Better accomplishment by Brad Stevens:

[mjj_2K]

Stevens certainly looks like THE coach of his generation, and because of that, I think it's interesting to ask what it is, exactly, in terms of strategy, that sets him apart.

I think the most obvious answer to that is a huge focus on perimeter defense and 3 point shooting. Stevens teams have almost always been small, by necessity at Butler, by choice in Boston. But he's always had a stockpile of guards, usually physically strong, who are absolute pests on the defensive end. And he's been willing to sacrifice skill level to get those type of guys on the court. His Butler teams never shot the ball all that well, but they consistently outscored opponents by large margins from the 3 point line. High volume of 3's, decent percentage (though not great), then defend against it like maniacs on the other end.

He's replicating that in Boston. That's not a team full of shooters, but they keep taking 3's and make enough that there's a major gap between them and opponents.

An interesting question is whether that's simply a good formula for overachieving, or whether you need a skill upgrade on guys like Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, and Jae Crowder to really be a serious title contender.

 

[far_away_fan]

They were NOT the best team in the league during a 3 year period. Lakers won 2 championships during said period, excuses or not. I do agree with your bottom line. They were far from terrible or mediocre.

Are you one of those people who decide that the best team is simply defined as the team that won the title? If so, we have very little to discuss. Winning titles in any sport requires the right combination of talent and good luck. There are far more cases in many sports of the best team in a season not winning the title than winning it.

You are free to decide that the Lakers were better. You can throw out the term "excuses" to describe why losing the best player on your team for the post-season shouldn't be taken into consideration or why losing a key starter in the Finals causing your series lead to disappear shouldn't be taken into consideration. But the reality is, the Celtics had the best players on their roster for that time period, and only injuries kept them from likely winning all three titles. When the best team has bad luck, the second best team gets to win. The Lakers were the second best team during that era and they had good luck.

 

[Big_Blue79]

The Celtics won the NBA Title in 2008 (with Rondo at the point). They were the best team in the NBA in 2009 until KG blew out his knee in February. (They started the season 27-2.) They were the best team again in 2010 and were poised to win the title when Perkins blew out his knee in the NBA finals game 6. The undersized Celtics were unable to keep both Gasol and Bynum off the glass in game 7 and the Lakers pulled down 23 offensive rebounds (while Kobe shot 6-24 from the field) while coming back from 13 points down late in the 3rd quarter to win by 4.

You can make a VERY strong case that were it not for the two blown knees, the Celtics would have won 3 titles in a row. So the bottom is, they were not recently terrible for a 15 year stretch. They were the best team in the NBA for a 3 year period directly in the middle of the past 15 seasons.

I didn't say the last 15 years; I said recently for a 15 year stretch. Everything you posted is known to me or any other NBA fan, which is why I phrased it how I did.

From 1993-94 to 2006-07, they were pretty bad. They missed the playoffs for 6 straight years, and 7 out of 8. And their only "good" teams were the Jim O'Brien/Walker/Pierce teams that "succeeded" (~ 44 wins/year) in a crappy East. So for 14 years, they were "terrible to mediocre," as I said. Sorry, I was off by 1 year. :/

 

[far_away_fan]

I didn't say the last 15 years; I said recently for a 15 year stretch. Everything you posted is known to me or any other NBA fan, which is why I phrased it how I did.

From 1993-94 to 2006-07, they were pretty bad. They missed the playoffs for 6 straight years, and 7 out of 8. And their only "good" teams were the Jim O'Brien/Walker/Pierce teams that "succeeded" (~ 44 wins/year) in a crappy East. So for 14 years, they were "terrible to mediocre," as I said. Sorry, I was off by 1 year. :/

Fair enough. Not sure I would consider 93-94 to 06-07 recent, but I certainly agree they were terrible for that whole stretch! Really terrible. In fact, Celtics fans hate Pitino a lot because of his role in that terribleness. Not nearly as much as UK fans hate him, but still, A LOT.

 

[FFWhite]

Run to the final game is much tougher than a run through the NBA East. Rondo's injury pushed them through the first round. The Morris suck factor got them by the Wizards. The Wizard forgot to give Morris a brain.