SQ2016-6 Not Just a Passing Fancy

Since I spent many hours on the court by myself, to me it seems interesting that the basketball skill that I most admire, is one of the few that is impossible to practice alone. Sadly it, good or great passing, is also one that is seen less and less. In this modern era of ME basketball, the mano-a-mano duel has relegated passing to secondary skill status. Teams are lucky to have one good/great passer and even then, a lot of the top-notch point guards are shooters first (and sometimes second and third).

Celtics fans have been spoiled for most of the past six decades. Two of the all-time best point guard passers bookend Celtics' history. Most of you readers will know Bob Cousy only through grainy images but he was the first truly great passer as well as introducing passing with flair. While I quite agreed with moving Rajon Rondo (who was expecting a max salary, which he did not receive in any of his subsequent stops; and whose ball-dominant game would never be conducive to Brad Stevens' ball-and-player-movement and pace and space strategy), he was the best pure passer in recent history. Nor has Celtics' passing excellence been limited to point guards. Larry Bird was a master, as was Bill Walton. Bill Russell made the outlet pass (often while still in the air from a rebound, or even off a block of a shot) a quick strike weapon that initiated Boston's running game for 15 years. More recently Kevin Garnett made the '08 Championship team sizzle with his crisp accurate passes in the front court.

Often a team's passing gets a sudden boost with Cousy, Rondo, and Bird as prime examples. For most of their history passing has been emphasized by Celtics' coaches. I see this as a push/pull phenomenon with leadership encouraging and the one superlative passer leading by example. Red, Heinsohn, K. C. Jones, Doc, and Brad Stevens have all been adamant proponents of unselfish sharing of the ball. But just moving the ball isn't enough alone.

It's how you move the ball. Are the passes thrown at the right time, to the open player, and on target? One of my pet peeves with the current club is their propensity to swing the ball around the periphery with predictable passes thrown inaccurately. Yes, moving the ball from one side of the court to the other is an excellent ploy to force the defense to move and adjust which often offers opportunities to the offense. However if the passes are always in a chain, wing to top to wing, it is an invitation for a defender to jump the passing lane. If the pass is at the man rather than to his side away from the defender, the invitation is gilded. If the pass causes the receiver to stoop or stretch, then the pace of ball movement is crippled and the player catching the ball is not ready to do anything other than recover his balance. Has the passer been aware of his receiver's defender? Is that defender already leaning toward an interception point? How about the next receiver over (inside or on the other side)? And their defender(s)? If you fake the pass (or did last time), what was the reaction of the defenders? Those steal-crazy guys are just begging to be back-door'ed. On Celtics' teams familiar with one another, often a nod or even an eye movement was enough to trigger a to-the-basket pass that left the potential thief lunging helplessly while their assignment coasted in for an easy layup.

I started this breakdown with a perimeter pass but most of the tenets are similarly valid for most other passes. A good pass accomplishes something—shifting angles, forcing movement, leading a teammate toward a good situation; and does not hinder focus, balance, or movement by being off target or poorly timed. Rondo had great shooters to feed but the accuracy of his passes was so good that those scorers were actually led into the shot by receiving Rajon's delivery. I'm going to contrast that with the following line of thought.

Think back to last year's team. Who were the worst passers on that team? Who garnered the most assists? The greatest percentage of assists per touch? Who were the best passers?

If you have not already done so I encourage to reread the questions and reflect on them.

I'll make a side trip while you ponder. The Celtics want to run. They want to generate early offense before the defense has a chance to get set. They want to push the ball up court. Heinsohn talks about the Celtics of his playing/coaching days practicing in-bounding the ball in order to fast break after a made shot or even a free throw. He discusses practicing to make the outlet after a rebound—get it into a guard's hands quickly, and preferably with the guard already moving up court. Seldom during this century has there been a rebound after which the outlet was either immediate or up the court. This is one of the things that left me in sad agreement with letting Sullinger leave. I though one of the most promising things about the big guy's rebounding and strength was how much of a difference he could have made shifting the team from defense to offense with an aggressive outlet pass.

I'm tempted to offer the lack of rapid D-to-O emphasis as a reasonable criticism of Brad Stevens. Tempted, that is, until I reflect on how many new players he was trying to work into the team, and how many raw rookies he was shepherding through their deer-in-the-headlights days. This year promises to be far more stable, with the addition of the excellent passing big man (Horford) and only one rookie to the rotation, so I am hoping (actually expecting) that progress on this front, as well as ball movement in general, will be forthcoming.

As for those questions, this posting has grown too long already so I will tackle them next time. Hopefully you will have thought them through and be ready to call me out for my mis-conclusions.

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