With half of the Celtics' season in the books, we took a closer look at each player in the Celtics rotation to find a surprising or telling number about their season so far.
10 -- Number of charges drawn by Kyrie Irving this season: The All-Star point guard has only played half of the regular season, but he has managed to top the total number of charges he compiled over the last two seasons combined (nine). It’s tied for the team-lead with Marcus Smart, who was among the league leaders in the NBA last season. Irving has acknowledged he is trying to match Aron Baynes and Smart, who have combined for 30 and 40 charges over the past two seasons respectively.
“I just try to beat guys to the spot as much as possible and just be in the right spots," Irving explained recently. "(Smart’s) always in the right spots, so why wouldn’t you want to watch a guy like that? And Baynes is always in the right spots, so give credit to those guys’ instinct and their length and what they use to create defensive havoc.”
36.8 -- 3-point shooting percentage for Marcus Smart: The fifth-year guard is in the midst of one of the biggest shooting turnarounds of the season thanks to a red-hot January in which he’s knocking down 53.7 percent of his attempts from downtown. Smart, who is a 30 percent career 3-point shooter, is currently on track to finish ahead of the likes of Jayson Tatum and Klay Thompson with his shooting accuracy, although he has a long way to go to sustain it over a 82-game stretch. If it does, this will be a game changer for the Celtics during this postseason.
“I thought he was going to have a really good shooting year last year,” Brad Stevens said Friday night. “He put in a lot of time and work over the summer and then he had a couple of hand injuries and I think that that set him back for that season. But you could see that there was a foundation there that was going to really pay off. You know, he’s always made big shots but you could see that his shot had really improved, so it was unfortunate about the injuries. And then this year, it’s looked good all year.”
20.5 -- FG percentage for Terry Rozier from 16-23 feet: The reserve guard had been a more reliable midrange shooter (33 percent over career), but his accuracy has fallen off a cliff this year for what is already one of the least efficient shots in the NBA. If you want to see why Boston’s offense has fallen off a cliff for most of the year when Rozier is in the game, this is at the top of the list. The good news for Boston? Rozier has started to cut these types of attempts out of his shot diet. Over his last two games, just two of his 12 shots have come inside the arc.
2.3 -- Gordon Hayward’s free throw attempts per game: Amid a rollercoaster ride of a season, this is the number that is most reflective of Hayward’s struggles in continuing with his recovery. The former All-Star had averaged 6.0 free throw attempts per game in his last three seasons prior to signing with Boston and on a team that lacks reliable options to get to the charity stripe (Irving leads the squad with 3.5 attempts per game), Hayward’s unwillingness to go into traffic and absorb contact on most nights has taken away a big chunk of his nightly consistency. There’s plenty of room for growth in this area as well as his 3-point shooting (32 percent), but the question is how much there will be this year given his physical condition.
20.6 -- Defensive rebounding rate for Marcus Morris: There has been a bit of a dropoff in recent weeks in this department but this number leads all regular members of the Celtics rotation, surpassing the likes of Aron Baynes and Daniel Theis. Some other Celtics (Jayson Tatum, Kyrie Irving) have shown nice growth on the glass this year but it’s Morris that has allowed the new-look starting five to thrive for a good part of the last two months thanks to his outside shooting and steady work on the glass. Boston ranks top-10 in defensive rebounding rate despite Horford and Theis having subpar seasons on the glass. There has been help from a lot of different positions on the floor, but Morris is on the top of the list with his career-best year on the boards.
21.6 -- Percent of Jayson Tatum’s shots that are coming at the rim: The second-year forward spent much of his offseason talking about bulking up so he could finish through more contact at the rim after struggling in that area his rookie season. While his efficiency at the rim has improved (70.8 percent is an eight-point jump from last season), Tatum isn’t using those finishing skills nearly as much as he did in 2017-18. The 20-year-old has experienced an 11 percent drop off in shots attempted at the rim, all the way down to 21.6 percent, which ranks 10th on the C’s roster. If Brad Stevens wants to get the best version of Tatum in the second half of the season, he’s going to have to push for more attacking at the basket to prevent the reliance on the midrange.
-0.1 -- Offensive win shares for Jaylen Brown: This number is reflective of the all-around struggles that Brown has experienced in the first half on the offensive end as the negative mark puts him dead list on the Celtics roster in offensive win shares. Brown’s issues from 3-point range (31 percent) and the free throw line (65 percent) have led to what has been a high volume player that lacks the kind of efficiency to justify this kind of usage. The 22-year-old has been much better in January (49 percent from the field, 41 percent from 3-point range), yet it has been a long climb back out of the cellar after such a woeful October and November.
54.9 -- Al Horford’s shooting percentage since returning from the knee injury: Like Brown, it was a very sluggish start to the year for Horford, who shot below 30 percent from 3-point range for a large chunk of October and November as the C’s original starting five sputtered on offense. Since returning from an eight-game absence to rest his runner’s knee, Horford has turned into a top-tier scoring option for Boston amid whatever opportunities he gets on a given night. He leads the team in shooting percentage (54.9) over those 15 games that he’s been back, and the fact that he’s only averaging 11 points per game during that stretch signals that the Celtics would probably be best served to include him more in their offensive shot distribution moving forward.
6.6 -- Fouls committed by Daniel Theis per 36 minutes: The 28-year-old big man has been treated like a rookie by officials in his second season, piling up one of the highest foul rates in the NBA and worst on the team per 36 minutes. The foul trouble is likely a byproduct of reduced mobility for Theis, who is coming off a torn meniscus surgery and a case of plantar fasciitis in the past calendar year. His ability to stay on the floor in the second half of the season will likely be tested in large part by whether he can keep himself from piling up fouls, which has helped to force the Celtics into the penalty too early in quarters.
14.6 -- Minutes per game for Aron Baynes: We covered this one in greater depth on Friday night. Baynes is playing five minutes fewer per game than last year and his lowest number overall since 2011. The Celtics are better when he’s on the floor and he should be treated as such for reasonable matchups.
NBA News and Notes
- Some timely relief for the Rockets is on the way after center Clint Capela went on the shelf with a hand issue for the next 4-6 weeks. Houston will reportedly be bringing aboard former Nets big man Kenneth Faried, who was waived on Saturday. Faried will likely be giving up a chunk of his $12 million salary on the year to facilitate the buyout and that should be worth it for him as he tries to rebuild his free agent value this summer instead of being buried on the Nets bench.
- Bulls look like a contender to fly to the top of the lottery after Wendell Carter Jr had surgery on his hand this week. The rookie could miss the remainder of the season, while several other veterans on that roster (Robin Lopez) will be seeking buyouts as well.
- Dennis Smith Jr. and the Mavericks appear to be in an interesting stalemate in Dallas right now after the team was shopping the point guard over the past week. Perhaps in an attempt to gain more leverage or better offers, the Mavericks are trying to smooth things over and bring Smith Jr. back aboard. He has missed four straight games though and it’s unclear whether there has been too much damage done for reconciliation here.
- Markelle Fultz is back with the Sixers after undergoing extensive rehab in Los Angeles, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com. He still has hopes of playing again this year but I would be shocked to see Philly throw him back into the fold for a second straight year down the stretch if they can’t count on him in the postseason.