Boston's turnaround had little to do with Rondo's absence.

Danny Ainge may be giving the players some time away from basketball, but we are calling every player on the roster into our Celtics Town offices for their exit interviews for the rest of this week. Here’s the seventh in the series: Rajon Rondo.

Rajon,

Obviously, there’s less to say to you than there is to some of your teammates. Your season was cruelly cut short by an ACL injury that will keep you out until training camp begins. The news slowly breaking on Twitter and Doris Burke’s hushed mid-game report on your injury was one of the ultimate sports gut-punch moments that I personally have ever experienced.

The strangest thing about your season was the way your absence forced both your fans and your detractors to confront uncomfortable truths about how they view you as a player. First, your fans: There was really no way to deny that the Celtics played better after you went down with your injury. After beating Miami, Boston went 14-6 in their next 20 games and pulled themselves back into the playoff race. The offense appeared to be tangibly improving as players did more than stand around while you dribbled around the perimeter, obviously annoyed that no one was getting open for you. It was a vicious cycle: Boston relied on your ball movement and distribution, but you relied on their cuts and off-ball movement for your strengths to be properly emphasized. And for all of his many strengths, Doc Rivers has never been particularly gifted as an offensive mastermind.

But when the Celtics reached the playoffs, Rajon, your absence could not POSSIBLY have been more pronounced. Boston struggled just to get the ball up the floor, and then when they did get the ball up the floor, they found entry passes to be nearly impossible, which severely limited an already-limited offense. Without your penetration, every shot was a jumper, and if the jumpers were off, the game was essentially decided. What’s more: Avery Bradley, stuck in one of the most difficult roles of his young career, found himself completely overwhelmed and out of position. The fact that Boston somehow managed to push the Knicks and make them sweat through six games was less of a testament to their ability as a unit and more of a testament to their dogged, undead determination. They missed you desperately, and ultimately, without your talents and contributions, they fell to a better team.

There’s little else to say about your season, so I won’t drag this out; you can go back to playing Connect-4 or whatever it is you do during the offseason. We missed you, and we are all eagerly awaiting your return. Whatever the Celtics look like when you come back, they will benefit considerably from your presence.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.

Despite a solid regular season, Randolph found himself out of the playoff rotation.

Danny Ainge may be giving the players some time away from basketball, but we are calling every player on the roster into our Celtics Town offices for their exit interviews for the rest of this week. Here’s the fourth in the series: Shavlik Randolph.

Shavlik,

I have to hand it to you, man, for two things. First, when the Celtics picked you up, I assumed you would just be glued to the bench for the rest of the season like any number of other non-contributors who found their way into Boston mid-way through the year over the past few seasons. But you weren’t. As soon as you entered a game, you began crashing the boards, grabbing rebounds, scoring putbacks. You also committed a TON of fouls (6.9 per 36 minutes), but that was fine. We just needed the rebounds, and you contributed them. That was pretty awesome. So awesome, in fact, Celtics Twitter tried a ton of variations on the phrase “Shavliksanity” to truly express our appreciation.

The second thing I have to hand it to you for? The hair. I mean, look at that picture above. You clearly were playing for several minutes, and knowing you, you weren’t NOT running into people and pushing them out of the way. You even have a bloody nose, for crying out loud. And yet your hair somehow appears to be perfectly swept back away from your face. Real recognize real. I’m impressed.

I’m not sure why you didn’t play more during the playoffs, Shav. Sure, you weren’t about to help the offensive woes (although when you consider how many shots the Celtics missed, you may have helped on the offensive glass), but your rebounding was always useful. You shouldn’t have been starting or anything crazy, but you had to be able to contribute more than Jordan Crawford and Courtney Lee…right? Ah well. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Presumably, the Celtics hold an option on your contract here in the offseason, so, like Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, nobody is quite sure if you will return or not, and your return would be pretty cheap. Also: Congratulations on being compared to Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce for likely the first time in your entire career.

I wouldn’t be sad to see you return, Shavlik. You clearly care when you are on the floor, and you are very workmanlike. Not much complaining (because really, the foul calls are all good ones), no histrionics, just six fouls and nine rebounds every game. Jared Sullinger will return next year and hopefully help make the rebounding situation a little less desperate. But you’d still be nice to have around coming off the bench.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything I’m forgetting about your 2013, Shav, but I think that’s about it. Rebounds. Fouls. Hair. Yep. That should about cover it.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.

Paul Pierce's future with the Celtics is in question.

Danny Ainge may be giving the players some time away from basketball, but we are calling every player on the roster into our Celtics Town offices for their exit interviews for the rest of this week. Here’s the first in the series: Paul Pierce.

Paul,

You’ll have to pardon us (and by “us,” of course, I mean the entire Celtics blogosphere and Twitter) if we are waxing unnecessarily poetic about you. After all of the things Boston has been through in the past year, it’s hard not to see 2013 as the end of the line for the KG/Paul Pierce era in Boston. And that’s tough for us to handle.

After all, even in your 15th season, there was an extended stretch after Rondo went down during which you put the Celtics on your back and carried them. You didn’t always shoot efficiently, but you calmed the troops down often when you were in the game. For a team that committed a hundred terrible turnovers per game, your calming influence was unspeakably important on the floor, even when you were contributing to the turnover problem. Everything just felt a little safer when you were out there.

Of course, your contributions extended beyond the intangible. Inefficient or not, you contributed a ton of much-needed scoring to this team and, perhaps most notably, a heavy bulk of the rebounding after Rondo went down. The Celtics still sucked at rebounding, both defensive and offensive, but in the regular season, you helped make the problem a little less pronounced.

You had a rough postseason, to be sure. That’s due in no small part to the absurd amount of minutes you played. If you return to Boston, you absolutely need fewer minutes. You played over 100 minutes more this season than you did in 2009-’10…a year in which Boston’s postseason run was extended by three whole more rounds of six games or more. You have now played 40,360 minutes in your career. My knees start to get sore after running an hour and a half at the rec center, and I’m twelve years younger than you. Basically, I totally get how you were run down in the playoffs, and how you struggled to find your range and comfort zone against a defensive monster like Iman Shumpert. Long, athletic defenders don’t always give you problems because you have an incredible amount of of offensive savvy, but Shumpert is a talented defender, and he was a nightmare. If you come back next year, you will have to be on a serious minutes limit for EVERYONE’S sake, including your own.

But I’m concerned with this concept. We’ve all heard the “minutes limit” idea before.  KG, for example, was supposed to be on a 20-ish minute limit all season, but he ended up averaging 29.7 minutes during the regular season because he was just so much better, even worn down, than any of the other options.

Therein lies the problem. Even if Doc starts off with the admirable idea of keeping you on the bench to dominate an opponent’s second unit in limited minutes, we all know that you are too talented to stay on the roster as a back-up, especially since your contract (and probably Garnett’s contract, if you stay) would preclude the Celtics from coming up with a serviceable small forward to replace you in the starting lineup. Jeff Green was revelatory this year, but he was best (by far) at a sort of stretch-4 position, which means Boston would have to either go super small and play a shooting guard at your position, or they’ll have to hope they get a solid draft pick…in the middle of the first round.

All of that being said, you deserve what YOU want. We have had the rare honor of seeing you grow up as an athlete in your time in Boston, and I’m not sure there’s another NBA team who can claim the same kind of progression from a superstar. We saw you come in young and talented. Now you have developed into the kind of captain and leader that most rosters can only dream of. I hope it doesn’t sound condescending for me to say this as, once again, someone twelve years your junior, but I think I speak for just about every Celtics’ fan when I say we are incredibly, incredibly proud of you. Not just of your accomplishments (although that too) but also that we get to cheer for you.

I don’t know if you’ll be back next year, Paul. If you aren’t, your next destination will automatically become just about every Celtics fan’s second favorite team. I think I could cheer for any team besides the Lakers if you ended up on them (for the love of everything, Danny, don’t trade Paul to the Lakers. I will find you). But if Danny does decide to let your contract end in Boston, good basketball moves be damned, know that we as fans would be absolutely thrilled.

If he doesn’t? Sincerely, thank you. Thank you for everything.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.

Legends.

I can’t stop listening to one specific song. It’s my go-to whenever I’m sad, and as Boston’s playoff run has drawn to a close, I am sad. All of the sads, in fact.

Actually, no. “Sad” isn’t the right word. I feel intensely bittersweet. I would have been sad if the Knicks/Celtics series had ended after Game 3. But it didn’t. The series ended as it should have: with a valiant effort capped by a heroic one that ultimately fell just short.

So I feel bittersweet. I invite you to play this song as you read this post. It’s not the kind of music I usually listen to, but if you are anything like me, it will help make you as sad and happy and depressed and grateful and nostalgic and…well…proud as I am.

This time/I’ll be sailing/No more bailing boats for me

In 2010, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce all decided to come back to the Celtics to make one more run. Since then, every season has felt potentially like the last one as flurries of injuries and roster changes have made the team that won a championship in 2008 nearly unrecognizable. For years, it seemed like Boston was constantly plugging leaks. This season, as Rondo and Sullinger went down and the carousel of patchwork fixes paraded through Beantown, the Celtics were bailing boats.

We probably need to accept the fact that Paul Pierce will not be a Celtic next year. Greg Dickerson tweeted after the game that he has played his last game as a Celtic. Pierce wouldn’t commit to coming back to Boston in his post-game. Ainge has told CSNNE that people should be ready for some painful changes as fans.

And, of course, as Paul Pierce goes, so goes Kevin Garnett. The two players who dragged this squad back from being a shamefully bad squad and made them not only relevant, but PROUD will probably be gone next year.

I don’t think we properly appreciate how amazing it is to cheer for a proud team. “Celtic Pride” has become a bit of a buzzword, but it’s an appropriate one. Being a Celtic used to mean something. You may have heard the story of how, after winning a championship once, Bill Russell kicked all reporters out of the locker room so he could have a quiet moment with his teammates? That spirit lived on in these Celtics, and it lived on as a result of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Pierce doesn’t seem to mind the spotlight, but Kevin Garnett is an intensely private person. There will be a jersey-retirement, and then — I suspect — we won’t hear from him for a long time.

He’ll be sailing. After this offseason, the Ubuntu Celtics will be sailing. No more bailing boats.

I’ll be awful sometimes/Weakened to my knees

Over the next few days, there will be a ton of fawning over Boston’s potentially-departing old guard, but we would be remiss if we said that this season was perfect.

It wasn’t.

In fact, at times, it was awful. You remember the moments, so I don’t need to go into detail. There were a thousand missed defensive rebounds. There were a thousand small injuries and a few really big ones. There was that one afternoon in late January in which we all heard the ACL news and collectively stopped breathing. There was Paul Pierce’s face when Doris Burke accidentally broke it to him that Rondo was done. There were the trade deadline rumors, and the Sullinger and Barbosa injuries. Hell, there were Games 2 and 3 of the Knicks series. In a lot of ways, this season, frankly, sucked.

So it’s a testament, then, that when a friend on Twitter asked me “Decent season?” I replied that, while I was (and still am) sad, I couldn’t (and still can’t) ask for more.

I’ll be standing strong and tall/Turn my back towards them all

It’s difficult not to compare the Celtics to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it’s especially difficult now. After all, the Lakers are also aging. The Lakers were also injury-riddled. The Lakers were also in the Finals in 2008 (and 2010).

As such, it’s pretty difficult not to be pleased with how the Celtics went out. They were down 3-0. They made it 3-2. They were down by 20+. They made it four. They made it a series, and they made Game 6 competitive. What a team.

Much of how I measure that Celtics is in relation to the Lakers, and you know what? The Lakers were what the Celtics COULD have been in a painful alternate universe. The Lakers were glitzy and showy, but when their best players went down with injuries, they folded like a perforated piece of paper and bowed out in an ignominious defeat. When Boston’s best player went down, they COULD have folded. They could have melted down. They could have been ejected in a series-deciding Game 4. But that’s not how these Celtics have ever acted. Instead, they dug down deep and made one last final stand. And then another. And then another that came up just short.

My point isn’t that we should be clowning the Lakers (ok, my point is, at most, 15% that we should clown the Lakers). My real point is that we should, once again, be proud. The Celtics left the court defeated, but they have always stood strong and tall, backs toward them all.

I’ll learn to get by/On the little victories

Let’s list some little victories, shall we?

• We begin with Jeff Green. Remember in the offseason, when everyone declared Green’s contract a gigantic failure before the season even started? Remember the first time you saw him open that Superman thing on his chest and pound his repaired heart? Remember when he destroyed Al Jefferson? And Jermaine O’Neal? And a whole bunch of other teams? Remember when you first realized “Hey, this guy is really freaking good?” I do too. Little victory.
• This game. Little victory.
• Jared Sullinger, pre-surgery. Sully, passed over by every other team, was EXACTLY what Boston needed this year. Little victory.
• This play and this comeback. Little victory.

Since 2008, much has been made of why the Celtics didn’t win another title. In 2009, it was because KG was hurt. In 2010, it was Perk. In 2011, it was the Perk trade. In 2012, it was the Bradley injury. This year, it was Rondo.

I would suggest that perhaps we have been emphasizing the wrong things. Instead of looking at excuses, we should have been looking at the little victories. “Celtic Pride” is a real thing. It’s what drove this team to battle. It’s what defined the KG/Paul Pierce era. It’s what extended this team’s shelf-life by at least three years.

And at the end of the day, it’s what made all of the little victories seem not very little at all.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.

The idea that Mike Woodson might realize that this man needs to be more involved should be frightening to Celtics fans.

Note: I was too depressed to write a playoff playbook post after Game 3, and after Game 4, I was just relieved Boston wasn’t going to be swept. Now that the Celtics seem to have made this into a real series once again, let’s take another in-depth Xs and Os look at Game 5. And let’s hope, once again, that it’s not the last one of the season.

Like any good solution, let’s start by examining the problem. Here it is:

Do you feel like you just got repeatedly punched in the crotch watching those? No? Do it again. You’ll get there eventually.

Pick and rolls have destroyed the Celtics defensively throughout this series, and the combination of Raymond Felton and Tyson Chandler has been particularly deadly. This shouldn’t be a surprise: We’ve discussed this before, but the Knicks are currently #3 in P&R Ball-Handler points per possession for the season, according to mySynergySports.com, and second in P&R Roll Man PPP. Simply put, the Knicks are good at this play, and it’s inevitable that they will get a lot of points out of it.

Or at least, they would get a lot of points out of it if Mike Woodson would run it more often. Here are some interesting numbers from Synergy:

New York’s offensive efficiency in Game 5

• Isolation: 26.3% of all possessions. 26 plays overall. 0.69 PPP.
• P&R Ball-Handler: 17.2% of all possessions. 17 plays overall. 0.65 PPP.
• P&R Roll Man: 5.1% of all possessions. 5 plays overall. 1.6 PPP.

You will notice, first and foremost, that the Isolation play efficiency is awful, but we already knew that. If you want a nice examination of how Boston has been shutting down New York’s isolation plays — specifically against Carmelo Anthony — by packing the paint, go check out this HoopChalk.com article on that subject. To sum it up, the Celtics know that Brandon Bass has the strength to withstand Anthony’s drives, and enough foot-speed to avoid utter embarrassment. They also know that if Bass is guarding against Anthony’s drives and the defense packs the paint whenever Anthony gets the ball, they have a solid chance of forcing Melo into a bad, contested jumper. Occasionally, these shots go in, but Boston can certainly live with 0.69 points per possession on 26% of New York’s possessions. We can probably expect to see the Celtics pack the paint against J.R. Smith tonight as well, since they can’t very well rely on Smith to have another 3-13 evening if he’s driving to the basket consistently.

Next, you may note that despite all appearances, the Knicks actually scored just 0.65 PPP against Boston in Game 5 in P&R Ball-Handler plays. These plays were the second-most popular for New York, and there was essentially one unifying factor between the sets that worked and those that didn’t: Tyson Chandler.

Much has been made about Chandler’s apparent absence from this series, but the fact remains that when the Knicks run pick-and-rolls through him, good things happen. When they don’t, the paint can get very crowded for Felton and other ball-handlers. Here’s an example:

First (and you may not be able to tell, due to the shoddy video quality), the screener is Kenyon Martin. As Felton attempts to go around the screen, Kevin Garnett actually manages to stay in front of Martin quite nicely, and Jason Terry rolls underneath the screen — something Felton hasn’t been able to punish the Celtics for throughout the series.

Since Martin’s screen was somewhat mediocre (and his roll was essentially non-existant), Terry is able to get around it fairly easily and cut off Felton’s progress.

You can see in the picture above that Felton sees his lane closing. You can also see how lackadaisically Martin is rolling to the hoop. In fact, he seems to either be setting a screen for J.R. Smith or inexplicably boxing out Paul Pierce. Either way, Martin’s roll is confusing here, and as a result, with Martin hanging well back away from the play, Garnett is able to dive into the lane and double Felton, who is forced to try to create a very difficult shot.

Smith is, indeed, starting to fade a little bit away from Pierce, and Martin almost seems to be screening him, but since Garnett is so comfortable helping in this situation, Felton is screwed. He can’t pass out to Smith, he can’t get the ball to Martin, so he is forced to throw up a wild shot. It gets blocked, and Boston is off the other way.

Throughout Game 5, the film shows that many of the pick-and-rolls involving ball-handlers and Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin and any other Knick big fail because the roll man doesn’t quite do his job.

When Tyson Chandler is the roll man? Well…

Pick and rolls. Slip screens. Dunks on dunks on dunks. You get the idea.

Chandler’s success as a roll man is, of course, incentive in itself for the Knicks to run more pick-and-rolls with him. But it’s not the only incentive: Chandler’s success, logically, creates spacing issues for Boston’s defense since hedging and helping become considerably more difficult when the roll man is doing his job.

The first play is the biggest problem Chandler presents. His screen is PERFECTION: Terrence Williams can’t help but run straight into it, and there’s noticeable contact. This forces Garnett to try to hedge on Felton, which gives Chandler plenty of space to roll.

Garnett then has two options: Hope that Williams can recover on Felton or surrender the lob to Chandler and hope he can bat it away. Garnett chooses the former, and because Chandler’s screen has thrown Williams so far out of the play, he can’t recover. Felton scores easily.

The second play takes place a few minutes later, and it builds on the first. Once again, Felton receives a screen from Tyson Chandler. Once again, it’s a picture-perfect screen that creates plenty of contact, this time with Jeff Green, taking him out of the play. And once again, KG is forced to hedge too far to his left. The difference? This time Felton crosses over and splits the gap between Garnett and Chandler, driving to the hoop for the layup.

It’s essential that Doc Rivers finds a way to combat the effectiveness of Chandler’s screens defensively. Knicks coach Mike Woodson hasn’t been calling Chandler’s number enough on offense, but it would be risky to the point of fool-hardiness to assume that A) Chandler will be in foul trouble once again and B) Woodson will continue to rely too much on Anthony and Smith in isolation in Game 6.

I’m not sure what that solution is, but take comfort in this, if nothing else: Doc Rivers is much smarter than us. We can only hope that translates to effective defensive adjustments.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.

Hold everything. KG and the Celtics aren't quite done.

It was chippy, it was tense, it was entirely too close and too stressful and too breathless and too much like every other game in these playoffs, except that instead of folding and breaking down in the second half, the Celtics actually pulled away. And then, of course, the Knicks pulled closer again, but Boston maintained their advantage, and as a result, this series is somehow, inexplicably, improbably going to Game 6. In Boston. Friday. This season is still breathing.

Although the season is still breathing, I, quite frankly, am not. There were two moments in the second half in which most Celtics fans thought they could exhale. The first was with nine minutes to go (which should have been a good indicator that the game was far from over, but such is life) when Jeff Green swooped down the lane and smashed the ball through the net to give Boston a 15-point lead. 15 points! A 15-point lead AGAINST the Celtics is doomsday, since the Celtics have struggled to score 15 points in an entire 3rd quarter this series.

Unfortunately, against the Knicks, 15 points is quite doable, especially when Boston’s offense stops scoring until the 5:39 mark. By the time Brandon Bass tossed in a shot in the post against Tyson Chandler (and yes, you read that right), New York had closed the gap to 10. Jeff Green scored eight straight points to push Boston’s lead to 12 with about 2:30 left including back-to-back corner 3-pointers that completely quieted the MSG crowd. That was the second moment. I exhaled.

Then JR Smith made a couple of 3-pointers that brought New York within five with a minute remaining. If there was a heart-breaking way 2013 could end, it would be blowing a 12-point lead with two minutes left. But KG wasn’t done. He pump-faked Chandler into the air, stepped to his left and buried a cold-blooded mid-range jumper that stopped New York in their tracks. The Knicks missed a couple of desperation threes, and the Celtics pulled off a must-win victory. Boston is not dead just yet.

I realize that, for the most part here at Celtics Town, our run-ups to the bullet points are rarely this long, but we rarely have games like this one. So without further (further) ado, let’s get to the bullet points.

• At this point, nothing is about efficiency. Neither team has been efficient. The Celtics shot EXTREMELY well from 3-point range (11-22), but Pierce and Terry were both inefficient overall (6-19 and 6-16 respectively). Jeff Green was efficient (18 points on eight shots), but he was rarely used. It was the Celtics’ defense that won this game. The Knicks shot 39.5% from the field overall and 22.7% from the 3-point line. Boston still can’t stop Felton’s P&R game, but they defended everything else very well.
• JR Smith had perhaps the worst game of his life in his return from a suspension. Smith finished with 14 points, but he needed 14 shots to do it, and even that inefficiency undersells how bad he was. He didn’t make his first field goal until the 2:48 mark of the 4th quarter, and he seemed hesitant and uncomfortable all game. You can bet Boston’s crowd is going to let him have it in Game 6, and if Game 5 was any indicator, Smith may not respond very well to the pressure.
• Terrence Williams was good and bad. He didn’t turn the ball over in 17 minutes as a point guard, he brought the ball up the floor more reliably than any Celtic has so far in the playoffs, and he (wait for it) COMPLETED ENTRY PASSES. I know. I was surprised too. On the other hand, he attempted three 3-pointers, and while one of those was an end-of-the-shot-clock heave, another was taken instead of swinging the ball to an open Jason Terry (who, despite his overall inefficiencies, was 5-9 from 3-point range). But if we assume that a few bad shots are nullified by 17 minutes of turnover-free basketball from an extremely turnover-prone team, we can also assume that Williams deserved his minutes and might get more in the future.
• Avery Bradley is shook. I don’t know what else to say. I hope this series doesn’t do him any lasting damage.
• Doc’s rotation was seven deep. SEVEN. Every non-Bradley starter played over 40 minutes. That’s going to make for some tired legs in Game 6.
• WHAT MORE CAN YOU SAY ABOUT KEVIN GARNETT. 16 points on 5-9 shooting, 6-6 from the free throw line and (get this) 18 rebounds. Garnett is not going into the sweet beyond without a fight.
• Brandon Bass didn’t do much in the second half, but let’s all take a moment and salute him for his first quarter performance that brought the Celtics back from a 9-0 hole. Bass scored Boston’s first four points and seven of their first nine. His offense seemed to calm the New York storm, and Boston managed to work the lead down to two by the end of the quarter. Great first half for Bass.

The Celtics refuse to die. New York is going to have to take a playoff series from their cold, dead, arthritic and inexplicably steadfast fingers. Win or lose Game 6 (and potentially Game 7), that resiliency is what we should take away from the KG era. It’s not easy. It has NEVER been easy. But Boston doesn’t die.

Win or lose, that’s worth appreciating. Game 6. Friday. In Boston. It’s happening.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.