I was at the Celtics game last night. It went into overtime and Paul Pierce scored 39 points, which was exciting, but...

But I also saw in person a bad habit that I’ve noticed in this recent funk the Celts have been in. Here’s the scenario: Rajon Rondo’s covering the opposing guard who is dribbling the ball pretty far from the basket. He’s fairly tight up on him. But then the guard makes his first hard step or two and Rondo lets him go by then reaches for a poke away from behind (which would have gotten me taken out of the game in college actually). Or even just lets him by and then stands. After this the defense is playing catch-up for the rest of the possession. Or worse, the man makes it to the rim, which happened about 3 times just in overtime last night.

I don’t remember this happening last year when the team’s commitment to keeping people in front of them was a big part of what made them so tough. Rondo may be among the league leaders in steals, but if someone put together all the clips of him letting people by too easily since they’ve been losing, it might be a good ten minutes long. Even commentators Donny Marshall (partisan) and Tom Heinsohn (extremely partisan) have started noting the same thing.

If teams barely need to guard you on the perimeter on offense it’s all the more reason to make sure your individual defense is non-porous. I hope Rondo focuses in and turns this around. He can definitely do better.