Marcus Morris missed the intent of Brad Stevens' "moving the ball"


Brad Stevens' loud and frequent battle cry to his team has been "move the ball". It has not been heeded, especially by Marcus Morris. Mook's definition of moving the ball is "dribble as much as possible while dismissing any thoughts of a pass and hoist a fall-away under pressure". Granted, the ball is moving up-and-down on the dribbles, towards the basket on his back-ins and through the air on his shots. But I honestly don't think that meshes with Brad's idea of ball-movement.

Side-to-side passes leading to reasonably-open shots is what Stevens is looking for. Other Celtics players are guilty of the same offense, but not to the extent of Morris. He is averaging exactly 1.0 assist per game in the series. He had been averaging 0.5 APG, but his two assists last night raised that. Brad has been critical of his team doing too much dribbling without a purpose. Why do I feel that Stevens' comments (move the ball - cut down worthless dribbling - take good shots) are often directed at Mook.

Morris is averaging 13.8 points in this series, and the Celtics need that. He is also grabbing five boards per game, and the team also needs that. They don't need his 38% field goal percentage and 1.0 APG in the Bucks series. He is hitting 45% of his shots beyond the arc in the Milwaukee series, and maybe he needs to stick to those.


In my earlier article from this morning on the Celtics bad road habits, two of our regular readers, CelticsNextGeneration and JBDA, had commented on Marcus Morris' performance last night. This is what they had to say:

CelticsNextGeneration •
In the second half there was a sequence of possessions where I'm pretty sure Marcus Morris took 7 or 8 straight shitty fadeaways with literally one f#cking pass before he started backing down his man. He should of been riding pine for the duration of the second half.

JBDA •
Yep...at first I did not agree with the "black hole" nickname but literally watched last night several times as he received the ball and then jacked up some terrible shots without even looking for a team mate. Also Jason Tatum needs to stop the turnovers...he is trying too many fancy moves (a la kyrie) and ends up losing the ball.

He had 14 points in Game Six last night, but he was 5-of-14 from the field and 1-of-4 on three-pointers. And only one rebound. With a depleted squad, Boston needs his scoring and rebounding, but redefining what moving the ball means might bode well for a victory in Game Seven tomorrow night.

Follow Tom at @TomLaneHC

Photo via Winslow Townson/AP








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