The Celtics are not shooting well.
Wait, let me rephrase that.
The Celtics are shooting so poorly that the Empire is actively recruiting them to be storm troopers.
After a 26.8% shooting night from deep that was elevated by Jayson Tatum and Grant Williams combining to shoot 40%, the Celtics are now the fifth-worst 3-point shooting team in the league at 32.3%
Some guys are just off right now.
Tatum’s big night rose his season percentage to 32.5%, 6.5% off his career numbers.
Al Horford is down to 27.8% after tonight, way off his career 36.2%.
Even Marcus Smart, who is only at 31.8% over his career, is down nearly six full points to 26% this year.
Others are proving to simply be poor shooters.
Josh Richardson’s 3-point percentage (32.4%) has been nosediving since what has proven to be a clear aberration of a 37.8% 2018 season in Miami, and settling closer to the 34.5% he has shot since.
Dennis Schröder (32.8%) is pretty close to his career 33.7%.
And some who we thought might get a chance to pitch in, like Aaron Nesmith, Payton Pritchard, and even Juancho Hernangomez, aren’t really getting a chance to help.
That leaves Jaylen Brown (39.7%), Grant Williams (40.8%) and Romeo Langford (45%, albeit on only 9-20 shooting), as Boston’s fairly reliable shooters this season. And even Williams’ numbers have been streaky, with two hot streaks sandwiched around a nine-game, 2-18 (10.5%) drought.
“It’s gonna be tough - it’s gonna put a tremendous amount of stress on your defense to be perfect when you don’t make shots,” Ime Udoka said after another tough shooting night led to the team’s eighth loss of the young season in Atlanta. “Shooting 11-for-42 from three, it puts stress on your defense to be perfect when you’re not making those shots. We did what we’ve been doing all year - penetrate, kick and get guys wide-open looks and we’re not knocking them down.”
According to NBA.com stats, The Celtics are shooting 32.8% on wide-open 3-pointers. Wide open is defined by a defender being more than six feet away.
That’s fourth-worst in the league.
Somehow they climb to 35.1% on “open” 3-pointers (defender 4-6 feet away), good for 12th in the league.
Since the league probably won’t let the Celtics bring measuring tapes out onto the court and opponents will be uncooperative about standing at that distance, something needs to change.
But what?
The Celtics can certainly sit and hope that water finds its level. It’s very difficult to believe all these guys so far off their percentages will collectively continue to shoot that poorly. Tatum will regroup. Horford will regroup. Yes, even Smart will regroup.
“You like the looks that we're getting,” Udoka said. “High-quality looks, a lot of open looks ... it's not just starters missing and the bench guys making, or vice versa. It's a little bit of everybody and so you tell them to be confident and work on it every day like we do. The looks we get, we feel the worm will turn eventually, and we'll start getting more consistent with those, and that's all you can do.”
Is it?
There is a fine line between adjusting and panicking, and this is not a time to panic. However, it might be time to try something new.
For example, Enes Kanter got minutes in Robert Williams’ absence, but Boston needed shooting. If a bad big defender is going to be on the floor late in this game, why not put Hernangomez out there for a stint and see if he can hit some shots?
It’s admittedly not a great option, but considering the alternative, it’s worth a shot. If that’s not appealing to the Celtics, then finding a way to get Nesmith and Pritchard back into their grooves so they can be deployed would be nice.
We’re less than a month from the December 15th lifting of trade restrictions, which means newly signed players over the summer are eligible to be moved (except for most of the players who signed extensions). In those next few weeks, the Celtics either need to ease back into their normal shooting or use the guys who have that skill. If they don’t, then it’s going to be up to Brad Stevens to find a shooter out there to help these guys out.
The return of Brown will obviously help. So, too, will the return of Robert Williams, whose offensive rebounding has kept possessions alive for more chances and whose passing is good enough to find open shooters. But that’s only part of the equation.
Tatum and Brown are third and eighth in the league in minutes per game. They’re playing a lot and they deserve to have some help around them. If the guys they’re passing to can’t hit shots, then they deserve someone who can.
Maybe this point will be rendered moot by then. That would be ideal. But however it happens, these guys need to start seeing some payoff for their hard work in other areas, or else the team risks losing that progress too.
“Not going to hold people in the 90s every night,” Udoka said. “We have to score more than 99 ourselves.”
