If the Boston Celtics are actually tanking, they are doing a really bad job of it.
The Celtics played three very different kinds of basketball games over the previous five days – I was at two of them – that showed a lot about the way this team is operating.
And giving away wins for ping-pong balls isn’t part of the plan.
On Friday, Boston scored the first 14 points against Denver and led 39-15 after the first quarter. The Celtics nearly gave away all of that lead but regrouped and came away with a 106-98 home win.
Boston learned from that and made its fast start stick two days later in New York. The Celtics had leads of 12-0, 18-1, 25-3 and 35-11 in the first quarter. They were never threatened in a 114-73 rout, the largest margin for any game this season.
It was Boston’s sixth win in eight games, pushing the supposed tank into first place in the abysmal Atlantic Division, which still gets an automatic playoff berth.
“It’s not like I’m giving a Knute Rockne speech,” said rookie coach Brad Stevens, whose hiring directly from college was perceived by some to be part of the tanking plan. “These guys are going out and doing it on their own.”
Although it is hard to call a sub-.500 team successful, much of the team’s early progress has to do with Stevens, who has been given younger players and castoffs who are on the roster mainly as cap slots. Somehow, he is getting the most out of them.
For such an inexperienced team – and coach – just learning how to win games the correct way can be an adventure.
“I think everyone knows the general way to get there,” Stevens said. “But I do think we’re learning our jobs better. We’re performing our jobs better. We’re doing our jobs more consistently. And as a result, you’re putting yourself in the position to have a chance to win.”
One of the main contributors and perhaps the biggest surprise has been guard Jordan Crawford, who started the season on the bench but quickly gained Stevens’ trust and is having a career year as the club’s starting point guard while All-Star Rajon Rondo continues to rehabiltate his torn ACL.
| Crawford | Number |
| Minutes | 29.6 |
| FG % | 46.2 |
| 3 FG % | 40.2 |
| Assists | 5.3 |
| Steals | 1 |
| FT % | 86.2 |
| PER | 19.7 |
| TS % | 57.8 |
| eFG % | 53.2 |
| O Rating | 116 |
| D Rating | 106 |
| WS/48 | 0.175 |
Crawford never even had an offensive rating above 100 before this season. Stevens said it’s all about what Crawford and the rest of his players are doing now.
“This is not about what guys have done yesterday or what they’ve done in the past, it’s about what you could do to better and improve yourself,” Stevens said. “All the scoring doesn’t surprise me; that’s what he always has been. He’s always been really good at it, he’s always been a tough shot-maker. He’s been picking his spots extremely well and he’s defending extremely well.”
Defending has become the focal point for the Celtics. With Rondo out, Boston doesn’t really have any dynamic offensive focal points; the team is 24th in the league in scoring, so the defense has to carry the team if it wants to win games – a serious consideration in the “tanking” conversation.
Boston is seventh in scoring defense at just over 96 points per game and is doing so by giving up the third lowest 3-point percentage at 32.9 percent.
Boston’s best defender is Avery Bradley, whose struggles at the point and Crawford’s emergence have moved him to shooting guard. But that hasn’t affected the rest of his game. He still accepts the toughest defensive task, is averaging a career high in points and – as NBA.com’s John Schuhmann points out – is one of the 10 most improved rebounders in the league this season.
So after dropping a buck-fourteen on the Knicks, it figured wanted to talk about allowing just 73.
“These guys were in stance, they were communicating, getting to know each other better, their communication was enhanced,” Stevens said. “Sometimes when you’re in a new system, you don’t want to say anything because you don’t want to be wrong, and then when you don’t know each other, you’re saying less. And so then you’re playing and nobody’s talking. So we’ve gotten better at communicating, gotten better at covering for one another.”
Almost every Celtic has an above average defensive rating, including Jared Sullinger, who has been a huge bright spot this season. After a promising rookie season was cut short by back surgery, the second-year forward has improved his game on both ends.
Still just 21, Sullinger is averaging over 13 points and nearly seven rebounds on 47.2 percent shooting. “I think that came with the back surgery,” he said.
The burly Sullinger is even showing 3-point range, which has only expanded his total repertoire. Last season, he was 1-of-5 from the arc. This season, he is 18-of-57 and already has six games with two or more.
“I always had it,” he said. “I just never got to shoot it last year and that’s just something I’ve worked on and I’m just trying to extend my range.”
Despite the surprising start, there are still going to be more than a few nights where the Celtics simply do not measure up. That’s what happened Tuesday night in Brooklyn, with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett playing their first regular season game against their former team and Deron Williams returning from a lengthy absence due to an ankle injury.
There was no fast start as Boston fell behind 31-20 after the first quarter. There also was no answer for Brook Lopez and Brooklyn’s bigs as Boston was dominated inside.
“They really took us out of what we wanted to do.” Stevens said. “Garnett, specifically, defensively did some really good things that took us out of what we wanted to do on a couple of occasions.”
The Celtics never led after the first quarter but did briefly tie it in the third period and trailed by just five with two minutes to go, showing a lot of fight in a game where they were clearly outplayed.
“We are a fighting team and we felt that we still had a chance to win the game with two minutes left and we were going to fight until the buzzer went off,” Bradley said.
Boston has Brooklyn’s first-round pick, so beating the Nets would have benefited the Celtics to some degree. But their own pick figures to be higher, which is why many believed the Celtics would try to tank the season.
Not Stevens, who is leading a young and building team with an open mind and an even temperament.
“You’re never as good as you think you are, you’re never as bad as you think you are and you’re never far from either,” Stevens said.
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for Sheridan Hoops who loves advanced statistics and the way they explain what happens on the court. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. His website is SprungOnSports.com. You should follow him on Twitter.