Robert Parish tacle Jayson Tatum et Jaylen Brown | NBA

Boston is one of those historic franchises in the league, in which crises can sometimes take on a disproportionate scale. As was the case this week with Magic Johnson for the Lakers, the former glories of the Celtics are never far away to remember what it was like in the good old days.

With a new coach in place, a team struggling to establish a strong game identity and a lack of consistency, Boston is having a difficult season. The enthusiasm born of the victory against the Pelicans during “MLK Day” quickly died down as the C’s lost in stride against the Hornets.

Being a leader is no small feat

While the “front office” now led by Brad Stevens must rack its brains to try to find a way to improve its group, the former pivot Robert Parish has drawn up the observation of the failure of the C’s on this first part of the season. , primarily targeting the team’s two leaders, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.

“Brown and Tatum don’t have that ability to make their teammates better”, he dropped in an interview with SiriusXM NBA Radio. “I think that’s one of the reasons we were so successful in our time, in the 80s, thanks to Larry Bird’s ability to make people around him better.”

With less than seven assists accumulated on average per game, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown can indeed do better in the way they involve the rest of the collective. More generally, Boston is struggling to showcase its collective with only 22.7 assists on average per game.

Even if the comparison with a Larry Bird will always be detrimental to the Brown-Tatum tandem, Robert Parish took the liberty of recalling the components that make a good player a great leader, and in particular this ability to raise the level of the rest of the team.

“The way Larry was covering things up and creating all this mess and attention from the opposing team, it made things easier for Kevin (McHale) and me. I think that’s what the Celtics need. They need someone who can command the respect and attention of the referees”.

A tandem condemned to the exploit

The one nicknamed “The Chief” also pointed to the lack of relay behind this tandem which finds itself condemned to chain the exploits to keep the Celtics out of the water.

“They really only have two scorers, so if one of them is struggling, the Celtics have no chance of winning,” he added. “For the Celtics to have a chance to be in the game and win it every night, Brown and Tatum have to be outstanding. And it’s impossible to do every night. They don’t score enough points.

A finding that was verified in the last match, since Jayson Tatum completely missed his match in attack, with in particular a sad 0/7 behind the arc, prohibitive for these C’s version 2021/22.

Robert Parish thus reiterated the importance of having a good “distributor” and a “constant deterrent force” in position 5, roles supposed to be filled by Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III, currently injured and therefore missing. to the team in terms of balance.