Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Yesterday, we smashed the Detroit Pistons on the road, behind a 37 point performance from Jrue ''First Team All Defense'' Holiday, and a double double from Randle. AD went out with a legitimate injury, and even though he came back, he didn't look like himself; looked nothing like how he looked even last game. He's questionable to play for tonight, but given that he played extended minutes after coming back last night, hopefully he'll be ready to go.
However, for the first time in a while, we should be good even if he doesn't play because even though the Celtics are 15-10 and on a 5 game winning streak, the injuries are on our side for once! Kyrie Irving and Aron Baynes are out, Gordon Hayward and Al Horford are questionable, and Boston is calling up two of their G Leaguers to fill gaps. Even without AD, we should be able to finish off a Celtics team that's missing Irving, Baynes, Horford, and Hayward, right?
I'm not going to list the Celtics stats because with half their team out, those stats are not representative of the team we'll be playing. Instead, I'll focus on us.
Right now we stand at:
Offensive Rating: 3rd
Defensive Rating: 24th
Rebounds per game: 1st
Assists per game: 1st
Steals per game: 16th
Blocks per game: 3rd
2pt percentage: 6th
3pt percentage: 16th
Surprisingly, we look... really good, with one major exception. That defensive rating is trash. The only teams in the league worse on the defensive end are Houston, Phoenix, Washington, the Spurs, the Knicks, and the Cavs. One thing you might realize looking at those teams is that they've almost all stunk, and the two decent teams there (Spurs and Houston) have stunk intermittently, occasionally coming back to look good. Our offensive stats are great, we pass the ball really well (although we make the 4th most turnovers in the league), we rebound well, we get blocks and we're efficient inside the arc. Although we don't shoot the lights out from deep, 16th makes us pretty close to league average, and obviously 16th is pretty decent in steals too.
If our defense right now was ranked somewhere in the middle of the league, maybe 16th as well or thereabouts, we would be 17-11 or something like that. The vast majority of our team, despite the masses of turnovers, the lack of a real lead guard, the injuries that have forced us into playing more than 10 different starting lineups, we are still a strong team in every category except one, and luckily, we've shown the ability off and on to be able to do that too. If our guys can just nail down the defense consistently, even to a mediocre standard, we can look forward to climbing up the rankings in the West pretty quickly.
That is, obviously, a lot easier said than done, and playing against a depleted Celtics team would be a great way to try and set a rhythm. We don't need to hold Kyrie Irving down tonight, we don't need to focus on stopping Baynes getting a billion putbacks, and we might not have to deal with Horford or Hayward either. If we can set a defensive tone playing against a team fielding Jason Taytum and Terry Rozier as its start players, then hopefully that can continue on long after tonight. Only have a few weeks until new year, and we need to be approaching a solid identity by then.
Let's go out there and #DoItBig on the road to pull above .500!
December 10th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Boston Celtics - 14-14
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