Is Jason Terry or Courtney Lee a Better Fit with Boston Celtics Starters?

 Boston  No Responses »
Dec 072012
 

More so than at any point in the last five years, this season the Boston Celtics have struggled to find a reliable rotation—new pieces have entered the organization, and roles have yet to be figured out. If you’re searching for ways to cast blame on the Celtics’ overall dysfunction, look no further than their permeable starting lineup.

What was once set in stone has suddenly turned into a weekly guessing game, with any finished product now miles from being realized.  

Before diving in to discuss whether Jason Terry or Courtney Lee is the better fit to be on the court for the opening tip, let it be said that this question will soon be rendered a moot point.

Based on his incredible impact last season beside Rajon Rondo, Brandon Bass, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, third-year guard Avery Bradley will be inserted into the starting lineup once he’s cleared to return from two offseason shoulder surgeries.

But in the meantime, the Terry or Lee question is an interesting one. Let’s first summarize how each player has individually performed in a Celtics uniform before taking a look at how they’ve played with the starters, and, more importantly, how the starters have played with them.

 

Courtney Lee

Excluding Andrew Bynum from the conversation, a solid argument can be made that Courtney Lee has been the most disappointing offseason acquisition in the NBA.

After scoring 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the season opener against Miami, Lee’s next four scoring totals by game went like this: seven, two, four and six.

He was playing hesitant, unsure basketball while the team struggled to a 2-3 record. After scoring six points against the Sixers, Lee was replaced in the starting lineup by Terry for Boston’s next game against Milwaukee. He failed to score.

Lee was the new piece, the sore thumb. It may not have been fair, but at the time, Doc Rivers’ decision to place him on the bench was best for the team.

A lot goes into wins and losses apart from who starts the basketball game, and according to a slew of statistics, when Lee is on the floor beside Rondo, Bass, Pierce and Garnett, the Celtics are very, very good.

They’ve shared the court for just 35 minutes, but their per-48 numbers are above the team’s average in several basic yet significant categories, such as rebounds, assists, steals and blocks.

Also, they’re shooting the lights out.

The unit’s true shooting percentage is 65.7 percent (as a team, Boston’s is 55.4 percent), they score 1.22 points per possession while giving 0.991 and grab a quarter of all the offensive rebounds available (still below league average, but seven percentage points higher than what the Celtics are doing as a team).

On both offense and defense, second-chance points, points off turnover, points in the paint and fast-break points are all higher (or lower) than the team’s average. Overall they haven’t played much together, but looking at the numbers it’s impossible to say Lee doesn’t  fit. 

 

Jason Terry

Right now Terry is in the starting lineup, and he should be. He’s shooting 39.7 percent on three-pointers (his best since 2007), boasting a true shooting percentage of 63.3 percent (a career best) and is getting to the line more than he did last season on about three fewer minutes of action per game.

He was inserted into the starting lineup in Milwaukee on November 10, and it’s no coincidence that the win Boston came away with that night stands as one of the team’s two or three most important of the season. The Celtics needed Terry, and he responded.

But this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, and there’s more than a good chance this won’t be how it ends. Terry is an above-average offensive player, and utilizing a scoring ability such as his off the bench is a weapon most teams wish they had.

Doc Rivers wants to use Terry with his second unit. But he also wants wins, and thanks to his overall consistency, Terry is the safer bet.

The most used five-man unit the Celtics have deployed this season is Rondo, Bass, Pierce, Terry and Garnett. They’re scoring 1.05 points per possession (a top-10 offense on par with the San Antonio Spurs) while giving up .093 points per possession (a defense that would be best in the league by a staggering three points per 100 possessions).

 

Who Should Be In The Starting Lineup Moving Forward?

Either option, honestly, is solid. Both can shoot and both can create off the dribble. So far Terry has played beside the other starters for more than 100 more than Lee.

A discrepancy this large can’t be ignored, but when you factor in defensive intensity with his glowing numbers running amongst the starters, Lee should be given another shot in the starting lineup. 

The clip below encapsulates the type of impact Lee can have to kick off a basketball game. He’s fast, has quick hands and feet (making him a nightmare for opposing players driving at him in isolation) and is more than capable of knocking down a jump shot or finishing at the rim.    

Looking at the big picture, who starts at shooting guard until Avery Bradley gets healthy is not the difference between Boston winning the championship or falling in the first round. But if they want to re-establish themselves as a defense-first organization while remaining a fast-paced offense capable of matching up well against nearly every team in the league, Courtney Lee should not be coming off the bench.

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Video Essay of Rajon Rondo’s Arsenal of Passes

 Boston  No Responses »
Dec 052012
 

Playing during an era of undeniable decision-making brilliance, where more than a few of his positional colleagues appear headed for eventual inclusion in the Basketball Hall of Fame, Rajon Rondo has officially separated himself from the herd as the best passer in the world.

Coming off his first season of leading the league in assists per game, Rondo not only picked up where he left off—his 12.9 assists per game stands alone as the only double-digit tally this season—but he’s become even more efficient. 

According to Hoopdata.com, Rondo averaging one more assist per game that leads to a basket at the rim this year compared to last year (his 5.1 per game currently leads the league). Despite missing two games due to a suspension, as of December 4 Rondo still held 23 more assists than the second-highest player.

Here’s a video breakdown showing how the Boston Celtics point guard is such a wizard with the ball, and why moving forward we can expect to see even more team-wide success as a direct result of his passing.

 

The One-Handed Whip Bounce Pass

We’ll start with a pass very few human beings can dream about pulling off, the one-handed snap rope bounce pass that’s timed perfectly with a moving target. The play looks simple when you watch it live, but take a look at this screen shot. 

After doing what everyone does in this situation and going below the screen, Evan Turner races toward Boston’s point guard in an attempt to cut off his driving lane. Rondo recognizes this and splits the defense with a blistering bounce pass. Chris Wilcox is wide open, but because of Turner’s incoming pressure there’s only one way the ball could get there.

Rondo made this incredibly difficult pass look mundane.

 

The Two-Handed Overhead Bounce Pass

Similar to the previous example, this pass is difficult but Rondo makes it look easy.

Jason Terry does a great job of slithering behind Philadelphia‘s transition defense without being detected, and Rondo rewards him by delivering the ball through a tight space as quickly as possible. He identifies the miscommunication and cashes in before the defense knows what happened. 

No single player, let alone three or four, could react and rotate in the face of a pass this fast. It’s beautiful, unorthodox and effective. 

 

The Dump Off

What separates Rondo from everybody else are passes like this one: correct and effective, yet unselfish and difficult. After slicing up Washington‘s defense and penetrating by his man all the way down to the right block, an easier play might be to loft a floater off the glass. In the oft chance it misses, Jared Sullinger would be in perfect position to either corral it or tip it in. 

Instead, Rondo drops off a beautiful pass to a player who isn’t quite athletic enough to go up there and convert an alley-oop. He knows Emeka Okafor will rotate over, and the moment a step is made toward him, the ball quickly goes to Sullinger for an uncontested layup. 

 

The Underhanded Toss

Why, every so often, does Rajon Rondo throw passes that look like this? It appears careless, right? Has anyone in NBA history consistently done something so physically strange and unnecessary? Well, when the results are what they are, who’s to question it?

In this particular sequence Rondo takes a step back and calls a play for Jason Terry to run through two screens along the baseline, curl to the three-point line, and launch an open shot. The pass will make a high school coach hyperventilate, but it still ends up where it’s supposed to be. 

 

The Drive-And-Kick

If you want to be an elite perimeter player in the NBA, driving into the paint, drawing a defense and then kicking the ball out to a wide open teammate behind the three-point line is a skill you must have. Needless to say, Rondo has mastered it. 

By the time he lets go of the ball, there are three wide open Celtics on the perimeter. Rondo weighs the options in his head (a Kevin Garnett 15-footer, an above-the-break three-pointer for Jeff Green or Courtney Lee in the corner) and selects the best one, executing it to perfection. 

Look for more of these throughout the season as the Celtics look to get Lee as many shots from the corner as they possibly can. 

 

The Behind-The-Back Pick-And-Pop

This is the bread-and-butter play Boston goes to whenever they need an open look at the basket. After Brandon Bass doesn’t set a hard screen on Nate Robinson, but he touches him just enough to give Rondo a step, forcing Joakim Noah to stay back and protect the paint. 

In one smooth motion, Rondo drops a bounce pass behind his back that lands perfectly in Bass’ hands. There’s nothing better than combining flash with value, and this pass is a great example. 

 

The “Disregard An Open Layup Because Three Points Are Better Than Two” Kick Out

This play basically sums up Rondo in a nutshell. It’s exhilarating, unexpected and controversial all at the same time. Today we look at NBA basketball as one long efficiency battle; wasted possessions are the devil, and grabbing as many points as you can each and every time up the court is a necessity. 

Instead of finishing what would be an uncontested layup/dunk at the rim, Rondo whips a pass back to Paul Pierce for three. Pierce is one of the best spot up three-point shooters in the world (he’s at 40 percent this season), so setting him up for a wide open look isn’t a bad decision, but the basic idea of avoiding an automatic two for the chance at three is a gamble too harsh for most viewers to swallow. 

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Boston Celtics Stock Watch: Rising and Falling Players After the First Month

 Boston  No Responses »
Dec 042012
 

While the Boston Celtics struggled to find their identity in the first month of the season, a handful of players stood out from the rest of the bunch.

It’s been a bumpy ride for the Celtics so far, but the team is managing to stay above .500 by clinging to a 9-8 record. It took longer than expected, but Boston’s highly anticipated bench is finally starting to develop a rhythm. However, some players are now stuck digging themselves out of a hole of inconsistency.

Some players, like Rajon Rondo, have been at the top of their game from the gate. Others, like Jason Terry, have been working through early-season struggles to find a level of consistency.

Here are a few Celtics you should keep an eye on, for good or bad.

 

All stats are accurate as of Dec. 3, 2012.

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Boston Celtics Must Use 3-Point Shot to Find Successful Offensive Attack

 Boston  No Responses »
Nov 302012
 

In their second-ever meeting—and second-ever loss—against the Brooklyn Nets, the Boston Celtics made just one three-pointer.

The shot concluded one of the more discombobulated sequences you’ll ever see a professional basketball team go through, with Jason Terry catching a desperate save attempt by Jared Sullinger at the right elbow, then spinning away from a defender, dribbling out with his back facing the basket, planting both feet behind the arc, and launching a shot with 20 seconds left on the shot clock in a 13-point game with over 10 minutes to play. 

To repeat: that was Boston’s only three-pointer. In today’s league, the shot is less of a gamble than it is a necessary risk, and it’s no coincidence that some of the league’s best teams take (and make) a ton of them every night. 

By now, everyone knows the Celtics are in love with the mid-range jumper, a supposed lost art that in recent years has assumed a more accurate label as basketball’s least valuable scoring option. For the most part, Boston makes it work because they’re loaded with guys who can regularly knock it down (Kevin Garnett, Brandon Bass, Paul Pierce, Jason Terry, Rajon Rondo).

Right now they’re taking the fourth-most shots between 16 and 23 feet in the league while remaining the second-most accurate, per Hoopdata.com. The shot is useful and fits well with their personnel and within their system, but it’s no three-pointer. 

The Celtics are attempting just 13.8 threes per game through the season’s first month, just ahead of the Chicago Bulls for second fewest in the league. In the last 11 years only five teams have averaged 14 or fewer three-point attempts per game and won at least 55 games (the 2010-11 Boston Celtics are one of them). Even more startling, only 33 teams finished with an even record or better. 

Boston is shooting 33.9 percent on corner threes off only 63 attempts. The percentage is 26th in the league, and the attempts rank in the bottom third (behind the layup/dunk, a three-pointer from the corner is widely considered to be the best shot in basketball).

On above-the-break threes, they’ve attempted the third fewest in the league (ahead of Chicago and the Memphis Grizzlies), but rank fifth in percentage at 39 percent. 

The lack of three-pointers isn’t necessarily a new development for Boston—last year they averaged 15 per game and in 2011 it was 13.6—but five years ago, when they won the NBA championship, they jacked 19.8 threes a night. And in 2010, the last season they appeared in the Finals, they took 17.5. 

Just like they have players who can knock down a mid-range jump shot, the Celtics boast more than a few guys who’ve mastered the three-pointer: Jason Terry is a career 38 percent sniper, Paul Pierce is connecting 41.2 percent on all long balls this season and Courtney Lee made nearly half of the 103 corner threes he attempted with the Rockets last year (absurdly accurate). The key is putting these players in positions behind the line where they can easily succeed. 

So why don’t the Celtics shoot more three-pointers? The explanation is a simple one: they struggle to create open looks.

Doc Rivers may be one of the three or four premier play designers in the league, but there’s only so much a man can do with the personnel he has, and right now the Celtics only have two or three players capable of penetrating past an opponent’s first line of defense: Rondo, Leandro Barbosa and Pierce—on a good night. That’s about it, and not having any more options here has been a huge problem. 

Here’s a clip that shows Pierce blowing by Kevin Durant and setting up Courtney Lee for an open shot. At 35 years old, it’s an incredibly difficult play for him to make multiple times a game, especially because creating for others was never a strength for Pierce to begin with. 

The Celtics also don’t grab offensive rebounds. Defenses in the NBA have one objective: to stop an initial shot and then grab the rebound. Mayhem occurs when they fail to do so, and guys who are lingering on the perimeter more often than not find themselves wide open for kick outs.

This year a good chunk of Boston’s shots from behind the arc have either come in transition or off a secondary fast break; quick, open attempts taken early in the shot clock with the defense caught off guard or out of position. 

The primary distributor in these situations is Rondo (obviously), who creates tons of advantageous action with his ability to find open trailers and guys filling their respective lanes. 

But transition threes are dependent on good defense, forcing turnovers and preventing an opponent from scoring. In order to create a more consistent alternative, a burden is placed on Rivers and his coaching staff to get guys like Terry, Pierce and Lee three-point shots in a more controlled environment. 

Here’s an example: a quick wrinkle off a Rondo/Kevin Garnett pick-and-roll. The action is specifically designed to get Terry a good three-point look. He gets it here because instead of rolling to the basket and looking for a lob, Garnett is specifically down there to set a screen on Terry’s man.  

Another example shows a side out of bounds play designed to eventually get Courtney Lee a wide open three against Utah‘s zone defense. The ball is quickly swung around the perimeter before getting back to Barbosa at the top of the key. Once this happens, Chris Wilcox dives through the lane with his hands up, drawing Derrick Favors into the paint and keeping him a good 10 feet away from Lee, who’s barely moved since inbounding the ball. 

It’s early in the season, but so far several Celtics aren’t hitting a good number on their threes. Jeff Green is at a useless 25 percent, and Lee, arguably the most disappointing offseason acquisition (Andrew Bynum aside) in the league, has made only five three-pointers and six free throws in 345 minutes. Both will get better, and the return of Avery Bradley (who shot 55.6 percent on corner threes last season) should help as we get into winter. 

But the importance of the three ball can’t be ignored; it’s a vital part of the game, and those who don’t take advantage are more likely than not to be left in the dust. If they want their season to end with an 18th title, the Boston Celtics need to utilize the three-point shot more than they’re currently doing. 

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Boston Celtics: How Jason Terry Can Be Ray Allen 2.0

 Boston  No Responses »
Nov 212012
 

When Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers first recruited Jason Terry to join his team, the sales pitch was short and simple: We need you.

At the time, Boston’s backcourt depth was a gigantic question mark, and acquiring at least one consistent offensive contributor for the bench was a No. 1 priority. A good-sized offer had (supposedly) been placed at Ray Allen’s feet—he’d yet to sign with the Heat—but Boston’s decision to go hard after Terry all but murdered the possibility of the three-point king extending his tenure.

The Celtics may have had an offer out to Allen, but Terry was clearly their guy. Why? Boston’s offense has been awful going on three years in a row. Part of the problem was an obvious lack of individual playmakers who could create off the dribble with the shot clock winding down. They needed freelance specialists who could pack a punch off the bench.

With Avery Bradley yet to have the experience/confidence needed to fill this role (not to mention the question mark surrounding his surgically repaired shoulders) the Celtics knew that in order to get past the Miami Heat, they’d need to acquire another scorer in the backcourt.

If Allen and Terry were placed in a Venn diagram, more characteristics would overlap in the middle than fall on the periphery. Both are dead-eye three-point shooters, both are in their mid-30s and both play the same position.

Boston needed someone who could put the ball on the floor, create mid-range opportunities for both himself and others, and swallow his ego by thriving off the bench.

At this stage in his career, Allen wasn’t the answer. His ability to produce was mostly a byproduct of four floor mates working hard to get him open, and according to Basketball Prospectus, his usage rate dropped below league average last season for the first time in his career.  In a nut shell, he was more a hindrance than a resolution.

Call it evolution or devolution, but in the latter stages of Allen’s tenure with Boston, he increasingly grew one-dimensional, defined by an ability to catch and shoot the ball, with 35.7 percent of his production coming off screens last season. Putting the ball on the floor was extremely rare. Instead, coming off screens was a huge part of his game, and a scoring solution that lingered a bit too long—given the alternative options supplied by an improving Rajon Rondo—for the Celtics. 

On the other hand, on paper, Jason Terry was a perfect fit. But basketball isn’t a sport that’s played on paper. Let’s take a look at how Boston is using Terry so far, and how it’s compared to what they used to do with Allen.

So far this season, 23.6 percent of Terry’s production has been off screens, where he’s averaging 0.96 points per possession (second best in the league).

Last season with the Mavericks, only 7.7 percent of Terry’s production was off screens. There are two possible conclusions to take away from this increase: Either the Celtics are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, or the more likely reason, they’ve decided having the ball in Rondo’s hands as much as possible gives them the best chance to win.

Terry ran the pick-and-roll a ton in Dallas. He was really good at it, but that was more a product of contextual necessity than anything else. A 26-year-old Rajon Rondo is by far the best point guard he’s ever played with, and it might be better in this situation if Terry sacrifices some of his own strengths to best fit in with Boston’s current dynamic.

Here’s Ray Allen running the play that made him so successful in Boston. He begins in a crowd, then forces his man to shoot the gap on Kevin Garnett‘s away screen. The result is a wide open three-pointer. 

And here’s the Celtics running basically the exact same thing with Terry on the other side of the court. The major difference here is that instead of a three from the wing, Terry’s shot is a 16-footer from the baseline. Still, it’s the same concept, right down to the defender helplessly trying to shoot the gap on a Garnett screen. 

Those two plays are great examples of how the Celtics are using Jason Terry in similar situations with how they used Ray Allen. However, while Allen owns the better shot, Terry has the ability to make the most out of spilt milk. 

What I mean by that is Doc Rivers probably feels a little more comfortable designing sets for Terry knowing that, if all hell breaks loose and the play’s shape falls apart, the Celtics can still get a decent look at the hoop. 

Here’s a play designed to have Terry curl off a pick and find a good look at the basket. The only problem is that after running through a gauntlet of well-placed screens, he finds himself face to face with Joakim Noah, one of the league’s most active, intimidating defenders.

If this were Allen, Noah’s size would take away the shot, and the ball would be reversed back to Rondo with six seconds left on the shot clock. The set would be thwarted, and the possession would be chalked up as an ugly waste. 

Because Terry is a superior ball-handler, he doesn’t panic, instead creating space with a step back jumper that fakes Noah out of his shoes. This play exemplifies why Terry is both a better fit in Boston and a more lethal offensive weapon. 

What everybody’s still waiting for, though, is an unstoppable pick-and-roll, a play Terry should be able to run flawlessly with either Garnett or Brandon Bass.

In the clip above, Terry actually uses a stagger screen to get all the way to the hoop. Would it surprise you if I said this was the only time all season he’s finished at the hoop in a pick-and-roll situation? Getting all the way to the rim on a regular basis would be asking too much, and at his age it isn’t really what Terry does anymore. But there should still be more action created off this set with the ball in his hands.

It’s the biggest difference between him and Ray Allen. Isn’t that why the Celtics signed Terry in the first place?

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Assessing Each Boston Celtics Player’s Actual Performance vs. Expectations

 Boston  No Responses »
Nov 202012
 

Almost one month into the 2012-13 NBA season, it’s time to determine whether the players are living up to expectations.

The Boston Celtics invested a lot into improving their secondary unit, but the bench still hasn’t fully clicked. Jason Terry and Jeff Green were expected to be the leaders of the bench, but both have been inconsistent in their roles.

While some players like Rajon Rondo are already exceeding expectations, others are failing to be effective members of the team.

The levels of expectation were set pretty high for the Celtics leading into 2012-13, but given the talent on Boston’s roster, it shouldn’t be this difficult for them to succeed.

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Boston Celtics: What Is Leandro Barbosa’s Role on the 2012-13 Team?

 Boston  No Responses »
Nov 152012
 

Leandro Barbosa is making a splash with the Celtics this season despite averaging only 10 minutes a game.

His first splash came in the season opener against the Miami Heat, when it was his 16 points off of the bench that kept the game from being a complete blowout. Barbosa made little impact on the court after that, though, until Boston’s 98-93 triumph over the up-and-coming Utah Jazz last night.

With Rondo sidelined for much of the game and Jason Terry simply not producing, “The Brazilian Blur” netted 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor in nearly 23 minutes of action. 

This type of production has Celtic faithful everywhere begging for Doc to give this man more minutes.

This may be good for the C’s for awhile, but he is not a long-term answer to the Celtic’s current backcourt woes, folks.The first thing that needs to be realized is that while he is producing, his window of opportunity is closing quickly for two reasons.

For one, the Celtics front office dished out the big bucks to two backcourt players, in Jason Terry and Courtney Lee, this past offseason.

While neither of the two have met expectations to this point, “The Jet” is still the go-to wing man and has sporadically shown signs of that so far this season, and while Lee is off to a slow start offensively, the box score doesn’t show just how much his defense has meant to the Celtics to this point.

It can be argued that the Milwaukee Bucks have one of the most explosive backcourts in the league, and it was Lee’s lockdown defense kept the Jennings-Ellis duo from running even more rampant on the slow-starting Celtics defense than they did a few days ago.

The second and most important dynamic that fans seem to be forgetting is that Avery Bradley is close to returning.

Bradley proved just how important he is to the Celtics in the latter half of last season.

It can be argued that had Bradley stayed healthy in the postseason, he would have kept Dwyane Wade under control in the Eastern Conference Finals, and the Celtics could be looking for banner number 19 and a repeat championship this season. 

That said, the question of what the explosive Barbosa’s role will and should be with this year’s Celtics remains.

The answer is simple—he is the Celtics’ younger and faster Keyon Dooling.

Dooling also came up big for Boston sporadically during the regular season last year. When the C’s roster was depleted in the playoffs, Dooling not only brought energy to a tired group of veterans, but he also gave the team a spark when Rondo needed a breather and hit some much-needed shots to keep the Celtics in contention. 

When given the opportunity, Barbosa has been great so far this season, but that is as far as his role will go.

When he is needed, which will be sporadically much like Dooling was last season, he will deliver.

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