The Rondo-less Celtics Offense

The Celtics have won 6 games without Rondo, driven by a potent high scoring offense.  Previously, they had lost 6 games with Rondo, and before that – they had won 6 games with Rondo (and a newly returned Avery Bradley.)  What does it all mean?  Is the last six game winning streak any more significant than the last one?

If you look at the last six teams the Celtics have beaten, 5 have been teams that are either straight out awful, or missing key players.  The Celtics beat the Clippers without Chris Paul, a team that has been blown out so much lately that Blake Griffin now looks like a cast member of Jersey Shore.  The Celtics beat the Lakers without Pau Gasol, but with a fresh shamed off the injury-list Dwight Howard, and an accompanying uncomfortable team dynamic.  They also beat the Kings, the Magic, and the Raptors.  Those are games that they are expected to win, and all but the Raptor’s game were played at home.  Their one big win came against the Miami Heat, but that was before anyone on the team even knew that Rondo was out for the year, and before the Celtics had time to adjust their offense in any way.  Rondo was actually attempting to warm up before the game, until the doctors found he had a torn ACL.  The Celtics shortly thereafter also ended up losing epic rebounder Jared Sullinger for the season, who was at the time leading the team in overall plus-minus.

The Celtics have adjusted their offense since then to be more free flowing, and we’ve seen a scoring uptick from the bench, and new starter Courtney Lee is more involved.  Courney Lee in the starting lineup opens up more minutes for streaky scorers, Barbosa and Terry off the bench.   But the team’s they’ve faced haven’t challenged them on what their weaknesses without Rondo and Sullinger are going to be.  They haven’t faced a team that was able to force the Celtics into a offense that requires precise half-court execution, which Rondo is able to do so well.  They haven’t faced a team that was able to punish the Celtics for their poor rebounding without Sullinger.  And they have yet to face a team that can pressure the Celtics for their lack of expert ball-handling in the back court.   This stuff will not happen when you face the dregs of the league, and backsliding teams.  This will happen when you end up in playoff style basketball.  Until we see the Celtics without Rondo in this type of environment, we don’t know how they’ll handle it.  Remember that during the 6 game losing streak, 3 of those games were lost in the final minutes due to sloppy turnovers in the final minute of the game, turnovers committed by Paul Pierce.  The Celtics can’t afford that in the playoffs.  During the winning streak we’ve seen Jason Terry’s penchant for dangerous cross-court passes, a new dose of hero-ball style dribbling from Pierce, and Leandro Barbosa’s role as PG with blinders on.  But none of that mattered and the Celtics still won their games relatively comfortable.

Finally, it’s difficult to isolate what a missing Rondo really means on the team. Throughout his tenure as Celtics’ coach, Doc Rivers has been notoriously bad at managing player rotations.  From time to time, injuries force him into a lineup that appears to work.  This happened last year, when Ray Allen and Pietrus were injured, and Avery Bradley popped into the starting lineup.  It happened when Ryan Gomes and Leon Powe ended up playing out of necessity. It happened when Rondo finally broke into the starting lineup his rookie year, after playing behind such greats as Sebastian Telfair, and Delonte West.   The Celtics advantage this year over other teams in the league, was always depth.  They lined the pine with two former sixth men of the year in Terry, & Barbosa, and former starters, Green, Wilcox, and Lee.   With Rondo in the lineup, it’s no question that these bench players were being under utilized, and Rivers made no attempts to leverage his depth into a team advantage.  As broadcaster and coaching legend Tommy Heinsohn explained, the way you exploit depth is by tiring the other team, while minimizing your own players minutes.  This requires an uptempo style, with a pressuring defense.  Exactly what the new-look Celtics have implemented.  Is there any reason, this style could not have been implemented with Rondo?  No – Rondo and Pierce were playing 38 and 34 minutes a night, when they have starter quality players behind them on the bench.

I think that this ‘success’ of the Celtics is 70% schedule, 10% change in style, 10% better usage of talent, and 10% KG induced adrenaline.   With Rondo, the team was always capable of doing what they’ve done in the last six games, but they’d also be better prepared for the playoffs and true competition.