What's wrong with the Celtics?

Well this isn't how things were supposed to work out.  After falling just short of making their third NBA Finals appearance in five seasons, the Celtics reloaded their bench to make another run.  On paper they looked like a good team - an improved team.  Even the most pessimistic fans in Boston had to expect this team to at least contend for a spot in the top half of the Eastern Conference playoff seedings.

Then the season started.  Do we still look at this team the same way now?

The season isn't even half over yet, but already the Celtics have dug themselves into a distressing hole.  The team has lost four straight and eight of their last ten.  Those last four losses have all come by double digits, including three that were blow outs losses by 18+ points.  Their record has dropped to 14-17 and if the season were to end today, Boston would find themselves outside of the postseason.

Nobody ever expected this squad to be a lottery team.  There's far too much talent on this roster for that to happen, but in order to prevent that fate from becoming a reality, there needs to be some improvement.  So the question is - what's wrong with the Celtics?

Sure, there have been some injuries, but all teams go through that at times.  New York, Chicago and Indiana seem to be doing just fine, despite missing star players for most, if not all, of the season.

The main issue with this team has been defense.  The Celtics have been a lock as a top five team in Defensive Efficiency during the Kevin Garnett era, but currently find themselves ranked 13th in the league (102.1).  The drop in defensive performance can't be attributed to the team's defensive anchor.  Even at age 36, Garnett remains one of the league's top defenders, barking out assignments and providing elite help defense.  The problem is, KG is playing a career low 29 minutes per game.  When he's on the floor, Boston ranks as the best defensive team in the league, but when he's resting on the bench they suddenly become the worst defensive team in the league. 

The return of Avery Bradley should help improve the defense, but he's not a savior.  Bradley is one of the league's best perimeter defenders and his ability to pressure the opposing ball handler was one of the keys to the team's turnaround last season, once Bradley was inserted into the starting lineup.  By keeping his man in front of him, Bradley can help cut down on the opponents ability to get the ball into the paint, which helps cover up for one of the team's biggest weaknesses.

The Celtics don't have a legitimate rim protector.  As great as KG is on defense, he's not known as a feared shot blocker.  Currently he's only averaging 0.7 blocks per game, which even given his limited minutes is far from impressive for a team's starting center.  Sadly, that number leads the team.  The Celtics have no legitimate backup center and their collection of power forwards are all undersized.  Without a shot blocking threat, teams aren't afraid to drive into the paint for easy baskets. 

The lack of size has also made rebounding an issue, as Boston ranks dead last in the league in rebound rate.  This is mostly due to their historically low offensive rebound rate (19.5), but it's well documented that the team's offensive rebounding struggles are partly by design.  The team is coached to get back on defense rather than crash the boards to prevent the other team to scoring in transition.  They are actually 7th in the league in defensive rebounding rate (74.2), indicating that they have clearly have players capable of rebounding.  They just need to do a better job at it overall.

Recently, coach Doc Rivers has experimented with his starting lineup to try to address it's lack of size by inserting Jason Collins as a starter, with disastrous results.  Collins was rarely used earlier in the season and has done little to justify his increased role.  He's averaging 1.1 points,  2.2 rebounds and .33 blocks in over 14 minutes per game, while posting an atrocious PER of 0.46.  That would be the worst PER in the league among players that have played at least 12 games this season, so even on a per minutes basis his play has been awful.  Granted Collins' seven foot frame can provide benefits that don't necessarily show up in the stat sheet, but those benefits are more than negated by his nonexistent production.  Unless the team is facing a legitimate center that is also an offensive force, such as Dwight Howard, then Collins is basically useless.

Clearly the team is in need of an upgrade in the front court to add some much needed size, but where will it come from?  The league isn't exactly overflowing with talented seven footers.  There are some enticing options that could potentially be on the trade block this year, such as Marcin Gortat, Anderson Varejao and DeMarcus Cousins.  They are all talented options, but none of them really fit the team's biggest need for protecting the paint.  Varejao and Cousins have barely registered half a block per game this season and Gortat's 1.9 blocks per game is easily a career high for him and likely to continue to drop.  Any player of their caliber would certainly help, but the impact could be marginal if they don't fit a need.  They can all rebound (particularly Varejao, who leads the league with 14.4 rebounds per game), but trading for any of them would almost surely cost them promising rookie Jared Sullinger, who already leads the team in rebound rate (17.3 - tied for 23rd best in the league).

The trade market for one of those big men with borderline All-Star caliber talent will be tempting.  For the record, there are multiple deals that Boston could make work under the salary cap to acquire any of those three, but trading for Varejao or Gortat would require giving up Courtney Lee, in addition to Sullinger and other assets (Bradley, rookie Fab Melo and/or draft picks).  That's a steep price to pay unless it put the team in position to be a title contender, which right now Boston is now close to being.

Instead, the Celtics will probably wait to see if a cheaper option becomes available, preferably one that provides more shot blocking.  They may be hoping that Melo continues to develop enough in the D League that he could potentially make an impact at some point this season.  He's shown potential, with averages of 10.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.8 blocks for the Maine Red Claws.  Last month he showed a glimpse of his promising future over a two game stretch where he averaged 23.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.5 blocks.

In the meantime, the current roster needs to find a way to play better.  That starts at the top with the team's stars.  Rajon Rondo said before the season that it was his team now and he was ready to lead it.  While he has in some ways taken on more of a leadership role with the team, he hasn't played like a star.  His run at Magic Johnson's consecutive streak of double digit assists was nice, but ultimately a superficial achievement.  He ranks outside of the top 50 in PER (18.69) and only 37th in EWA (3.9), just ahead of Doran Gragic.  Respectable, but hardly a super star capable of carrying a contender.  With KG and Paul Pierce getting older, it's up to Rondo to take on more of the burden.

If this team can stay healthy then they should eventually start to gel now that Bradley is back.  They now will have the ability to play with their intended starting unit, while allowing Jason Terry and Courtney Lee to settle into the supporting roles off the bench that they were expected to fill and allow that bench to develop chemistry together.  Jeff Green could be a wild card for this bench unit if he can ever find any shred of consistency, but the further removed he gets from the terrifying heart surgery that sidelined him all of last season, the better.

It's unfathomable to think that a team with this much talent would miss out on the postseason.  We have to expect that they will make a run at some point in the second half of the season to get back into the contender picture.  Remember, this team was two games under .500 at the All-Star break last year and Danny Ainge was on the verge of blowing up the roster.  That team turned things around and came up just one "good game, good effort" performance away from getting back to the Finals. 

The Celtics are preaching patience with their roster and are hesitant to do anything drastic to shake things up.  It worked last year.  We can only hope it works again.