Celtics have spoken to Rondo about attitude, consistency
According to Ray Allen, the Boston Celtics have spoken to Rajon Rondo about his attitude and consistency. (WEEI)
Rajon Rondo‘s inconsistent play of late is another frequently mentioned reason for the C’s struggles.
“He’s like the head of the monster, the head of the snake, so to speak,” Allen said of the young point guard. “We’ve got to make sure his energy is great, his attitude is great, his body language is great, everything. Because he probably takes the brunt of all the pressure, the attitude that one of us may get, if he takes it all on, and we’ve got to make sure that we always keep him right, because he’s the one that’s going to make sure he keeps us going deep into the playoffs.”
Allen acknowledged that he and his veteran teammates have talked to Rondo about staying focused before every game.
“We’ve all talked about it,” he said. “We’ve talked about having great spirit out there on the floor every night, whether you’re playing the best player or the worst player, you have to have the same energy, the same spirit, because your team follows you. And those are lessons I learned early in my career.”
Whether Rondo shows up for every regular season game or not, I don’t think anybody has any doubts he’ll show up in the playoffs. He was arguably the top performer (not just on the Celtics) in last season’s playoffs, quite capable of ruining an opposing coach’s appetite and sending teams home early for summer vacation (notably, he did slow down during the Lakers series, when L.A.’s length bothered him at times).
Sometimes, Rondo gets bored by the process. He sulks through certain regular season games, or argues with his teammates/coaching staff, or plays so poorly Doc Rivers sits him for what the team termed “a sore pinkie finger,” but seemed more like, “Rondo hasn’t exactly cared for the past few weeks.” Yet when the playoffs come, Rondo transforms from Dr. Bruce Banner to the Incredible Hulk.
Which is good, because, as Paul Pierce notes, “As Rondo goes, we go.”
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Celtics Blog | Jay King | April 6, 2011
“Whether Rondo shows up for every regular season game or not, I don’t think anybody has any doubts he’ll show up in the playoffs.”
I wonder if observers in the Celtics’ locker room in the minutes leading up to Game 7 vs. Orlando in 2009 felt otherwise.
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This isn’t 2009 bro. That was before Rondo’s true emergence. He wasn’t the player he was even a year later.
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Even in 2009, he was the best player on the court every night, tossing up triple doubles all the time. . . even if he did arrive late for the Game 7.
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When he’s focused, motivated, inspired, Rondo is the best player in the NBA. It’s hard for a lot of fans to see this, because they are obsessed with power players (eg. Rose and Lebron), and shooters (Durant, Kobe); another reason it’s hard to see is Rondo’s notorious inconsistency (and even that is maddeningly hard to judge, because a big factor in Rondo’s game is deception – he LIKES to disappear, because that gives him a Rodman-esque ability to reappear, so one finds oneself wondering, when Rondo seems out of it, has Rondo’s mind strayed into the aether, or is he lulling the other team?).
It sounds, from the way the Big Three are talking, like the baton has finally, definitively been passed to Rondo. Everyone seems to recognize, at this point, that they’ll get as far as Rondo takes them. That’s more true than ever with Perkins gone.
I’m really looking forward to the game tonight. I’m not as confident as I was going into the Spurs game a week ago; I have the feeling that this is going to be a tough contest that could go either way. But one thing I’m fairly sure of is that it will be a good game, and that Rose and Rondo will put on an epic battle.
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