BOSTON CELTICS
Season Review 2012/13:
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Advanced Stats
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Numbers
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Rank
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Pace
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91.7
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16
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Offense
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103.1
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24
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Defense
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103.3
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7
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Rebound
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46.0
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29
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4 Factors
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Offense
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Numbers
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Rank
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Defense
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Numbers
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Rank
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eFG%
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50.3
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12
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eFG%
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48.2
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6
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TO%
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14.1
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23
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TO%
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14.2
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9
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Reb%
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20.1
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30
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Reb%
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26.7
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19
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FT%
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20.4
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14
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FT%
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21.6
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23
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Monthly Performance
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Record
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OffRtg
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DefRtg
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November
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9-7
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107.0
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106.4
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December
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5-9
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102.1
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106.7
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January
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8-7
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103.3
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99.9
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February
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8-4
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107.8
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102.9
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March
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8-8
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105.4
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105.4
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April
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3-5
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109.2
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108.5
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Even though they had no depth and that Ray Allen was completely physically limited, the Celtics were one home win away to reach the 2012 NBA Finals over the Heat, until “that performance” from LeBron James happened in the Game 6 and the Celtics ended up being eliminated in a grueling 7-game series.
Once again the Celtics showed an incredible inconsistency in the regular season, but as soon as the playoffs started, they showed how dangerous they are despite having an aging core of player. GM Danny Ainge wasn’t ready to quit on them and he spent the offseason trying to fix one of their biggest problems: their lack of depth! Ainge “let” Ray Allen go to Miami (actually it was Ray who decided to join the Heat by refusing one better last offer from the Celtics), but he got several serviceable players in Jason Terry and Courtney Lee to replace Ray Allen, Leandro Barbosa as Rajon Rondo’s backup, Jeff Green was back after taking the previous season off due to a heart problem, while Ainge drafted Jared Sullinger, who was quickly appointed as a “draft steal”, even though he had some red flags regarding his health around him.
As soon as the regular season started and even though they had some renewed hype (the oddsmakers gave them a 50.5 regular season wins line – 2nd highest in the East), we basically saw the same old Celtics from the previous season once again: a mediocre team that could beat the best teams in the league, but at the same time they could also lose twice to Charlotte, including a 74-100 blowout loss!
Boston’s biggest problem was well documented: their offense was too predictable and it was declining pretty fast as well. Just take a look at some historical data:
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Decling Offense vs Elite Defense
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Offense
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Rank
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Defense
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Rank
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2007-08
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110.2
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11
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98.9
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2
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2008-09
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110.5
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6
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102.3
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2
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2009-10
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107.7
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15
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103.8
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5
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2010-11
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106.2
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18
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100.3
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2
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2011-12
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101.0
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27
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98.2
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1
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2012-13
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103.1
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24
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103.3
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7
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Doc Rivers was able to make his team a Top 10 defensive team in every season since the Big Three Era started, even though Kevin Garnett played at the Center position the last two seasons, but on offense the scenario was completely different, as Boston went from being a quite good offensive team into outright awful over the last two seasons.
Boston was the league’s worst offensive rebounding team, so their offensive sets were mostly “one and done” plays. They were a subpar team in handling the ball as well, despite having an elite PG and they just couldn’t score in the paint (#27 with 38.1 points/game). The combination of all these factors could only result into a really poor offensive team.
The Celtics were known for being a clutch team with a head coach who was seen as being great down the stretch by drawing some excellent clutch plays. However, the Celtics lost too many close games in January: 99-100 in an OT game against Chicago; 90-95 at Cleveland; 86-89 against the NY Knicks; 111-123 in double OT against Atlanta, even though they had a 27-points lead at one point in that game!
But the biggest problem in that game wasn’t that the Celtics couldn’t secure a 27-points lead. It was Rajon Rondo’s injury! The Celtics looked doomed for the season, but they actually bounced back quite well by winning 14 of their following 18 games. As weirder as it may look, the key for that good run of the Celtics was their improved offense! Boston averaged an offensive rate of 104.0 with Rondo, but in those 18 games, they averaged an offensive rate of 106.6! The Celtics suddenly became less predictable on offense that was something that surprised the league in the short term.
But once the league caught the “new look” of the Celtics, they got back into struggling on offense and with a couple of other season ending injuries, Boston ended the regular season with a 41-40 record, the #7 place in the East and a matchup against the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs.
Despite all the effort that Danny Ainge did on the offseason, the lack of depth proved to be once again the biggest factor for the Celtics’ loss in six games in that series against the Knicks. This problem was highlighted immediately on the Game 1 of the series when a tired Boston team was held to just 8 points in the 4th quarter, with their bench providing a “solid” zero points for them! Eventually Boston got some nice momentum in the middle of the series with wins in Games 4 and 5, but they couldn’t recover from a 0-3 deficit and lost the series by 2-4.
Offseason Report:
Danny Ainge decided that it was time to shut down the Big Three Era and blow everything up to start a whole new era. Doc Rivers eventually decided that he wanted to leave Boston as well (he joined the Clippers) and after that, Danny Ainge quickly shipped both Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn for a couple of draft picks and plenty of other players who won’t turn the Celtics into a better team: MarShon Brooks, Gerald Wallace, Keith Bogans and Kris Humphries are the new faces of the franchise and this says it all about Boston’s aspirations for the new season.
Season Preview:
With Doc Rivers gone, Danny Ainge wasn’t afraid to make a bold move and hired the brilliant NCAA coach Brad Stevens from Butler to be the team’s new head coach. It will be interesting to watch how Stevens will adapt to the NBA, as the experience in similar cases hasn’t been great. Anyway, this is a win-win situation for Boston, as if the Stevens’s solution doesn’t work out, the Celtics won’t mind as their biggest goal for the new season is to get a good draft position on the 2014 draft.
Rajon Rondo is the only player left on the team that won the title back in 2007-08 and his return to the court is a big question mark, as it’s also his future on the team. Throughout the years, we have been watching how Rondo has come from a passive offensive player with the job to find the right spots to pass the ball into a much more aggressive player on offense. Rondo is coming from career highs in shots attempted per game (12.2) and points per game (13.7) and with this roster, this trend will certainly continue.
Avery Bradley, Courtney Lee, Jeff Green and Brandon Bass are all solid rotation player who would fit quite well in a contender team, but asking them to take the lead in Boston and make the Celtics a playoffs contender this season is asking too much to them.
Brad Stevens will have a lot of work to find the right lineups from this bunch of players who have the goal of forming a “team” as soon as possible. I just can’t imagine how dreadful their offense will be if their backcourt is formed by Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley and Gerald Wallace!
It seems impossible for the Celtics to avoid falling into the bottom of the league. But even if Coach Stevens somehow manages to turn Boston into a competitive team, Danny Ainge will surely trade some players before the trade deadline in order to get more valuable assets for the future of the franchise, as that’s the plan for the Celtics on this upcoming season.