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8 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

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9 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
10 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

94
10 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
13 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

42
14 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

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Breaking Down Doc Rivers’ Greatest Hits (Video Compliation)

So you may have heard it before. Doc Rivers knows how to draw up great end-of-game plays. Still, after last night’s masterpiece I felt it would be a fun idea and break down in video just how much success Rivers has had in these kind of situations over the past three plus years to show you just what kind of genius we are working with…..and why I wouldn’t mind seeing no more Paul Pierce isolations for the foreseeable future.

We’ll start the fun with last night’s game winner. Brendan breaks it down tremendously in his post from earlier this morning so I won’t waste too much time on it here.

Let’s stay in the city of brotherly love for our next selection from another thriller against Philly in February of 2009. Plenty of C’s fans probably had flashbacks to this play last night and I for one expected Ray to get involved, but Rondo didn’t have the need to go to that option last night. Still as you can see here a terrific back pick by Pierce gets Ray open in corner to hit the three for the win, right after, you guessed it Andre Iguodala hit a go-ahead shot with just seconds remaining.

Plenty of more goodness after the jump where you won’t believe just how many game winners Doc has drawn up

We’ll stick with Ray Allen for this one in the team’s first road game of the Big Three era back in 2007. Down 1 with just 4.4 seconds remaining, Doc draws up another baseline pick for Ray this time set by KG. Allen gets free in the corner and drills the dagger

Doc’s alley-oop playcalls down the stretch did not originate with KG’s first last night. In fact, the distributor last night, Rajon Rondo, was the recipent of an alley-oop last January in Miami, probably the last player on the floor the ball was excepted to go with just .4 seconds on the clock:

There’s tricky plays, but sometimes a simple pick and roll is enough to do the job as seen with The Truth and Kevin Garnett in this game winner last December over the Knicks:

The good news is Doc just isn’t limited to regular season success in this department. We can all remember the magic of three game winning plays drawn up in the 08-09 playoffs against the Bulls and the Magic courtesy of the master himself:

Now it’s helped that Rivers has had one of the most talented teams in the league to help execute these plays. It’s obviously a two-way street in that department. Still the variety of quality looks Doc has been able to get nearly every player on the roster in end-of-game situation is quite astounding. He has been able to keep opposing defenses on their toes, always using decoys to get the ball to the player he wants in a good situation to succeed. Doesn’t matter if it’s been Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, or Glen Davis they all delivered the good thanks to Doc. So let’s stick to Doc drawing up these plays that use everyone and move the ball as much as possible, since as nice as the Pierce iso’s can be (see below), they aren’t the best option this team has down the stretch of games.

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