Logo
The Ticker
6 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 [...]

19
7 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
8 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 [...]

93
8 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
11 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
12 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 [...]

9
Browse Archives by:

A Solution to C’s Problems? Starting Strong

The numbers aren’t pretty for the C’s during the first 12 games of the young season, but there is one department that has been especially disturbing for Doc Rivers this year. The problem? Slow starts.

Boston has led after the first quarter in just three of their 12 games this year, and uncoincidentally, they have won all three of those contests.

Overall, the C’s have been outscored by an average of 3.5 points in the first quarter and are putting up a mere 20.3 points over the first 12 minutes. Sound ugly? It gets worse.

The woeful offense has dropped to disturbing lows during the team’s recent five-game losing streak. Over that stretch, Boston has posted a paltry 16.6 points in the first quarter. They’ve also been outscored by an absurd 6.4 points on each of those nights.

There’s digging yourself a hole, and then there’s digging yourself a six-point hole. Boston can afford to do neither right now, given the issues they are having in other facets of their game.

Over the past few seasons, Boston has historically come out of the gate strong after the opening tip, so playing catchup for three quarters is clearly not a situation these guys are used to.

Luckily, the starters’ play has improved in the past few games, but their early offensive inconsistency has not. As Brendan noted this morning, the window is there right now for Boston to turn things around. It has to start tonight beginning with this team’s first quarter play.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>