Celtics are struggling in an unfamiliar area - A look at their back-to-back woes

The trademark of Brad Stevens’ teams for the last three seasons has been an uncanny ability to overcome challenging circumstances on their way to wins. Last year, injuries were the biggest obstacle the C’s fought through on the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, but they had always been incredibly consistent about one other usual pitfall for 29 other teams around the league dating back to 2015: Winning on the second half of a back-to-back.

The numbers show teams manage to win the tail end of a back-to-back an average of 43 percent of the time. Yet, the Celtics have been among the league leaders in this area for three straight seasons dating back to 2015-16. A look at the results in the tail end of back-to-backs:

2017-18: 9-5
2016-17: 10-7
2015-16: 12-7

With one of the deepest rosters in the NBA, it was expected this area would be a strength for the Celtics in 2018-19 thanks to an influx of healthy talent. Yet, the Celtics have struggled mightily in this area. After dropping Thursday’s game in Miami, Boston is now 2-5 on the season in the second half of back-to-backs. Here’s the full breakdown of their results.

Wins: @ New York, @ Minnesota
Losses: @ Utah, vs. Utah, @ Dallas, @ Detroit, @ Miami

The Celtics were favored in every game except for the loss in Utah (Kyrie Irving missed that game for his grandfather’s memorial service).

While a couple of the back-to-backs have come on the tail end of brutal travel stretches, (a home game the night before, three games in four nights), that hasn’t impacted Boston in the past and it won’t be an out used now by Stevens.

“No excuses from that regard,” Stevens said of the late arrival on Thursday night. “We could have played better. We need to control what we can control.”

So what exactly should we make of these uncharacteristic woes? A few thoughts about what they mean in the interim and the impact down the road.

The Good News

1. There are no back-to-backs in the playoffs: While the postseason schedule is a grind, this is an issue that the Celtics will not have to face in April and May. It’s the result of a jampacked 82-game schedule that brutal stretches like this exist and it’s a reality all teams have to do deal with. While travel is a heavy onus during the playoffs, it’s hard to get too worked up about a scenario that disappears in a few months.

2. Everyone around the league struggles on back-to-backs: While the Celtics have performed a little bit below the mean in that regard this year, their struggles in these types of games come as no surprise. The vast majority of Boston’s back-to-back games have come with a road game at the tail end and that’s on average an even more challenging situation for NBA teams. On home-road back-to-backs, teams lose the road game 37 percent of the time (Celtics are 1-2 in these games). On a road-road back-to-back, teams lose 32 percent of the time (Celtics are 1-2 in those games).