By Alex Barth, 985TheSportsHub.com
After the Celtics crushing 129-120 overtime defeat at the hands of the Nets on Tuesday, the team’s bench structure once again came into question.
While many fans found themselves going back to the team’s inactivity at last mont’s trade deadline, Celtics GM Danny Ainge is sticking up for his group.
When pressed with the question of whether or not the team has enough scoring options off the bench by 98.5’s Toucher & Rich Thursday morning, Ainge replied, “Yes is the answer. We were the number four or five rated scoring team in the NBA as of a couple weeks ago.”
Ainge redirected the narrative, saying that he cares more about the scoring than where specifically it comes from.
“Some teams are designed differently,” he replied when asked if the Celtics are ‘top heavy.’ “Some teams bring their top scorers off the bench. Like Lou Williams, as an example. Like Manu Ginobilli. We’ve talked about Kevin McHale, John Havlicek, there’s a bunch of them and there’s guys around the league.”
It’s not like the Celtics weren’t putting up winnable point totals, as Ainge reminded everybody listening. “We scored 120 points against Brooklyn. We had plenty. We scored 110 points I think against Houston. It doesn’t matter who scores the points if it’s your top five players, your top six players, or whether you get points from your eighth or ninth guy.”
So why did the Celtics slip up against the Rockets and Nets? Ainge attributed that do the team coming off of an extended west coast road trip and lack of rest. While there may be some validity to that point, the team will see plenty of travel and not a lot of rest come playoff time. Ainge makes it sound like his team couldn’t rise to meet that challenge this week. Will they be able to come the spring?
You can listen to Danny Ainge’s full conversation with Toucher & Rich here: