The Globe weighed in on the Forbidden Topic yesterday:
Before the Celtics even played a game this season, Wallace stated last month to the Connecticut Post that he thought the Celtics could get the Bulls record. Bold? Yes. Off-base? No.
Entering tonight’s tilt in Philadelphia against the 76ers, the 4-0 Celtics are 1/18th of the way to 72 wins with a long, long, long, long way to go.
But it’s obvious even this early that this version of the Green has a chance to be historically good — even great.
And:
What this Celtics team shares with the 72-win Bulls is swagger. They walk into the gym expecting to win and genuinely enjoy demoralizing their opponents. Teams are intimidated by KG and irritated by Rondo.
Look, people, I implore you: We are better than this. We can be better than this. I mean, this is the Boston Globe, one of the all-time great newspapers with an all-time great history of sports reporting. Can’t it use its resources to talk to Doc Rivers about KG’s pick-and-roll defense instead of recycling this notion of a 72-win regular season? How about combing 82games or Basketball Value to uncover some interesting nugget about why this team is successful or what it needs to do better? Or watching the film to see if Rajon Rondo passed up a few shooting opportunities he should have taken against Philly last night?
Can’t we all work harder to understand the ultra-complicated dynamics of this basketball team instead of recycling the 72-10 angle? Isn’t there almost an infinite amount of work to be done just to understand how the 2009-10 Celtics function?
Let’s make a deal, everyone: No one is allowed to mention 72-10 unless the C’s are, say, 40-5 or better after 45 games. If they get there, we can mention it.
Deal?
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fine with me, but don’t expect the media to stop gushing over it
the Philly announcers were discussing best records ever in garbage time last night, they needed filler and this is low hanging fruit
I’m with you Zach.
This is also a good time to thank you and the folks on this blog for the reporting and thinking you do. I love the breakdowns of the Cs’ key plays, especially when you pair it with video. Adds a lot to my enjoyment of the next game when I notice the stuff you guys were pointing out and see how other teams are trying to deal with it (and mostly, so far, failing miserably).
Not sure about the “all-time great history of sports reporting”. If I recall correctly, Bob Ryan wrote prior to KGs first season with the Cs that he thought that they would finish 41-41. There are mistakes and then there are mistakes.
Before putting the topic to bed, it is worth seeing what the recent start-of-season performances suggest about 72 wins being an attainable goal for this year.
If you go to basketball-reference.com, you can find a formula for Pythagorean Wins (W Pythag). In 2007-08, five games in, extrapolating from the W Pythag (adjusting for one additional game of home court advantage) a season win total of 74.3 was suggested. This was against competition that won exactly half their games over that season. Discount the effects of KGs mid-season injuries, and this seems to line up pretty well with the actual total of 66.
The next (last) year, the initial competition was better. The first five opponents ended up winning 53% of their games. Making an adjustment for one additional game played on the road, the five game W Pythag suggested a final win total of 56.1. Here the prediction wasn’t so good. On the one hand, KG’s injuries should have yielded fewer wins still, on the other, the teams played were better than average.
This year, the five game W Pythag suggests 79.5 wins. And this comes against competition that won 57% of its games last year, and I think a consensual view is that three to four of these teams will be in the play-offs.
The simple argument is that there are games to give away because of injury (which may well come to pass) and 72 would still be attainable.
On to more interesting things….
Can we not even talk about the record at 40-5? I hope we don’t break the record. I don’t think there’s any way we win Banner 18 if we make the effort to win 73+ games. On the other hand, if the bench keeps giving us 62 a night… (highly unlikely, I know) then maybe we could get 73 without killing the Big Three.
It’s true that the media won’t let go of the 72-game angle. Even last year, long after it was obvious that the C’s were inferior to the 66-16 ‘07-’08 team, it took a loss in LA on Christmas day to put the topic to rest.
Forget 72. Not only will it not happen, but it would be a horrible idea for the team to get caught up in chasing that useless record.
The only reason they play the regular season is so that they can continue to play after it’s over. They only need to win enough games to lock up the #1 seed. Continue to rest the starters as much as practicable (while giving them enough work to keep them all in rhythm), protect them from injury and give the bench lots and lots of confidence-building reps, even in crunch-time. That’s how they can best prepare to succeed in the only season that matters.
Screw 72.
The fundamental point is that this might be a “have your cake and eat it too” situation, where a gaudy regular season record can be achieved without compromising expected play-off success.
Typically benches are bad. Absolutely bad, as in consisting, on average, of below average players. Otherwise they would be starters. Having a “good bench” then means having a bench that is less bad than that of the average team.
I don’t have a strong sense that the Celtics in fact did have a “good bench” the past two years. Maybe they did, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out otherwise.
When one says that the Celtics have a good bench this year, this has quite a different meaning. On average, it consists of above average players. As such, the expectation is that not only can starters rest more but the score will move in the right direction when they do. More wins, more rest.
That is the hope, anyway.
The globe is ridiculously full of homers. They said “rondo led his team to a championship” in an article about the Rondo-CP3 spat. I think KG and PP would take issue with that.
I’m terrified by the new old 3 playing 30+ minutes a game in an attempt to get this record. I’m going to say that if all 3 average over 33 min./game we won’t even make 60 wins, and will be lucky to get out of the 1st round of the playoffs, because all 3 will be seriously injured by the All-Star break.
Scares the crap out of me.
Can we just go for Banner 18, please?
celtics 72-10!
73-9
Celtics 6-1! Look a lot more human now, don’t they? Hell, they just looked dejected after Phoenix killed them. It’s funny to read posts like these though…
Just one question: do you feel silly for even having wrote this? Just curious…