Delete from DVR Immediately: C’s 86, Nyets 76

Posted by Zach Lowe on Nov 7, 2009 41146 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2009%2F11%2F07%2Fdelete-from-dvr-immediately%2FDelete+from+DVR+Immediately%3A+C%27s+86%2C+Nyets+762009-11-08+04%3A01%3A37Zach+Lowehttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D4114

ESPN Recap • Nets Are Scorching • Nets Daily

Pace: 88 possessions (slow)

Offensive Efficiency: 98 points/100 possessions (league-worst)

Defensive Efficiency: 86 points allowed/100 possessions (off the charts)

It’s Saturday night, so here’s a quicker than usual set of bullets before Brian Robb’s recap:

• Do not watch this game under any circumstances if you’ve avoided it so far. The Celtics looked like a team playing their third back-to-back in 12 days and their 8th game total in that span. And the Nets looked like the Nets, except worse, because half their team is injured or has swine flu. The game shifted between looking like an NBA game and a middle school game in which the more talented players (the Celtics) run around and take the ball away from the less talented players (the Nets, with 24 turnovers). 

• Twenty steals for the Celtics. Twenty. Five for Rondo alone, who decided at halftime that he was basically just going to run around and try for a steal on every Nets possession. The C’s have recorded 20 or more steals in a game just three other times since 1986-87, the furthest Basketball Reference’s search function goes back. The thing about the Nets is that when they just did the simple things, they executed fairly well considering the personnel on the floor (no Devin Harris, no Keyon Dooling, no Chris Douglas-Roberts). That is to say, when they got shots off, they were usually decent shots. The Rafer Alston/Brook Lopez screen/roll was giving the Celtics problems in the 1st quarter when the Nets kept it simple—hitting Lopez on pick-and-pops, having Alston drive, etc. 

But when the C’s cut the first option off or when the Nets tried to do something more complicated…my god, was it ugly. They just threw the ball all over the court. They handled it loosely, allowing the C’s to just reach in take it. The basketball gods were undoubtedly appalled.

• The C’s often weren’t much better. First off, they hit just 1-of-10 threes. That marks just the third time in the New Big Three era that he C’s have hit one or zero threes in a game, according to Basketball Reference. This just doesn’t happen. It happened tonight, against a bad team, and the C’s still won. 

• Problematic stat: The C’s had 3 offensive rebounds in 34 rebounding chances. This is going to be an issue all year. 

• This game had, by my count, four offensive possessions that would be the early favorites for Worst Possession of the Year:

1) Rajon Rondo’s totally unnecessary three-quarter court pass to Allen on the left sideline, which landed somewhere behind the Celtics bench. (Note: Is this why Doc sat Rondo the entire 4th quarter? Did he aggravate some injury? The early reports don’t mention anything. Tomorrow’s papers should be interesting).  

2) Sheed tossing up the ugliest sky hook I’ve ever seen with the shot clock running down—only to have Josh Boone bail him out with an idiotic foul;

3) Ray Allen turning the corner on the right baseline, getting himself airborne and flinging a diagonal cross-court bounce pass intended for Sheed (standing behind the three-point line!) that scooted out of bounds about five fee to Sheed’s left;

4) Late in the third, Rajon Rondo just dribbles at the top of the key for about 10 seconds as Pierce stands in front of Rajon deciding whether to set a pick. For some reason, Pierce had his head turned and appeared to be talking to someone. The conversation, whatever it was about, continued until the shot clock ran down and Rondo had to just toss up a three that missed. Neither Pierce nor Rondo moved at all. Really weird. 

For sheer humor, Sheed’s sky hook wins. But #4 is an intriguing choice. 

• The C’s really missed Daniels tonight, who was excused from the team for personal reasons (more interesting reading tomorrow?). The second unit was a disaster on offense. The team didn’t get into its sets until about 15 seconds remained on the shot clock, and the possessions were disjointed and desperate searches for an open jump shot or a post up opportunity. Lots of dribbling without an obvious plan and dishing to the nearest guy when the dribbling failed to do produce anything. 

A few more, after the jump.

 

• Despite all this complaining, credit the team for doing enough to win. In particular, credit Pierce and Allen, the veteran leaders and the offensive crutches the team leans on in games like this. Pierce drew five fouls in the 3rd quarter, including three in the first minute, and generated a couple of good shots for himself at the left elbow. 

• And Allen owned the 4th. The only time the second unit looked organized all night was a stretch from about the 9:00 mark through the 4:30 mark in which the C’s ran the offense through Ray. He hit a jumper off a curl. He drove on Eduardo Najera (!) and scored. He rose up for another jumper on the curl but dished the ball instead to Shelden Williams, who was open because his man had jumped out to help on Ray. 

• Ray also knocked down two key shots on what is quickly becoming one of the C’s go-to, rock-solid  late-game plays. It starts with Pierce handling at the top of the key and Ray standing on the right wing. Ray comes and sets a screen to Pierce’s left, and Pierce dribbles to the right around the screen. Allen then fades over to the left wing—the opposite direction from where Pierce is dribbling. As he nears the three-point line, a big man (Sheed tonight) hits Allen’s man with a screen and Pierce tosses a cross-court pass to Ray for the open J. It’s a gorgeous play. It netted a buzzer-beater at Philly late last season and a huge three against Chicago in the playoffs.

• I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but the C’s interior defense remains excellent even when they are not on their A game. Brook Lopez, as good as he is, wanted no part of Perk or KG on the interior.

• Sheed gave us what I believe are his first (and definitely his best) “Ball Don’t Lie!” shouts tonight after Terrence Williams missed two straight foul shots. (Williams was at the line after the refs whistled Scal for a questionable clear path foul that halted a Williams fast break). 

• The C’s rest now until Wednesday, when Utah comes to Boston. They looked tonight and yesterday as if they need it. And that’s fine. No team has played more games, and the C’s have already gotten three of their 18 back-to-backs out of the way. (And 18 is already a low number of back-to-backs; about two-thirds of the league will play 20 or more back-to-backs this season).

• Finally, I’ve mentioned before that the Nets offense reminded me of middle school basketball. Tonight, I thought of a name I probably haven’t thought of in 20 years: Mikey Medley. Mikey Medley was a year above me in elementary school and a regular participant in our basketball games on the playground before school. And Mikey was good. He was faster than anyone else and had super-quick hands. It ruined my day when Mikey was on the other team. He was terrifying. He had no discipline defensively at all. If he noticed a ball-handler wasn’t looking in his direction, he would just sprint toward the poor kid and take the ball. I remember always turning my head in fear that he would be right behind me, ready to poke the ball away. He was like a horror movie villain.

I was reminded of him tonight because of Rajon Rondo. Rondo got steals tonight that would never have happened against a good NBA team. He was borderline reckless, reaching in whenever his guy had the ball, playing the passing lanes ultra-aggressively. But it was smart, in a way, because a) the Nets are sloppy with the ball, tossing crosscourt passes wily-nilly, and b) the C’s offense was sputtering, and Rajon’s steals produced some much-needed easy baskets in the 3rd quarter. Let’s hope the steal spree doesn’t encourage bad habits against good teams.

So, Mikey Medley, wherever you are: Hello, and you still terrify me.