Closing the Deal: The Failure of the 2009-2010 Boston Celtics

There are many reasons why the Lakers are NBA champions and the Celtics ended the season unhappy. One can cite injuries, age, coaching, home-court advantage, and a host of other things. While I think Kendrick Perkins’ injury was an underrated factor, I do not believe it made the difference in the Finals. I think Perkins’ absence from the lineup merely amplified the difference between the two teams. By the time the injury occurred in Game 6, Boston was already well on their way to not winning the championship.

During a Game 5 timeout, Phil Jackson was recorded telling the Lakers that the Celtics blew more big leads than any team in the NBA. I’ve heard some people call Jackson classless for what he said, but the man spoke truth. Blowing big leads was the Celtics’ M.O. all season long. In the end, Jackson’s suggestion that Boston would hand the game over to the Lakers was correct—he just spoke two games premature.

Bill Simmons’ theory is that the Celtics’ offense fails down the stretch of close games because Rajon Rondo plays differently. Rondo is a horrible free-throw shooter. According to Simmons’ theory, Rondo changes his offensive attack in an effort to avoid going to the foul line near the end of close games. I wholeheartedly believe in this theory. One needs only to watch a few Celtic games to agree. What Rondo does turn his team into a 4-man offense. In Game 7, he further handicapped it.

Watch a replay of the fourth quarter of Game 7. What you’ll see is at least three possessions during which Rondo, at the last possible second, pulls back a pass he was about to throw to Ray Allen. Allen’s shooting struggles during the series have been well-documented, but that offense, to a great extent, relies upon him running behind screens and taking jump shots. When Rondo refuses to pass Allen the ball while the shooter is open, the offense stagnates. During a large chunk of the fourth quarter of the final game, Rondo turned the Celtics into a 3-man offense.

Speaking of Ray Allen’s poor shooting in the Finals, I think we can look at two main factors. Both revolve around defense. Allen’s defense on Kobe Bryant was critical during the series. Kobe did not have a good series. It was Ray Allen who spent the bulk of the time hounding the Mamba around the court. Everyone knows that guarding a great perimeter player tires out a player more than anything. Guarding Kobe Bryant throughout the series killed Allen’s legs. There is also a Rondo component to Allen’s poor shooting. As everyone knows that Rondo cannot shoot, defenders back further and further away from him. As the Finals progressed, Kobe began backing more than five feet off of Rondo. Instead drawing Bryant closer to him by taking more jumpers, Rondo continued to play his normal game. This allowed Kobe to play a one-man zone while, theoretically, guarding the man with the ball. Completing passes to would-be scorers became much more difficult. Every Celtic possession resulted in Ray Allen running around two or three extra screens. Over the course of a game and a series, those extra trips around the court added up.

Unless there was a fast break, the point guard seemed unwilling to be involved in the second half offense. Against a well-coached and defensive-minded team like the Lakers, that is a killer. Fast breaks were few and far between for the Celtics in the final two games of the series. That is a direct result of the lack of rebounding, which was a major problem for Boston in Games 6 and 7.

Pau Gasol was a beast on the boards for those final two games. He was such a beast that he recorded over 38% of his Finals rebounds during Games 6 and 7. During Game 7, the Lakers had eleven offensive rebounds in the first quarter alone. This was the point when many of the pundits started acknowledging the impact of Kendrick Perkins’ injury. As I said earlier, Perkins’ injury only amplified the problem. This era’s Celtics have had a problem rebounding the basketball in situations like Game 6 and Game 7 for the past three post-seasons.

And here we get to the crux of the problem.

The biggest reason the Celtics failed to win the championship on the Lakers’ home floor is because these Celtics have repeatedly shown us that they are not capable of it. This team has proven itself to be one that cannot seal the deal unless they are playing in the TD Garden. Because they finished the regular season with more victories on the road than at home, the 2009-2010 Celtics earned a “road warriors” reputation. During the playoffs, that reputation was cemented. The truth, however, is that those road victories were fool’s gold. They only led people, including me, to believe they would do that of which they were not capable of doing.

A Google search of “Celtics road warriors” produces the following headlines:
Boston Celtics show why they are road warriors in NBA playoffs…
Road Warriors: Celtics complete Florida sweep for 2-0 lead over…
Road warrior Celtics return home with series tied 1-1
Road-warrior Celtics must find way to win at home
Celtics – The 3-Pointer: Road Warriors

Boy, oh, boy, did the Celtics have many fooled. Yes, they were good on the road, but they stunk when it counted. This post-season, the Celtics were 0-4 on the road when they had a chance to end a series. In all other road playoff games this year, Boston was 6-2. Coming into the Finals, those records were 0-2 and 5-1. The Celtics were simply unable to close out any series on their opponent’s home floor.

This isn’t new. In 2009, Boston had two opportunities to close out playoff opponents on the road. They lost both games, each of which led to a Game 7 back in Boston. If you can remember as far back as 2008, the biggest question as we got deeper into the playoffs was whether the Celtics could win on the road. They did not win a single game on the road during the first two rounds. After defeating Detroit in Game 6 of the conference finals to win the East, those questions went away. When they lost Game 5 of the 2008 Finals and were forced to close out the Lakers back in Boston, no one questioned the Celtics’ ability to win on the road. Two years later, people should.

To recount, the Celtics are a combined 1-9 in the past three post-seasons when they have a chance to clinch a series on the road. Of the ten playoff series they’ve played since 2008, the Celtics have had opportunities to end all but one on the road. And only against the Pistons did they ever seal the deal. That’s pretty pathetic. And it should have been a pretty good indication that they weren’t going to be able to do what they needed to do in the Staples Center.

This year, as in the previous two, the Celtics failed to play their best during the road closeout games. In 2008 and 2009, though, they managed to approach the level of play they had established earlier in each particular series. I looked at each post-season game and series during which they had an opportunity to end the series on the road—as the Celtics never had a chance to end the series in Cleveland, I did not look at this year’s Cavs series.

What I found is that rebounding really was the greatest difference in the Celtics’ performance in the road closeout games. Rebounding. Again.

I compared their rebound percentage in the road closeout game with that of series overall and on the road, specifically. During the past three post-seasons, the Celtics have rebounded less effectively in road closeout games than they did during the rest of the series. That’s not surprising. Equally unsurprising is that the trend continues if you compare the road closeout game only to other road games in the series. What did surprise me was how much worse the Celtics performed in that area in 2010 than they did in 2008 and 2009.

Compared to how they rebounded in series prior to playing a road closeout game, the Celtics’ three worst rebounding differentials over the past three years all occurred in 2010. Amazingly, the putrid performance against the Lakers in Games 6 and 7 of the Finals improved Boston’s rebounding numbers. Look at these numbers from the 2010 playoffs:

In games prior to road closeout games, the Celtics rebounded 24.8% of their own misses and 51.0% of all misses. In road games, those numbers are 24.3% and 48.2%, respectively. In road closeout games, those rebounding numbers fall to 16.5% and 42.3%. That’s awful. You can’t beat anyone anywhere rebounding the ball that scarcely. As I said, Games 6 and 7 in Los Angeles improved the Celtics’ numbers. Prior to the Finals, their road closeout offensive rebound percentage was 10.7% and their overall rebound rate was 41.5% (the rates for earlier games in the series were 22.7% and 52.2%; on the road, those numbers were 22.2% and 48.4%). Pitiful.

Rebounding is about effort and focus. I find it strange that a strong veteran team like the Celtics would fail in those areas. But that’s what they do. That’s what they’ve done. And we should have known ahead of time that couldn’t put the Lakers away in Staples.