points to go with his 11 rebounds and five assists. "We understood this was an important game for us, and as a group we didn’t handle it as well as we could have. It’s all about learning. We’re learning as a group. We have some things we have to figure out, and we will.’’
In their ongoing role as a team built for the future, the Celtics need to shift the perspective entirely. Based on the sensational play of Rondo and Wade, the Bulls are turning this series into a renewal of the past.
The Celtics are victims of their own regular-season success
The Celtics are victims of their own overachievement. The team that finished 53-29 this season probably should have fallen underneath that mark, and they certainly shouldn’t have been the Eastern Conference’s top seed.
It’s hard to fault them for that, but it’s now equally hard to absolve them from their 2-0 deficit to the Bulls. Stats like this one — that the Celtics are only the second top team to drop their first two games to a No. 8 ranked squad — don’t care whether Boston should be here or not. That the Celtics may be on the verge of becoming only the fourth No. 1 seed to lose in the first round since 2000 will live on beyond the actual realities of where Boston should be.
The truth is that the Celtics have been a wonderful regular-season team but one still built with massive flaws. Chicago is exposing them everywhere you look with an inspired effort this postseason that we haven’t seen all season.
The Celtics haven’t lost this series yet, of course; they’re only down two games. But they’ve rocked back on the heels and have both hands protecting their head, with all the momentum metronoming away from them. Now they have to go play two games in Chicago, with pressure mounting to win both.
Yes, Boston really is in trouble now.
The more you stare at Boston’s roster, the more the cracks seem obvious. It’s an incredibly solid team, with consistent role players galore and depth to go around. But the offense is solely built around the 5’9 Isaiah Thomas, whose penetration and ball handling create shots for everyone else.
That’s it. It’s just Thomas. There’s no one else on the roster who can do that like Thomas can, and it’s no surprise how badly the Celtics offense craters when he’s not on the court. During the regular season, Boston went from a torrid 113.6 offensive rating when Thomas is playing to 99.0 when he’s off. That’s almost a 15-point difference.
Four other Celtics averaged double figures this season: Avery Bradley, Al Horford, Jae Crowder, and Marcus Smart. Though Horford was the team’s major free-agent signing and he fits well as a cog in the machine, he hasn’t shown signs that he can create shots beyond the Celtics offensive structure.
Bradley and Crowder play best when they’re attacking an off-balance defense, while Smart’s shooting still isn’t formidable enough to scare anyone. When combined with Thomas, who can bend and disrupt any defensive plan, they’re dangerous. Without him, they’re listless and reliant on the other side making mistakes.
Their roster was an amalgamation of three or four different styles of play — a team built for a recently deceased era of basketball — and they played like it.
The result: Coach Fred Hoiberg was on the hot seat, Jimmy Butler was on the trade block, and Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade both had options that the Bulls were going to decline and were hoping would be declined, respectively.
But, perhaps against better judgment, the Bulls didn't fire their coach, didn't trade Butler, didn't buy out Rondo, and saw Wade miss the last bit of the regular season with an injury, and those things, combined with a comically weak late-season schedule and the collective failure of the rest of the East, earned Chicago the eight seed in this year's playoffs. They stood pat.
And that team — that fundamentally flawed, haphazard squad — is now up 2-0 on the top seed in the Eastern Conference after Tuesday's 111-97 win over the Celtics
Boston fans, who fairly (but irrationally) expected better from this Celtics team this postseason, are, of course, losing it after their team lost the first two games of the postseason at home.
They're so verklempt that some are even calling for the head of the Boy Wonder, Celtics coach Brad Stevens.
Boston radio station WEEI jumped ahead of the bandwagon Tuesday, posting a column headlined "BRAD STEVENS OFFICIALLY ON HOT SEAT." (The all-caps was maintained for authenticity's sake.)
This, of course, is the worst possible take. (And this, coming from the guy who wrote this...)
To be fair, the argument for burying Stevens is statistically based — as of Tuesday he's the worst playoff coach in NBA history at 2-10 in his career.
But while I love using stats as unchallenged empirical evidence, making Stevens the fall man for the Celtics' first-round failures is short-sighted and foolish.
It's not Stevens' fault that the Celtics are down 2-0 to the eighth-seeded Bulls — it's general manager Danny Ainge's.
 |
| Greg M. Cooper Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports |
Rajon Rondo turns back clock, helps Chicago Bulls put Boston Celtics in 2-0 hole
BOSTON -- It was as if Rajon Rondo never left.
To be precise, the former point guard of the Celtics was playing as if he hadn’t spent his previous two seasons in Dallas and Sacramento, as if the preceding trades of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett had never happened, as if his ACL had never been torn.
There has been a long list of incidents and accidents for Rondo to overcome, and overcome them he has. While amassing his near-triple-double line of 11 points, 14 assists, nine rebounds and five steals in Game 2 on Tuesday, the 31 year old looked every bit like his younger 2011 postseason self -- except, of course, for his Chicago Bulls uniform.
"He was the key early in the game as far as getting us up the floor,’’ said coach Fred Hoiberg after his Bulls’ 111-97 win gave them a sweep of the two opening games here. "Rajon did a terrific job once we got the ball off the glass to push the ball down the floor and get our guys some good shots, which led to some confidence.’’
Down 0-2 on their way to Chicago, Boston is in danger of becoming the first conference champion in the East to be upset by a No. 8 seed in the seven-game era. The Celtics’ afflictions are definitely old-school. They were beaten by what have traditionally been the two most important positions in basketball -- by Rondo, the pass-first point guard who won his matchup against the grieving Isaiah Thomas (20 points on 6-for-15 from the field and a more telling 7-for-13 from the free-throw line), and by Robin Lopez, the 7-foot center who continues to rub their noses in the offensive glass.
Lopez’s 18 points (8-for-11) and eight rebounds had much greater influence than the box score will attest. His five offensive boards had the impact of so many quarterback sacks. He was like a pass-rushing defensive end that the Celtics simply couldn’t block. As Lopez continued to break through for second chances, the Celtics fans began to complain and boo. And then, almost passive-aggressively, Chicago’s center would back away to knock down one midrange set shot after another, which in turn set off reactions that must have been even more satisfying: He could hear his audience mumbling in pent-up frustration.
"Some of the biggest shots of the whole game were Lopez’s jump shots,’’ said Boston coach Brad Stevens. "He hit those three jump shots in the third quarter that stemmed the tide of our run and were huge … Lopez has crushed us.’’
When Boston focused on the boards by starting the third quarter with 7-foot backup center Tyler Zeller, Lopez and the Bulls merely changed the subject by making shots at a compounded rate. Chicago shot 56.8 percent from the field in the second half, and 51.1 percent overall.
So much is going wrong for the Celtics that it’s hard to know where they can begin to turn the series around. It was understandable, during their news conferences after Game 2, that not one question was asked about the lingering influence of the shocking death of Thomas’ 22-year-old sister, Chyna Thomas, on Saturday. The events in the arena have moved on, as they must, even if the Celtics’ hearts have not. Thomas plans to return home to Tacoma to be with his family before rejoining the team in Chicago for Game 3 on Friday -- and his teammates may yet make the trip to Washington to be with him.
These circumstances have been cruel to Thomas and his Celtics in a way that transcends basketball. But if we are to focus on the first two games, to the exclusion of more important events, then it is only fair to acknowledge that the young Celtics have been unable to prepare as they normally would. They had arrived to the No. 1 seed years ahead of schedule -- before they’ve even cashed in on the potential No. 1 picks of the Nets that are coming in the next two drafts – and their margin for error has always been unusually slim for a top-ranked contender, as revealed by their dismal record against the top teams this season (a combined 8-15 against seeds No. 2-5 in the East and No. 1-4 in the West). And now, instead of amping up for the pursuit of their first postseason series victory since the 2012 era of Garnett, Pierce and Rondo, they’ve been in mourning.
That is one reason why the final outcome of this series isn’t yet assured -- who’s to say the Celtics won’t recover their energy by Friday?
Then again, and just as fairly, what is to say that it will make a difference even if they do?
The priority for the Bulls has been to cut off the driving lanes for Thomas and his teammates, and on Tuesday their hosts were complicit by responding with runs of undisciplined open-court play and bad decisionmaking. "A lot of times in transition I think we’re just trying to get the game back in one play,’’ Stevens said.
The Bulls weren’t known for scoring in transition during the regular season, but Rondo was pushing them to run and exploit the poor transition defense that resulted from Boston’s unbalanced offense. A half-dozen Bulls scored 13 points or more, and their production was almost choreographed. Paul Zipser (16 points on eight shots) picked up where fellow role player Bobby Portis left off in Game 1. Nikola Mirotic hit a trio of large 3-pointers. Jimmy Butler, with 22 points and eight assists, was waiting patiently to explode as needed. But he wasn’t needed as Dwyane Wade (9-for-16) heated up in the second half for his 22 points.
"We have some things we have to figure out, and we will."
-- Boston's Al Horford
Boston will surely need more production from Thomas and Al Horford. "We were a little anxious at times,’’ said Horford, who generated only seven points to go with his 11 rebounds and five assists. "We understood this was an important game for us, and as a group we didn’t handle it as well as we could have. It’s all about learning. We’re learning as a group. We have some things we have to figure out, and we will.’’
In their ongoing role as a team built for the future, the Celtics need to shift the perspective entirely. Based on the sensational play of Rondo and Wade, the Bulls are turning this series into a renewal of the past.
The Celtics are victims of their own regular-season success
The Celtics are victims of their own overachievement. The team that finished 53-29 this season probably should have fallen underneath that mark, and they certainly shouldn’t have been the Eastern Conference’s top seed.
It’s hard to fault them for that, but it’s now equally hard to absolve them from their 2-0 deficit to the Bulls. Stats like this one — that the Celtics are only the second top team to drop their first two games to a No. 8 ranked squad — don’t care whether Boston should be here or not. That the Celtics may be on the verge of becoming only the fourth No. 1 seed to lose in the first round since 2000 will live on beyond the actual realities of where Boston should be.
The truth is that the Celtics have been a wonderful regular-season team but one still built with massive flaws. Chicago is exposing them everywhere you look with an inspired effort this postseason that we haven’t seen all season.
The Celtics haven’t lost this series yet, of course; they’re only down two games. But they’ve rocked back on the heels and have both hands protecting their head, with all the momentum metronoming away from them. Now they have to go play two games in Chicago, with pressure mounting to win both.
Yes, Boston really is in trouble now.
The more you stare at Boston’s roster, the more the cracks seem obvious. It’s an incredibly solid team, with consistent role players galore and depth to go around. But the offense is solely built around the 5’9 Isaiah Thomas, whose penetration and ball handling create shots for everyone else.
That’s it. It’s just Thomas. There’s no one else on the roster who can do that like Thomas can, and it’s no surprise how badly the Celtics offense craters when he’s not on the court. During the regular season, Boston went from a torrid 113.6 offensive rating when Thomas is playing to 99.0 when he’s off. That’s almost a 15-point difference.
Four other Celtics averaged double figures this season: Avery Bradley, Al Horford, Jae Crowder, and Marcus Smart. Though Horford was the team’s major free-agent signing and he fits well as a cog in the machine, he hasn’t shown signs that he can create shots beyond the Celtics offensive structure.
Bradley and Crowder play best when they’re attacking an off-balance defense, while Smart’s shooting still isn’t formidable enough to scare anyone. When combined with Thomas, who can bend and disrupt any defensive plan, they’re dangerous. Without him, they’re listless and reliant on the other side making mistakes.
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