Three areas of concern to watch for the Celtics

For the first time all season, the Celtics are starting to show off some signs of dropoff. They've lost four of their last eight games, including a pair of sub .500 teams in Utah and Chicago. Are the struggles just a blip on the radar or indicative of some bigger issues? I examined some areas of trouble to monitor moving forward.

1. The rebounding dropoff: The Celtics, somehow, were one of the best rebounding teams in the NBA for the first few weeks of the NBA season. They’ve slowly but surely dropped back to earth on that front since then and they’ve reached a low-level mark in the month of December. Their total rebound rate over the past 11 games ranks 25th in the league as they’ve morphed into a below-average team in this area on both ends of the floor. Aron Baynes has always served as a solid anchor on the glass with the starters, but his minutes disappear when opponents go small and the C’s rebounding generally falls off a cliff when that occurs.

On the offensive glass, Baynes and Daniel Theis have been solid sources of second-chance points over the first month, but we’ve seen slippage from both guys on that front in their offensive rebounding rates. The Celtics have missed plenty of shots this month (see lengthy offensive droughts in six of the last seven games) and part of the issue with those slumps has been an inability for the C's to give themselves a second chance on these possessions. A great example of this was Wednesday’s loss against the Heat. During a 28-minute stretch (start of the second quarter until eight minutes left in the fourth quarter) the Celtics shot 30 percent from the field and missed 28 shots. They managed to grab one(!) offensive rebound during that span while Miami outscored them 59-40.

Brad Stevens has tried to address the issue by going bigger with some of his bench lineups without Baynes (Theis/Horford/Tatum front line) but that leads to other problems (defensive mismatches) against wing heavy teams. In order to combat the issue, the C’s are going to have to get more help from their own guards and forwards (Jaylen Brown in particular) to keep themselves competitive in this area on a nightly basis.

2. The offense has been better, but the scoring droughts are still prevalent: The Celtics are managing to get by most nights on the backs of their top-tier scorers (Kyrie Irving, Al Horford, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown) who continue to put up superb percentages across the board. Without Marcus Morris, the bench has been exposed on a more regular basis, which has led to some crippling droughts and blown double-digit leads over the past few weeks. The Celtics have scored 17 or fewer points in a quarter in five of their last seven games, which has led to Stevens abandoning the all-bench unit and tinkering sub patterns over the past week.

In December, all members of the bench rotation (outside of Marcus Smart, who plays big minutes with the starters) has an offensive rating of 100 or below. This group still isn’t scoring and their defense hasn’t been as good either, which has left the Celtics vulnerable to big runs, particularly in the second quarter. Barring a trade, there really isn’t much of a solution to this problem until Morris comes back. Stevens isn’t going to play his starters big minutes to compensate for the issue, so he’s going to need someone on the bench unit to become a more consistent scoring option. Outside of Rozier’s, there isn’t really anyone with the offensive skill set to make you think that will happen.

3. Communication breakdowns: The Celtics haven’t practiced for a month and it’s starting to show with the team’s issues on the defensive end. They still rank No. 1 in the league in defense on the season, but they’ve turned into a middle-of-the-road team in this area (15th) during the past month. Several opponents (Nikola Mirotic, Bobby Portis, Kelly Olynyk, Ricky Rubio, Jonas Jerebko, Marc Gasol, Victor Oladipo) have gone for monster games during his stretch against a C’s defense that was lacking the attention to detail needed to prevent open looks. The issue was particularly glaring on Wednesday night in the second half, as the Celtics allowed 55 second-half points to an undermanned Heat team. I chronicled one particular instance in last night’s game report.

“Just being able to sustain our effort for a longer period of time and sticking to the gameplan,” Irving said Wednesday night of the team’s issues. “At times, it got a little confusing for some games and when it gets confusing for some guys, it gets confusing for all of us. We collectively have to demand excellence out of one another and going forward we'll have to prepare a little bit more. I know Brad will make a great emphasis of that, but the onus is on us as professionals to prepare every single day and go out there and put a great effort out and give ourselves a chance to win.”

All of this isn’t to say the sky is falling in Boston. Despite a rough few weeks, the Celtics have still managed to go 7-4 in December and gave themselves a chance to win two more (vs. Spurs and Heat). With the Raptors and Cavs closing quickly in the East standings, this group needs to clean things up quickly to avoid playing catch up in the second half of the year.